Screwing up the press' reputation
It seems there's actually a reporter at the Wall Street Journal:
note: I still have no WSJ subscription. The text and link was lifted from Brad DeLong's site.
WSJ.com - Capital: President Bush offered this attack on... Kerry: "He said he's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich.... But you know how the rich is: They've got accountants. That means you pay. That means your small business pays. It means the farmers and ranchers pay."... What did he mean?
"He's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich."
True. The candidates differ sharply on how heavily to tax Americans with incomes above $200,000 a year. President Bush wants a top marginal tax rate of 35%. The Democratic Mr. Kerry would boost rates to 39.6%.... He'd use the money to expand access to health insurance....
"You know how the rich is: They've got accountants. That means you pay."...
Quips Jason Furman, a Kerry economist: "If the most fortunate weren't paying taxes in the first place, why did they need the Bush tax cut?"...
The latest academic work suggests that lifting the top tax rate to 39.6% from today's 35% (which works out to a 7% decrease in such taxpayers' take-home pay at the margin) would reduce taxable income in that bracket by about 4%. Overall, though, the government still is likely to come out ahead, as the gush of tax revenues after the 1993 tax increases suggests....
The president, Ms. Buchan explains, means that "the so-called wealthy" can afford to hire accountants but "small businesses, farmers and ranchers who are organized as Subchapter S... would nonetheless be subject to the tax increases."... But the bulk... don't make enough to fall into top brackets.... I've never understood the case for taxing a farmer, rancher or small-business owner who clears $500,000 differently than a corporate executive, lawyer or ballplayer who earns $500,000....
[The] conservative case... is hard for Mr. Bush to make. "If you want the efficiency of smaller government, you have to have smaller expenditures and smaller taxes at the same time," says... Eugene Steuerle, a Reagan tax official.... Mr. Bush is guaranteeing tax increases in the future, Mr. Steuerle argues....
