CBN Christian News has recently posted an article that grossly 
misrepresents Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion about increasing the marginal tax rate.
The article is written by Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation (more on this later). It is entitled, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 70% Tax Rate Won’t Work.” Sadly, it is another example of the many ways
in which so-called Christian journalism regularly fails on both counts – failing to provide either real journalism or a distinctively Christian analysis.
Like so many others, Mr. Moore is too busy carrying water for the wealthy powers-that-be to offer his readers anything beyond the standard conservative, Reaganomics talking-points. (See my first post in my series on Class Warfare in America).
Since I recently wrote a post discussing American taxation and Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion, I thought it would be worthwhile to use this CBN article for another exercise in how to think critically while reading the news.
There are many things that could be discussed here but I will limit myself, first, to dissecting three specific instances of misrepresentation and falsehood. Second, I will then pull back for a broader discussion of the political origins to Mr. Moore’s commentary.
Three Specific Points:
First, throughout his entire article Mr. Moore’s tone works to conjure up the conservative bogey-man of a predatory federal government hell-bent on confiscating as much of the reader’s money as possible through higher taxes.
Since, his writing is a piece of commentary, I can let Moores’s overt subjectivity slide. (His obvious disdain for Democrats reeks through every sentence, but he is entitled to his opinion. I am no fan of the Democratic party, either).
I’ll give just one example: Moore describes Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion as “cheery talk of returning to confiscatory tax rates.”
“Cheery talk”? Notice that Moore’s opponents can’t be taken seriously. Their heads are in the clouds.
But we can’t forget that all taxation is “confiscatory.” Should no one pay any taxes at all? Many libertarians will answer Yes to that question. But I am not a libertarian.
Taxation is a part of the social contract in which we all participate, allowing our government to provide the numerous services benefiting us all. It is not a confiscation but a contribution to the common good and the general welfare of the country, of our communities.
Choosing to use that negative word, confiscate, is a rhetorical strategy intended to appeal to every reader’s defensive, selfish, inner-Scrooge. Sadly, it works, all too well. Even among the readers of “Christian news.”
Only the selfish – and study after study shows that the billionaire class has a very high percentage of those folks – begrudge assisting their neighbor (who needs the fire department when his house catches fire) or paying their own way (for wear and tear on the roads and highways they drive every day) by paying their share of taxes.
Returning to my main point, what cannot be forgiven, however, is Moore’s clear suggestion that a 70% tax rate would take 70 cents out of every dollar earned by every taxpayer in America. He knows better, but stoking this lie works to the advantage of his propaganda.
In other words, Mr. Moore is lying and he knows it. Unfortunately, many readers will not understand that this entire discussion is about marginal tax rates, and Moore has no interest in clarifying this confusion. He is more interested in sowing fear and anger than he is in educating his readers, so he fails to mention this important fact.
Check out the following sites for easy explanations of how marginal taxation works (here, here and here). The fact is, only a portion of the millionaire’s/billionaire’s highest bracket of income would be taxed at 70% (or 90% or 50% or whatever); much of it would not. And the vast majority of Americans would never come anywhere near that higher bracket, remaining unaffected by the marginal tax increase.
Mr. Moore knows all of this.
He is purposely misleading his readers by feeding us misinformation and falsehoods. This, folks, is utterly unacceptable in any source touting its “Christian perspective.” It is the most un-Christian, even anti-Christian, sort of writing one can imagine.
In fact, I will say this: it is worse than printing something overtly Satanic, because Mr. Moore is deliberately abusing his readers’ trust by planting lies which he knows will manipulate his audience into supporting a position built on falsehood.
Now, THAT, my friends is a truly demonic strategy, if ever there was one.
Second, Moore repeats a favorite argument of Reaganomics fans by claiming that Reagan’s tax cuts, and the majority of subsequent tax cuts, increased the national revenue (with no citations for personal follow-up). In other words, the government gains more money, not less, when it cuts taxes on the rich, according to Moore.
But recall economist Paul Krugman’s claim about “reputable economists”
in his article endorsing Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion:
We need to do some research here. As luck would have it, I already did some.
