Have you heard that the tax bill is “permanent” for corporations and “goes way up after 10 years” for the middle class and there is “no tax relief for the middle class” in the bill? I just read articles this morning from the New York Times, Washington Post and US Today stating these exact things. I want to show you why this is dishonest journalism.

1) There is a rule in the legislature that limits the amount a bill can increase the deficit both by time and dollars. The congressional budget office forecasts what a bill is projected to add to the deficit – in the case of the tax bill it is projected that it will add 1.5 trillion to the deficit. (by the way I don’t think economists can project the resultant economy from a significantly reduced corporate and personal rate accurately over the next 10 years as it has never been done before – so I give little credence to the 1.5 trillion added in deficit spending estimate) This deficit amount is more than would be allowed under current rules IF if extended more than 10 years. The Republicans are not trying to screw the little guy in order to help corporations – they literally cannot make the middle-class tax cuts permanent under current rules. So they are implementing them for as long as they can which will establish a new baseline and allow them to be made permanent in the future – just as the Bush tax cuts were made permanent under Obama. When news agencies report this 10-year expiration window without showing the reason and the more than likely ultimate extension of these cuts and are telling half-truths and failing to serve the public honestly. And believe me they know what I have written above – so it is intentional duplicity. That’s frustrating to me.

2) You have heard almost certainly from almost every news source that you rate goes way up in the middle class after 10 years. From the above paragraph, you can see the half-truth they are telling to say that – but then they say there is no relief for the middle class in the bill – it all goes to the rich and corporations. Do you see the lie here? In 10 years (if there are no extensions to the tax relief) your taxes will revert to as they are now – which they are saying will be a huge increase to your taxes. It can only be a huge increase to your taxes if the bill is in fact significantly reducing your taxes over the next 10 years because at the end of ten years it would just go back to as it is. Again this is a very frustrating deliberate manipulation by the press.

My rule – read source documents or as close to source documents as possible rather than opinion pieces that mascarade as unbiased news reporting

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