Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (The Janissaries in the Bush Class War Revolt! Edition)

The New York Times editorial page is angry. At long last they have figured out that they and theirs--people with household incomes between $100K and $200K--have been played for suckers by the Bushies. I have only one question: what took them so long?

They are really angry:

The Bush Economy - New York Times: In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled.... [T]he unheralded effect of [Bush's] tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000.... The divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story, but income-class warfare among the top 20 percent of the scale is a newer phenomenon.... [M]any families making between $100,000 and $200,000 are not exactly on easy street. They don't face choices anywhere near as stark as those encountered further down the income ladder, but they face serious tradeoffs not experienced by the uppermost crust, particularly when hit with the triple whammy of college for the children, care for aging parents, and preparing for their own retirement.

There is something deeply wrong about a system that calls into question a comfortable retirement or a top-notch education for people who have broken into the top 20 percent of income earners. It starts to seem politically explosive when you consider that in a decade, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay about five to nine percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $1 million, assuming the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

This is not about giving wealthy people more money to invest back into the economy. At this level, it's really about giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs. Fixing the problem will require members of Congress to summon the courage to say no to a president who wants more for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. We're not holding our breath.

Hey! New York Times! Average--not median, average--gross weekly earnings of nonsupervisory workers are $540--that's $27,000 a year. Average--not median, average--gross weekly earnings of nonsupervisory workers in retail trade are $380 a week--that's $19,000 a year. Many of them face the same problems of trying to get their children the education and skills they need to have opportunities, of caring for aging parents, and of preparing for their own retirement as do those making $200K a year who are "not exactly on easy street."

That "the divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story" does not mean that the focus of our attention should be on how to redistribute income and wealth from the top 0.1% to the top 20%.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

From the NYT Letters page today, Mankiw rebuts:

To the Editor:

Your chart about the percentage of income earned by the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers was fascinating, but "Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind" failed to draw the obvious conclusions from it.

The data show that the rich take a rising share of income when the economy is booming, such as during the 1920's and 1990's. Their share declines when the economy hits hard times, such as during the Great Depression and the most recent recession.

The rich took their smallest slice of the economic pie during the 1970's - a period when productivity growth was low and unemployment and inflation were rising.

Here's the lesson: If policy makers' primary goal is to reduce income inequality, they should put the economy through the wringer. But if they want economic prosperity for all, they should avoid focusing on the politics of envy.

N. Gregory Mankiw

Cambridge, Mass., June 5, 2005

The writer, a professor of economics at Harvard University, was chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, 2003-2005.

[howard]

Linkmeister, thanx for reminding us that Mankiw has sold his self-respect for a mess of pottage.

Prof, you know the answer to the question of why the Times took this long to face reality: it's not cool to face reality. That makes you Paul Krugman. It's much cooler to stay in comfortable denial.

[anon]

Can they do anything right in your eyes?

They have limited space, and they can't make every point in every article. They did an enormous series on class struggles that highlighted inequity on every level. And then in one small editorial they leave out part of the picture and you jump on them? They made some very salient points, that many papers would probably never think to make, but you have to find something wrong. Can't we just be happy that there are editorial pages who say these things at all?

You might remember in Krugman's response to Okrent that he pointed out that in his 730 words he simply can't write about everything, and sometimes he is forced to leave out bits. As we've seen, he can do no wrong, but I'm starting to get the impression that you don't feel the same way about the Times' editorial staff.

[ftm]

Brad, this is a great example of the Times editorial board's disconnection from reality.

Thanks for pointing it out. As a self-enrolled member of the order of the shrill, I am no longer able to read Times' editorials.

[howard]

anon, the issue is that there is no evidence in the unsigned editorials of the past 5 years that the times has noticed any of these points.

yes, kudos to keller (or someone) for coming up with the class in america series, but even that is rather late. regardless, the prof is referencing the totality of the editorial board's work, not just this one piece. he's saying, "what took you so long to notice?"

