Tax Lawyer's Blog

David Leonhardt of the New York Times, after arguing that the rich don’t pay enough taxes, says he is upset at conservative talk show hosts for pointing out that 47% of American households pay no income taxes:

So why are those radio and television talk show hosts spending so much time arguing that today’s wealthy are unfairly burdened? Well, it’s hard not to notice that the talk show hosts themselves tend to be among the very wealthy.

No doubt, like the rest of us, they don’t particularly enjoy paying taxes. They are happy with the tax cuts they have received lately. They would prefer if other people had to pick up the bill for Medicare, Social Security and the military — people like, say, firefighters, preschool teachers, computer support specialists, farmers, members of the clergy, mail carriers, secretaries and truck drivers.

This, my friends, is the argument of a nine year old child.

Mr. Leonhardt doesn’t merely point out why those with whom he disagrees are wrong, he must demean them personally by suggesting that their motives are impure. And in the same breath that he questions their motives he calls on his readers to assume that he himself is motivated only by a desire to reveal the truth.

And these salamanders wonder why the mainstream media is dying faster than a recently mated Black Widow spider?

Let’s talk about potential ulterior motives, shall we?

• Leonhardt makes less than $250,000 a year and, therefore, would not be subject to the Obama tax hikes on the rich. Perhaps he, like the conservative talk show hosts he is so quick to slander, prefers that others picked up the bill for him.
• Leonhardt works for the New York Times, a newspaper that has endorsed thirteen Democrat presidential candidates in a row, including our current President. Perhaps when he says that the rich are undertaxed he is motivated not by any noble desire to tell the truth, but by a desire to see President Obama succeed and his and his employer’s sponsorship of him vindicated.
• Leonhardt and the New York Times have lost significant readership over the last decade in part as a result of the increased popularity of cable T.V. and conservative talk radio. Perhaps he is motivated not by the desire to tell the truth, but rather, the desire to diminish in the minds of his readers the veracity of his competition.

See how easy that is?

Questioning the motives of one’s opponent is only slightly less juvenile than calling him a “poopyhead” or saying “my daddy can beat up your daddy.” It’s intellectually lazy and should be (it obviously isn’t) beneath the dignity of a Yale graduate and New York Times columnist.

You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Leonhardt.

Related Posts:

• Seth Godin on Online Arguments
• Rules of Debate
• The Questioning of Motives in the Tax Preparer Regulation Debate

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