In a Saturday editorial, the Washington Times skewered Newsweek pretty good for the latter’s “Dirty Little Secret of the Tax Cut” cover story.

But since Saturday papers are the least well read, and you probably don’t get the Times anyway, you probably didn’t see it.

So let me summarize. Newsweek identified three families, one of which made ,400 in 2003, the second ,411 and the third 4,000. Each of the three was quoted, bitching about how they hadn’t gotten anything out of the Bush tax cuts. But the Times analysis shows that the single-income-mom low income family actually benefited ,000, or 45% from the cuts, while the middle income folks saved ,800 (44%) and the high income earners, who told Newsweek all the tax cut benefits must have gone to the “major corporations who are downsizing and outsourcing,” received at least ,899 in Bush tax reductions.

It’s hard to deny that somebody is saving a bunch of money as a result of the cuts. Just this week, the Tax Foundation released its annual calculation of Tax Freedom Day, the day when, to quote the Foundation’s statement: “…Americans will finally have earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. Every dollar that’s officially called income by the government is counted, and every payment to the government that is officially considered a tax is counted. Taxes at all levels of government are included, whether levied by Uncle Sam or state and local governments.”

In 2004, Tax Freedom Day is today, April 11, Easter Sunday. If you’re the average American, every dollar you’ve earned so far this year goes to pay your taxes. Starting Monday, you can keep what you earn. And you know what? Tax Freedom Day, 2004, is the earliest it has been since 1967.

Nineteen Freaking Sixty Seven! I got married that year. You might not even have been born yet. Carl Yastrzemski led the Red Sox to the American League pennant and the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson beat them in the 7th game of the World Series. Che Guevara and Carl Sandburg died. Kurt Cobain and Julia Roberts were born. Dustin Hoffman got seduced by Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate.” Robert McNamara resigned as LBJ’s Defense Secretary.

Tax Freedom Day was on April 10. Since then, it’s bounced around the last half of April, topping out on May 2 in 2000. Since then, the Bush cuts have pushed it back each year. When you look at the chart, there’s this uncanny connection between the peaks of Tax Freedom Day and the several recessions that have occurred over the forty-year period. In spite of the unprecedented disruption caused by 9/11, the recession that started after Clinton’s Tax Freedom Day peak didn’t last long. Did the massive Bush tax cuts have anything to do with cutting it off? It sure looks like it.

Note too, that Tax Freedom Day also considers state and local taxes. The Democrats have been running around claiming that because Bush cut Federal taxes, responsible state and local leaders had to raise the rates. Wrong-o, Charlie.

But that kind of stuff is the brand spanking clean little secret of the tax cut, so it doesn’t make Newsweek, even though it is much bigger news, one would think than the blather writer Allan Sloan fills his article with.

But it’s not the article so much as what the Newsweek editors did with it that really stinks. The three families (Where do they find these people? What are their politics?) all were quoted with disparaging comments about the tax cuts. These sidebars, with photos and dramatic graphics, will be vastly more well read than Sloan’s text – even though, as the Times analysis shows, the spokesfolks don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve made a few man-on-the-street commercials in my day, and I guarantee you I can find three people to say they think next July we collide with Mars, or even, (Gasp!) that Bush’s tax cuts are just Jim-dandy and helped them out a lot, personally.

Then there’s the matter of Newsweek’s cover. The cover, with its Form 1040 graphic and screaming headline will be read by millions of passersby who never bother to pick up the magazine and read the article, much less read a critical newspaper editorial, or, for that matter, an Internet columnist.

Those magazine covers are like having Vote for Kerry signs in every supermarket, drug store, airport bookshop and street corner newsstand in America. And it’s all completely unregulated by the McCain-Feingold Act.

The national news media, Newsweek most assuredly included, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party, and has been since way back when Tax Freedom Day was even earlier than it is now.

This year, the grand strategy of the Left is to take each and every one of Bush’s strong points (his reaction to 9/11, his tax cuts) and tarnish them.

To fight back, Bush needs to take things like the Tax Freedom Day announcement and paste it over the cover of each and every Newsweek in America. Cause it’s working, folks, no matter what the magazine’s uninformed spokespeople say.

Tax freedom day sounds like one has made enough brick and straw for their new loving masters as SLAVES !