[Barbara]

anon, here is the problem: Over the last four years Bush has pushed, and Congress has enacted, tax cuts that are wildly redistributive to the upper income echelons, a fact that should be well-known and yes, reproted on, by responsible media types, like the NYT. However the NYT, among many others, has really failed to point out this fact in non-doublespeak, irrefutable, clear terms UNTIL it realized that the inequality extends to differences between the "lower upper" and the "stratospheric upper" income classes. Then it gets a hard hitting editorial. And to prove it you need only read the punchline: "The divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story, but income-class warfare among the top 20 percent of the scale is a newer phenomenon." It's the newer phenomenon, not the age old one, that is the subject of this article.

Even now, if this editorial was the only thing you read, do you expect that those who make, say, $30,000 to $60,000 would cry a river for those who make over $100k? Does the editorial really nail down exactly how unequal the tax cuts were for everyone else (rather than just alluding to how hard it is to make it if you make even less than $80k)? Maybe the articles did, but the editorial surely didn't.

[Rob]

Yes lets applaud the Times editorial staff for noticing something that has been occuring for the past 5 years. I hear they are soon to have a new column out praising this thing called the internet!

[cb]

Actually, Times makes an excellent point...that is is not rich v. not rich...but superrich v. everyone else. Given the demographics of the Times readership, the editorial is particularly on point and in service to readers.

Everyone who reads the Times should know by now there is gambling in Casablanca...that unskilled labor is getting killed....the editorial effectively taught people something most didn't already know. Which is what they should be doing.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/opinion/06herbert.html

The Mobility Myth
By BOB HERBERT

The war that nobody talks about - the overwhelmingly one-sided class war - is being waged all across America. Guess who's winning.

A recent front-page article in The Los Angeles Times showed that teenagers are faring poorly in a tight job market because of the fierce competition they're getting from older workers and immigrants for entry-level positions.

On the same day, in the business section, the paper reported that the chief executives at California's largest 100 companies took home a collective $1.1 billion in 2004, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. The paper contrasted that with the 2.9 percent raise that the average California worker saw last year.

The gap between the rich and everybody else in this country is fast becoming an unbridgeable chasm. David Cay Johnston, in the latest installment of the New York Times series 'Class Matters,' wrote, 'It's no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everybody else behind is not widely known.'

Consider, for example, two separate eras in the lifetime of the baby-boom generation. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent between 1990 and 2002, Mr. Johnston wrote, each taxpayer in that top bracket brought in an extra $18,000....

[PaulC]

This sentence is telling:

> There is something deeply wrong about a system that calls into question a comfortable retirement or a top-notch education for people who have broken into the top 20 percent of income earners.

Let's see. There's something "deeply wrong" about questioning the entitlements of the top quintile. But I guess it's OK if the other 80% find themselves SOL at retirement or have to settle for a second-rate education.

There's something moderately surprising about a system that leaves even the top 20% scrounging. But deeply wrong?

[jim]

What the editorial showed is that the country is not being run for the benefit of the $100K-$200K/yr group, as they so blindly believed. This is a lesson that needs to be echoed.

A couple of weeks ago, Laura at 11D quoted Matt Miller approvingly: "why should we be the only elites in human history that don't set things up to get what we want?" The answer, of course, is you aren't part of the elite. The fact that you have to do what you don't want to do shows it.

And now, the fact that the tax system has been tuned precisely to shift the burden from the real elite to YOU should reinforce it

[Retief]

Rob is right. Sure we don't need the focus of our attention on how to redistribute income and wealth from the top 0.1% to the top 20%. But when the interests of rich versus poor are the question not many people think of themselves as poor. The article does us a good service in pointing out that the question isn't rich versus poor but super rich versus the rest of us, poor middle, upper middle, everybody. When Bush says rich, he doesn't mean you. If you're income is earned and not from capital gains, Bush and the republicans are not your friends, even if that income is 80 to 400 thousand.

[otto]

The NYT is suffering from a common problem. Try to mention on this website or MYs that taxes should go up on the $100-150k-plus crowd, whether by the AMT or by lifting the SS cap or just plain old income tax, and you would not believe the self-interested whingeing that will come your way. If you want a more equal, more secure society, it is you, dear reader of the Semi-Daily Journal, whose taxes will have to rise, right along with Bill Gates's.

