Michael Scherer is getting increasingly annoying. He has a post on Swampland touting this article, which I read over there and thought: yuck. Then I came over here and see the Ezra Klein has pithly demolished it, so I thought: Yea!

Keep up the good work.

This is their job, dammit, to make such complexities as intelligible as possible, so that citizens can make informed choices.

If such an assignment is too difficult for a weekly newsmagazine like Time, which can give more space to such an explanation than a daily newspaper can, then they're basically saying that the world has gotten too complicated for democracy.

F*** that s***.

Thanks for the great info, Ezra.

The Tax Policy Center quote above is not terribly different from the summary graf in the article you lambaste:

They do, however, offer plans that differ strikingly from each other. McCain's tax plan benefits mostly those in higher income brackets, while Obama's plan benefits mostly those in lower and middle income tax brackets. McCain wants a tax cut for corporate profits, while Obama has proposed a whole host of tax cuts that will benefit those in the middle-income brackets. Both candidates have new spending programs, though Obama appears to have more. And both candidates say they will cut spending elsewhere, though they fail to provide many specifics about how.

Interesting, too, that the article later quotes the very think tank you insinuate that it didn't.

I would think that an article that blurred the differences between the two candidates would be more objectionable, and also more typical of modern journalism. While not a great article, this one does not.

My guess is that, like most partisans, you don't like the article, not because it's vague, but because it accurately points out that your guy dances around what spending he would cut. Sorry, but Obama does not walk on water, and it's not a journalist's job to pretend he does.

Since joing TIME, Michael Scherer has always utilized false equivalence to protect John McCain. It's his gimmick.

Obviously the press, giving McCain a pass, has no interest in clarifying a situation that makes their boy look bad. They'd be accused of being biased. Facts be damned, we'll call it too complicated, they decide.

Math has become partisan.

UPDATE:

It has been brought to my attention that he has also used "It's always good news when you're John McCain."

I apologize for the error.

Part of my problem is that I know it's Scherer and adjust my expectations accordingly. But I thought it was a decent article. The fact is that political candidates do indeed routinely lie about their opponents tax proposals and many Americans do indeeed prefer to believe the lies rather than seek out more detailed information.

There's nothing inherently wrong with hanging a story on that unfortunate fact.

There's nothing inherently wrong with hanging a story on that unfortunate fact, after you've done the story that as accurately and concisely as possible compares and contrasts the candidates' tax plans.

The reality is that while many candidates distort their opponents' tax plans, they don't lie about their own plans that frequently (though they may spin them to make them sound better than they are).

So Scherer's concluding statement, that "The only way to find [how they'd change the tax laws] may be to put them in office" is BS, plain and simple.

Wow...the top 10% in income already pay more than 70% of the total income taxes, but that's not enough? You think they should be taxed even more? The bottom 10% pays less than 3% of the total, yet that's too much?

"Tax the rich,
Feed the poor,
'til there are no
rich no more."

Then what?

Yes, tomaig, that's a nice spin, but how much of the total wealth does the top 10% have? (How much has that increased under Bush's watch?) How much does the bottom 10% have?

tomaig -

The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans control 91 percent of the nation's financial wealth and pay about 85% of federal income taxes. Right now, they're actually paying slightly LESS than they owe.

BTW, those figures are from 1998, when the U.S. GINI coefficient was at about 46. It has since increased to about 47, so the wealthiest Americans actually own a slightly larger percentage of the national wealth today than they did in 1998.

Thomas Friedman's lament that the world is "flat" seems to be his way of complaining that some of the poorest people in the world now have access to a slightly less poor lifestyle and that they will drag others down. If only they'd remain dirt poor and work in sweat shops for pennies.

Tomaig, you've been duped by the right wing. Love how you bring up their talking point that the poor oppressed wealthy pay such an unfair percentage of taxes. NEVER does Hannity et al mention that they ALSO own and unfair percentage of the wealth, you idiot! Unless you are one of them, you are like a peasant defending the land baron's interests and you don't even know it. Grow a pair and a brain and start thinking for yourself!

Gosh, Bartelby - who gets to decide what is "and (sic) unfair percentage of the wealth"?

You?

Fair to whom?

Who died and left you in charge?

Considering the NYT allows Adam Nagourney to cross dress and perform as "Maureen Dowd and Judith Miller Do Polling Data," I can understand why something the media rarely deals with, like tax numbers, would be complicated. By the way, Nagourney is currently singing "Ain't Nobama Bounce Enough" over at the times.

tomaig-Gosh, Bartelby - who gets to decide what is "and (sic) unfair percentage of the wealth"?

I guess you think that 'the rich' who own 90+% (according to above post) of the wealth should only pay 10% of the taxes, since they only make up 10% of the population?? What % do YOU think is fair?

Gosh, Bartelby - who gets to decide what is "and (sic) unfair percentage of the wealth"?

You?

Fair to whom?

Who died and left you in charge?

Posted by: tomaig | July 29, 2008 11:54 AM
________________

You have no problem with 47 million Americans with no health care coverage and millions more at risk for financial devastation even WITH insurance? It doesn't bother you one bit that hundreds of thousands either have or are on the verge of losing their homes? You don't care that so many people can't afford to send their kids to college, depriving them of a future that others take for granted? Is that the kind of country you want to live in? Apparently so. Those millionaires and billionaires should get down on their knees every night and pray to whoever it is they pray to that they live in a country that allows for that degree of success. Instead, they (and you) squeal about having to pay something back to the country that made it all possible. You Republicans claim to be more patriotic than the rest of us, but you always give yourselves away. You don't give a damn about your country or about anyone but yourselves. It's all about me, me, me with you fools.

Hey tomaig! Really? Gonna make fun of a typo? Really?
But I digress..

To answer your question - "Fair" would be a relatively even distribution of wealth. Not exactly even - I'm not a communist - but along the lines of what our founding fathers (you remember them?) would have deemed fair. And don't for a second think that the the founders were not VERY anti-aristocracy. "Fairness" cannot be defined as a system where the top 20% control something like 75% of all of the wealth. To scale it down - Out of one hundred people, 80 have to fight over 25% of all the wealth. Tell me how that's "fair"? Or even healthy for a democracy. But you go on fighting for your masters' interests. See what it gets ya.