Check out this detailed analysis and discussion of the Kennedy, Reagan and Bush tax cuts and their effect on the U.S. economy (at econdataus.com with copious citations and data for follow-up, unlike Moore’s article). It is fascinating. Or you can jump down to the excerpted summary below:
“The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan’s two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It’s also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! They went up 502.4% during the 40’s, 134.5% during the 50’s, 108.5% during the 60’s, and 168.2% during the 70’s. At 96.2 percent, they nearly doubled in the 90’s as well. Hence, claiming that the Reagan tax cuts caused the doubling of revenues is like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn.”
I won’t fault Moore for having a different interpretation of the economic data, but I can fault him for: (a) not citing the sources for his argument in a way that allows the reader to check it on her own; (b) failing to mention that there is a serious debate on the issue among economists; and (c) leaving the impression that all those on the opposite side of the fence are ignorant, dopey-eyed dreamers out of touch with reality and ignorant of history.
Finally, strangely enough, Moore dismisses the idea of taxing billionaires at higher rates by claiming that in the bad old days of higher taxes:
“IRS data confirms that almost no rich people paid those 70, and 80 and 90% tax rates. They hired lawyers and lobbyists to escape paying the taxes, or they stashed their money away in exotic tax-exempt shelters or bought tax-free municipal bonds to avoid forking over the majority of their income to the IRS.”
This is a strange way to bolster his argument. In fact, it undercuts his point.
His claims may be true, I don’t know. But, if so, the obvious solution is not to lower taxes on the rich (that is like saying “since a speed limit does not prevent drivers from speeding, we should do away with the speed limit”) but to impose stricter regulation on the many ways created by billionaires for hiding their wealth – methods, by the way, that are not available to the poor or the average taxpayer.
The Author and the Bigger Picture:
Where do Mr. Moore and his article come from? To answer that question, we need to step back and look at the broader political context of this taxation debate.
For a number of decades, the conservative movement (including Libertarians like the Koch brothers) have brilliantly implemented a strategy
for changing – even controlling – the terms of economic and political debate in this country.
A key ingredient in that strategy was the creation of the think tank. Think tanks are “academic” institutions that employ researchers to produce books, articles and position papers legitimizing the conservative worldview held by the wealthiest, conservative Americans.
The Brookings Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation are three examples of U.S.-based think tanks. Remember that our author, Mr. Moore, works for the Heritage Foundation.
These think tanks are bankrolled by wealthy, conservative donors for the sole purpose of influencing public debate to their own political and economic advantage. Of course, there is nothing wrong with wealthy donors contributing to a research institution…as long as their money does not control the results of the institution’s research.
Once that shift occurs, it’s no longer doing research but producing propaganda.
These think tanks are not intended to promote academic freedom. Just the opposite. Their researchers, like Mr. Moore, are paid for one purpose and one purpose only: to produce “data” and to make arguments that advance the economic and political interests of their wealthy, conservative sugar-daddies.
So, now that we know who Mr. Moore is, where his ideas come from, and what he is being paid to do, his arguments and information are not the least bit surprising. Neither are his lies, manipulation and misinformation. He is a hired gun, paid handsomely to promote trickle-down Reaganomics to the general public, by any means necessary.
I wish I could say it is surprising to see a supposedly Christian news outlet like CBN promoting and benefiting from what is, in effect, a public swindle by a high-priced conman. But, alas, this has become not only the way of the world, but the way of modern, American evangelicalism.
Perhaps another question is why we feel we need such a large and expensive government bureaucracy in the fist place. It does undercut the value of a personal work ethic, striving for self-sufficiency, and taking responsibility for one’s life.
Both political parties are deeply flawed from a Christian perspective. Recall the recent broohahah over (now) Justice Kavanaugh. If the liberals were going insane in their attempts to stop him from being confirmed to the high court, he must be a social conservative. The Republicans fooled us on this nominee as he is not the kind of true constitutional conservative and originalist that Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito are. Trump missed an opportunity with that appointment. He effectively replaced Anthony Kennedy with a judicial clone of Anthony Kennedy.
America is on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown now as decades of social decay and moving away from God’s principles take their toll on all of us.
Well, my post was not so much about partisanship but an exercise in applying critical thinking skills to the way we read news and commentary. It is equally applicable to both Rep. and Dem. arguments. Critiques of conservative arguments are more germane to Christian media nowadays because of the way evangelicalism has erased the boundary between their political ideology and the Christian faith.