[Retief]

Oops should have said cb is right. Rob is wrong as it turns out. First, praise was hardly the tone of the post. And second, every mention of the fact that the president wants more for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else and bends his every policy toward that goal is useful.

[Jason]

Normally, I wouldn't care about what happens to people in that income range. Anyone that can't find a way to live decently on over 10,000+ USD per month needs to switch salaries with me (even w/COL factored in). I find it ironic that those guys think they are entitled to anything at all: aren't these people the same ones that always go on and on about "merit", "hard-work", "sacrifice", "free-trade", "Republican virtue", etc. Hopefully, the ultra-wealthy show these guys the same iron whip-handle that they show the lower classes. At least then everyone below the very top can be on the same level: on their *knees*!

[Retief]

Otto, isn't that the point. It is not right along with Bill Gates's. And when Republicans end the capital gains taxes, he'll hardly pay anything.

[anon]

All I'm trying to say is that they can't say everything in every editorial. It's simply not true that the Times doesn't pay attention to the difference between the top 1% and the bottom 50%. Maybe they don't say it as much as some people might want, but they certainly say it. The main reason I commented above is that it seems to me that Brad is just becoming unreasonable. It's been a pattern for a while, and it's disturbing to me, because at times he can be a fantastic blogger.

Yes, I know that the Bush team has done some pretty horrible things. I also understand that the press might be able to do a better job of pointing those things out. Here's my problem though: there is almost no way to distinguish Brad's criticisms of wingnuts like Pat Buchanan from people on his own side. He's moving into Daily Kos territory, and while they do have their purpose in the wider progressive part of the blogosphere, I, personally, would rather not see Brad join them in that place.

There was a time when Brad did something very close to what Paul Krugman does in his op-eds. He would add sophisticated, yet understandable, economic analysis to policy arguments that were often bereft of any grounding in hard data and analysis. What I feel like has happened more recently though, and it's perfectly illustrated here and in his bizarre post on David Brooks' piece on college grads the other day, is that Brad has simply become a partisan whiner. Taking cheap shots at young republicans (as if their combination of ambition and naivete is any different that of from young democrats), and getting cranky because the Time's editorial board didn't write what you would have, doesn't advance any arguments.

Partisan hack jobs are a dime a dozen, I'd much rather come here and find somebody advancing the discussion. It's nice to see, though, that Brad still has productive commenters.

[howard]

anon, at risk of being flippant, it's a "shrill" thing. either you think we live in a political period where to be an honest opposition, you must be shrill or you don't.

the prof does; you don't. if and when you change your mind, the prof will welcome your shrillness with open arms, as he does today for "Another Welcome New Recruit."

[kharris]

Anne,

Yes, but...

The good guys have to get their arguments right, and their arguments have to be timely. If the NYT has its heart in the right place but gets its argument wrong, they are less likely to help us win the debate. The notion that investing in the economy takes place by some means that does not also provide a larger estate, for instance, is not supportable.

Timeliness is also a problem. Many of us who visit this place knew, objectively, that the Bush tax cuts were overwhelmingly skewed toward the rich (in the same way that some of us had a strong inkling that Iraq had no major illicit weapons programs), but the NYT couldn't get around to figuring that out till after Bush was reelected.

Brooks is on the opinion page. The NYT employed a public editor took out after his liberal editorialists in a scandalous way, while giving Brooks a pass. The NYT, and NPR, are not doing their job. We need to say so. My newspaper, right or wrong...but when wrong, to make it right.

[cb]

>>>>If you're income is earned and not from capital gains,

Or if not inherited from a very large estate from someone in the top 0.1%.

>>>>>anon, the issue is that there is no evidence in the unsigned editorials of the past 5 years that the times has noticed any of these points.

