Taxes

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough slammed President Obama Tuesday for not standing up to Republicans but rather compromising over extending the Bush tax cuts. Scarborough called the tax cuts for millionaires "inefficient" and agreed with co-host Mika Brzezinski that the Republicans are "complete hypocrites" when it comes to dealing with the deficit. The deal includes an extension of the Bush tax…

On Tuesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports, Republican Senator Judd Gregg had to remind Andrea Mitchell that hardworking Americans' money belongs to them and not the government, after the NBC reporter pressed him to "justify" a "larger tax cut for those who really don't need it." On to discuss the tax cut deal in Congress, Gregg explained to Mitchell that the "problem we have as a government today…

At the top of Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith made liberal reaction to President Obama's Monday announcement of a tax deal with Republicans the central focus of coverage: "Let's make a deal. President Obama and Republican leaders agree to extend Bush-era tax cuts for everyone. What did the President get in return? And will it be enough to stop any challenge from angry Democrats…

MSNBC's Chuck Todd on the December 7 "Daily Rundown" was uncharacteristically heated in his opposition to the compromise between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans on extending the Bush tax rates. Interviewing a Treasury Department official, Todd used flawed statistics to malign the proposed two-year extension of tax breaks for all families as unacceptably expensive. "…

"If the GOP Senate Minority Leader were to grab a Senate page and threaten to kill the innocent victim if the Democrats refused to capitulate to the party’s demands on tax cuts, we would all quickly arrive at the conclusion that the Minority Leader had lost his mind and gone too far. We simply, under no circumstances, will not tolerate threatening someone’s life in order to get what you want…

Good Morning America's Jake Tapper on Tuesday spun Barack Obama's reaction to a tax deal with Republicans this way: "The devil made him do it..." The devil, apparently, being GOP representatives. Picking an easy target as an example, Tapper asserted that, as a result of tax rates staying the same, the "family of the average Wall Street banker [who] paid more than $300,000 last year, will keep…

Even with Monday’s deal between President Obama and top Republicans, no American’s income tax rates will actually decline on January 1 (although, if the deal passes, workers will notice a modest reduction in their payroll taxes in 2011). Yet throughout this debate, the broadcast networks have insisted on framing the debate as about “tax cuts” and “tax breaks,” not about forestalling a tax…

Invited on Tuesday's Today show to discuss the tax cut compromise in Congress, CNBC's Erin Burnett initially whined that "We can't afford it" but then went on to tell viewers that if Congress were to forego tax cuts we could afford "universal pre-school for free and provide free college tuition for half of the college students."  When asked by Today co-host Meredith Vieira about the "price…

Brian Williams adopted a liberal framework as he opened Monday's NBC Nightly News by declaring “it’s a fair question to ask and for a while now Americans have been wondering how lawmakers in Washington could possibly extend tax breaks for wealthy Americans while allowing benefits for jobless Americans to be cut off.” Then, after Chuck Todd outlined the Obama-GOP compromise to maintain income…

The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson in his Monday column scolded President Obama's deficit commission in a fashion that should be must-reading for every American, especially liberal media members. At issue for Samuelson wasn't the cost-saving or revenue-generating ideas in the plan. Instead, he accurately pointed out that it lacked a coherent message as to why our social programs are…

Charles Krauthammer on Monday said that when Barack Obama spoke to the nation hours ago to announce a tax extension compromise just reached with Republicans, "It was actually a speech addressed at Daily Kos, the New York Times, and MoveOn." In Krauthammer's view expressed on Fox's "Special Report," "This was a speech aimed at appeasing the Left which is extremely angry over this" (video…

Bill Press appeared on Fox News' Geraldo At Large, on Sunday night, as part of a discussion about whether the Bush era tax cuts would be extended and the former CNN host couldn't get his story straight as he recommended that Congress go back to the Bill Clinton era "tax cuts." In fact Clinton, back in 1993, passed the largest tax increase in history but this bit of truth didn't get in the way…

World News anchors and reporters on Sunday chided Barack Obama from the left, complaining that he was "caving" and "breaking one of his biggest campaign promises" by preventing tax rates from increasing in January. ABC's Washington editor Rick Klein worried, "President Obama has been clear this was a critical position and he is caving on it, in, in allowing all the tax cuts to be extended."…

Mark your calendar, who knows when you'll see this again. Rachel Maddow provided two different takes about congressional action on extending the Bush tax rates during her MSNBC show Thursday, the first account characteristically wrong, the second belatedly accurate.  Here's Maddow at the start of the show, describing what occurred in the House that day (first part of embedded video, below…