The front of the New York Times Week in Review is dominated by business columnist-reporter David Leonhardt's "The Border And The Ballot Box," his slanted essay on anti-immigration crusades then and now. The accompanying drawings give the debate the feel of a prison camp, with Americans as prison guards and potential illegals as prisoners, and the archive illustrations on the jump page include a drawing of a burning church, bearing the caption:

Anti-Catholic -- Burning of St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia, 1844. As immigration soared, so did nativist reaction.

Another archive illustration is captioned:

Anti-Chinese -- An illustration of a massacre published in Harper's Weekly, 1885. Chinese laborers were attacked by white coal miners.

This would be a no-brainer to most people, but for David Leonhardt, business columnist for The New York Times, it’s a question that deserves deep thoughtful deliberation.

“There are big philosophical questions about taxes that facts alone can’t answer. How important is it to let people keep the money that they earn?” Leonhardt asked in the October 31 Times.

The answer seems fairly cut and dried, at least to someone who wouldn’t mind having the extra money in their wallet, but Leonhardt actually says having a lower tax burden is of no consequence.

Last night, it occurred to me, as I was preparing an e-mail to notify New York Times business columnist David Cay Johnston about updates to yesterday's original posts (NewsBusters; BizzyBlog) about his "smaller average incomes" report and a new source data update post, that I should bring a festering Times-related business reporting matter to his attention.

So I did (links to previous NewsBusters, BizzyBlog and other posts not in the e-mail have been added by me; Mr. Johnston was advised that this portion of the e-mail would be posted):

David,

..... Until earlier this year, I really didn't have too adverse of an opinion on the hard business reporting at the Times (outside of Paul Krugman, but he's a commentator). I've usually seen AP as consistently worse on hard biz-econ news.

Then, in February, Times reporter David Leonhardt told readers that manufacturing was in a recession. Not heading towards one. Not on the verge of one. Nope -- IN one.