Please. The Times had an editorial today on the financial aid formula that works against poor and working class students, recently used the space to trumpet that wages lag inflation, had a very good recent editorial on who was being hurt by bankruptcy reform and used the opportunity to also mention pathetic Santorum (?) shooting down an effort to increase the minimum wage. Also the Times' editorial page has been one of the most effective opponents of the attacks on Social Security, pensions, the public school system, etc....these are not issues targeting the $200K crowd.

Compare with the Washington Post.

The editorial quite effectively pointed a finger back at a typical Times reader who probably thinks he/she has done well, tax-wise, under the Bush Administration ...

[Auros]

Does anyone know where (or if?) on census.gov, one can find year-by-year, real-dollar median household income numbers? I was just trying to relate Brad's means to the medians, and they seem odd. My understanding is that median household income is just slightly over $40k. EpiNet seems to agree:
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_income20040826

[anne]

KHarris

Always, always argue with the right person :) Hmmm....

[Robert Waldmann]

I read down to here thinking of making an argument that I have read 3 or 4 times. I forget by who (sorry) and I type away with little new to add (no apologies).

I think that the editorial is useful, because it might convince selfish yppie types that, to serve their greed, they should vote Bush out. This is a valid honest argument, since Bush's policies are bad for almost everyone. I don't know whether the editorial board is made of such twits who feel victimized because they make less than 200,000.

I think shifting the frontier of the class war to the top percentile is a good way to win it. It is an important and serious struggle and you can't expect to like all of your allies. Talking only about the most important problems (in this case poverty) is not good strategy.

Now I think the NYT editorial board can't do much. Democrats in the Senate can propose a tax reform making the tax code progressive whenever they want to (as an amendment to every bill considered). I think if they were to do that, and explain who would pay less and who would pay more, that the Republicans would be overwhelmed by 2006. The only cost is that the dems will be scolded by talking head pundits and will have to fork over a few millions each (in present value).

[Andrew Steele]

Brad's post is well-crafted and quite effective. The point, as I read it, isn't so much whether the NYT editorial board is "right" or "wrong" in its argumentation, but rather that the NYT is swatting flies with a sledgehammer.

There are only so many editorials in the paper, and only a fraction of those deal with the economics of class -- and the editors chose to spend one of those few on the $100,000-$200,000 set. The artillery of the NYT's indignation was fired at a problem that isn't so meaningful, especially when considering the plight of those in lower economic class, who, as Brad pointed out, have the same problems as the 6-figure poor.

[Emma Zahn]

At last, class warfare with entertainment value: The haves versus the have-mores.

[sm]

Good one, Emma.

[LizardBreath]

___I think shifting the frontier of the class war to the top percentile is a good way to win it. It is an important and serious struggle and you can't expect to like all of your allies.___

This is an excellent point. I'm in the discussed income group and am therefore rich in the "I'd be an ass if I started complaining about how badly I have it" sense. I'm not rich in the "Bush's policies are intended to benefit me" sense -- that's reserved not so much for high income people, but for high wealth people (who are also very, very high income people). While I've understood that from the beginning, there's a real value to convincing my economic cohort that Bush is screwing us too -- that our economic self interest lines up with the bottom income quintile better than it does with the top one percent -- for one thing, we're a useful source of political fundraising.

So, sympathy for high-income voters? Lame and pointless. Information intended to demonstrate to high-income voters that they're getting screwed too? Useful.

[kharris]

Sorry, Anne. My eyes aren't what the once were, and they were never good. anne, anon - I can hardly tell.

[anne]

Well, I sent you a set of seeing-eye owls but they are delivered amiss so seeing is apparently a problem we share :) Do count the owls on the Wessel thread carefully though for they are yours to care for.

[Dan S.]

It's not so much that the Times is aiming at the wrong target; after all, I agree that this seems politically useful. It's that I have this image of the Times editorial staff finding out about this and just reacting in complete outraged shock, now that it turns out to affect them! (one presumes). I may be reading too much into it, but I can't help but hear a certain personal (and very indignant!) tone behind that "triple whammy" and "comfortable retirement" and so on . . . And wow - "deeply wrong," "politically explosive" "it's really about giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs" - boy, are they *mad!* After all, they're not exactly on easy street, are they?