WHEN will you people listen to your own words enough to know that you are constantly being reduced to serfdom?

WHAT will it take to wake you up that your life force is being sucked out of you by corporatism and its media components?

Don't you know that taxes for revenue are obsolete ?

If not, then read the following revealing article republished from the 1946 American Affairs periodical by Beardsley Ruml, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found at URL ...

http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html

Does anyone listen carefully as to WHAT is being said or stated?

Does anyone THINK as to WHAT is being said or stated.

Tax freedom day sounds like someone made enough brick and straw as a SLAVE for their new loving master.

Taxes collected for revenue are obsolete...see...

http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html

The Washington Post company owns Newsweek.

http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/washpost.asp

Not exactly liberals. Moderates.

The Washington Times is owned by the Moonies, a conservative religious cult.

http://www.google.com/search?q=washington+times+moonies&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

That's the time of day when, on the average, you've produced enough to make your paycheck, and after that time, you're helping your bosses get their fat paychecks, and the corporation get their profits.

Just go home at 3:00 p.m., or skip one day a week and then take long lunches, and demand the same weekly pay.

"This year, the grand strategy of the Left is to take each and every one of Bush’s strong points (his reaction to 9/11, his tax cuts) and tarnish them."

strong points

his reaction to 9-11 ( like reading about goats for 1/2 hour while the event went down and then hiding in AF1 as he scurried to various unknown locations and did nothing.)

more strong points (ah yes the tax cuts for himself and his rich friends which have produced maybe three jobs and undercut the tax base as we go into astronomical debt spending)

but hey, this is offset by his brillant ....hmmm wait...

I'll get back on this later.

That's the time of day when, on the average, you've produced enough to make your paycheck, and after that time, you're helping your bosses get their fat paychecks, and the corporation get their profits.

Just go home at 3:00 p.m., or skip one day a week and then take long lunches, and demand the same weekly pay.

"

The inherent fallacy of your logic here, right?

I'm sure you do, but for some of the other readers let me point this out. I know you were just making a little joke but there are those who actually believe this tripe.

Without the "fat bosses" making a profit there, of course, will be NO jobs for any of the noble working class to go to. The fact is that makinh the "bosses" a profit IS the only job that anyone is EVER hired to do. The tasks we all perform may be different but they all exist to earn a profit for the "boss" and thus enable him or her to keep the workers employed. Certainly that must be obvious even to the socialists around here. It's not really a matter of opinion it's simple math.

"Without the "fat bosses" making a profit there, of course, will be NO jobs for any of the noble working class to go to. The fact is that makinh the "bosses" a profit IS the only job that anyone is EVER hired to do. The tasks we all perform may be different but they all exist to earn a profit for the "boss" and thus enable him or her to keep the workers employed. Certainly that must be obvious even to the socialists around here. It's not really a matter of opinion it's simple math."

That's giving a lot of credit to entrepreneurs. The idea that the bosses "create jobs" is very one-sided, and presents the bosses in a heroic light (that they really don't deserve). It's CEO idolatry that's got you blinded.

All business exists to fill a demand, and make a profit in the process. The demand comes from.... the same people who create and sell the products. I mean this in the most general sense, of all workers and all products. Without customers, there is no store. Customers are just workers.

If profit margins are too large, consider what happens. People don't have enough money to buy what they made. If they can't or won't demand higher wages, they end up working more for less money, and/or acquiring debt. Unemployment and productivity rise.

"If profit margins are too large, consider what happens. People don't have enough money to buy what they made."

This seems to be at the root of your entire argument. That somehow, a large or even increasing profit margin results in less income for workers, and therefore, less money for consumers is simply invalid.

If I own a business and pay my workers x dollars, a salary which is enough for them to live on AND have some amount of disposable income, and I continue to increase profits, everybody is happy. As long as they keep getting x dollars my profit margin can go through the roof. It's all the same to them. Furthermore, I'll be more apt to expand and hire more people.

You are right, however, that no one really becomes a business owner or "boss" simply to be able to hire people and provide them with a living. I'm certainly not suggesting that. I'm simply saying that profit for business owners is the only real force which keeps the machine of employment and livelihoods for workers moving. The very word "profit" is somehow anethma around here. It's silly.

Try working for a business which has a steadily dwindling profit margin.