It's very easy to get all snarky (trying . . to . . . fight it!), but this is important - after all, it might mean more people will get what this administration is all about: breaking the implicit promises of American life (middleclass edition), and making almost everyone's existence harder and more unpleasant (in varying degrees) in order to benefit a tiny, tiny top % . . .

[Joe S.]

Brad's distinction between median and mean incomes was completely lost on the Times editorial page. Such knowledge is irrelevant to smug power-worship.

[piotr]

To defend NYT: there are real issues in the "class war on the top". Preferencial treatment of capital gains income and abolishing of the real estate tax altered the relative tax burdens of the two groups discussed in the editorial.

Now, of SS is fixed by lifting the cap on the contribution, the top 0.1% will contribute nothing to solve the problem, 100-200k folks will contribute a lot, none will gain -- explitely at least. This is one of the many aspects where one has to choose.

One reason why this topic is important is that idiots (politely: people who did not analyze the matter in depth) among the upper middle clsss think that Bush's policies benefit them and they form a politically active and influential group. Perhaps, they will have second thoughts.

[David Cay Johnston]

Brad,
FYI, I have reported data on the incomes of the poor many times, including a number of front page articles in The New York Times. So have Lou Uchietelle and some others of my fellow Times reporters.

My Sunday article on the hyper-rich was about just that -- the top tenth and top hundredth of one percent and their relation to everyone else, but especially those just below them.

I know from the reactions I am getting that many people in the $50k to $500k class are surprised to find out the facts we spent months putting together. Some of that data (and I emphasize SOME) was not to you or to me, but it was to readers of our paper and many client papers that take the New York Times News Service.

David Cay Johnston
(from home)

[howard]

David, the prof isn't critiquing you but your editorial board; it's gail collins who has something to answer for.

much as i'd like to be surprised that people making good salaries are ignorant of what the very top earns, i can't say that i am, but the editorial board of the ny times has no excuse for not being informed. in fact, paul krugman told them so, right on their pages....

[anon]

Ok, well I guess not many people are probably still reading this thread, but since I'm doing anything I can think of to procrastinate, I'm going to throw one last idea out there.

If all of you who see the editorial board at the times as being wrong here were given a chance to voice your criticisms to them in person, how do you think they would react?

Here's my feeling: they would be stunned that anybody is upset at them for pointing out the inequality in the tax code. I think we can probably agree here.

Now the place where I think wediverge is in how we interpret their reaction. I think Brad's, and most of the commenters' here so far, would be that it just shows how they're disconnected from what's actually going on, and only concerned with ther income and that of their readers, i.e. 100-200k.

On the other hand, they might be surprised to be getting criticism because to them, it's obvious that the tax code isn't fair to the bottom half of the tax bracket. They published that chart showing the marginal tax rates by income. If I remember correctly, it was Kevin Drum who made the point that one of the most surprising things about that graph is that the rates are so much lower for people above 400k than for people from 100 to 400k.

Now, kharris made the point that their argument could be better. To some extent I agree, maybe it's not as obvious as they think that the bottom half got screwed by the tax cuts. But either way, I think what's going on here is a little more complicated than the times pandering to their readers.

[Easter Lemming Liberal News]

It was not the surprise at what they earned.

It was the sheer outrage I heard communicated on the editorial page of the tax cuts the $100K- $400K recieved compared to the outrageous giveaways to the hyper rich. That and the explicit pointing out as all the GOP tax cuts are phased in that the hyper-rich will benefit even more but their taxes will go up.

They thought they were part of the fortunate few that were benefiting.

Interesting point earlier about the true benefits flowing to the very wealthy class as opposed to the high-income class. In the South we call that GOP plantation politics.

[howard]

anon, the issue is not the times pandering to readers. The issue is the failure of the times editorial board to notice reality as the various bush tax cuts were being debated and passed, and only to wake up to it now. As i noted earlier, had they simply asked paul krugman, or bothered to read him, they needn't have been so surprised at what bush et al have been up to.