SUNDAY, AUGUST 1, 2010


KLMNO Sunday OPINION DANA MILBANK


Glenn Beck’s gun-toting followers


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ate on a Saturday night two weeks ago, an unemployed carpenter packed his mother’s Toyota Tundra with guns and


set off for San Francisco with a plan to kill progressives.


When California Highway Patrol officers stopped him on an interstate in Oakland for driving erratically, Byron Williams, wearing body armor, fired at police with a 9mm hand- gun, a shotgun and a .308-caliber rifle with armor-piercing bullets, Oakland police say. Shot and captured after injuring two officers, Williams, on parole for bank robbery, told in- vestigators that he wanted “to start a revolu- tion” by “killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU,” according to a police affidavit. His mother, Janice, told the San Francisco Chronicle that her son had been watching television news and was upset by “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.” But what television news show could have


directed the troubled man’s ire toward the ob- scure Tides Foundation, which sounds as if it’s dedicated to oceanography, or perhaps laundry detergent, but which is in fact a non- profit that claims to support “sustainability,


Some frightening people seem to have an affinity for the talk show host.


better education, solutions to the AIDS epi- demic and human rights”? A week after the incident, the mystery was solved. “Tides was one of the hardest things that we ever tried to explain, and everyone told us that we couldn’t,” Fox News host Glenn Beck told his radio listeners on Mon- day. “The reason why the blackboard” — the prop Beck uses on his TV show to trace con- spiracies — “really became what the black- board is, is because I was trying to explain Tides and how all of this worked.” Beck accus- es Tides of seeking to seize power and destroy capitalism, and he suggests that a full range of his enemies on the left all have “ties to the Tides Center.” On Monday, he savored the fact that “no one knew what Tides was until the blackboard.” For good measure, Beck went after Tides again on Fox that night. And Tuesday night, Wednesday night and Thursday night. That’s on top of 29 other mentions of Tides on Beck’s Fox show over the past 18 months (two in the week before the shootout) according to a tally by the liberal press watchdog Media Matters. Other than two mentions of Tides on the show of Beck’s Fox colleague Sean Hannity, Media Matters said it was unable to find any other mention of Tides on any news broad- cast by any network over that same period. Beck declined comment. It’s not fair to blame Beck for violence com-


mitted by people who watch his show. Yet Williams isn’t the only such character with a seeming affinity for the Fox News host. In April 2009, a man allegedly armed with an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun was charged with killing three cops in Pittsburgh. The Anti-Defamation League reported that the accused killer had, as part of a pattern of activities involving far-right conspiracy theo- ries, posted a link on a neo-Nazi Web site to a video of Beck talking about the possibility that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was operating concentration camps in Wyoming. The killings came after Beck told Fox viewers that he “can’t debunk” the notion that FEMA was operating such camps — but before he finally acknowledged that the con- spiracy wasn’t real. Beck has at times spoken against violence, but he more often forecasts it, warning that “it is only a matter of time before an actual crazy person really does something stupid.” Most every broadcast has some violent im- agery: “The clock is ticking.... The war is just beginning.... Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.... You have to be prepared to take rocks to the head.... The other side is attacking.... There is a coup go- ing on.... Grab a torch! . . . Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.... They are taking you to a place to be slaugh- tered.... They are putting a gun to America’s head.... Hold these people responsible.” Beck has prophesied darkly to his millions of followers that we are reaching “a point where the people will have exhausted all their options. When that happens, look out.” One night on Fox, discussing the case of a man who killed 10 people, Beck suggested such things were inevitable. “If you’re a conserva- tive, you are called a racist, you want to starve children,” he said. “And every time they do speak out, they are shut down by political cor- rectness. How do you not have those people turn into that guy?” Here’s one idea: Stop encouraging them. danamilbank@washpost.com


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TOPIC A What should happen to the Bush tax cuts?


ALAN S. BLINDER Professor of economics at Princeton University; vice chairman of Promontory Interfinancial Network; former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board


Should the Bush tax cuts be made permanent,


extended for a while or allowed to lapse? Actually, I’d prefer a fourth option: that Congress had never enacted them in the first place. We couldn’t afford them then (and knew it), and we can’t afford them now (and know it). But we can’t undo the past. Today’s debate focuses on what to do about the upper-bracket tax rates, those applicable to the top 2 to 3 percent of taxpayers. What might be the argument for retaining these


tax cuts even though the long-run budget is deeply in the red? That America needs more income inequality? Seems to me we have enough. That letting the top tax rates rise would do grave damage to American capitalism? Like what happened after the Clinton tax hikes of 1993, I guess. Or is it concern about raising taxes in a weak economy? Now there’s a serious argument. Some tax-cut enthusiasts — showing signs of


latent Keynesianism — have pointed out that all tax increases reduce spending, which is not what we want now. They’re right. That’s why any higher taxes should be paired with policies that more than replace the lost spending. Examples abound. We could raise unemployment benefits, as was recently done. Or boost food stamps. Or help hard-pressed state and local governments forestall layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters. Dollar for dollar, these and other options would more than offset the spending lost by letting the tax cuts expire.


MARK ZANDI Chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com


The Bush tax cuts should be extended permanently for families with annual incomes of less than $250,000 and should be phased out slowly for those making more than that. Raising taxes on anyone now, when the economic recovery is so fragile, would be a mistake. Our fiscal problems are daunting, and tax increases will probably need to be part of the eventual solution, but if the recovery were to unravel and a new recession were to begin — a possibility that can’t be dismissed, particularly if tax rates increase — our problems would become overwhelming. Allowing the tax cuts for high-income households to expire over, say, a three-year period would not harm the economy. No more than 3 percent of households would be affected, and these effects would be small; the increased rates are unlikely to change decisions about working and investing. Besides, the economy performed admirably during the 1990s when upper-income


households paid these same higher tax rates. None of this is to say that the tax code should be


off-limits when deciding how to fix our fiscal problems. Everything must be on the table. Experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy’s long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes. But both must be part of our national debate.


DIANE LIM ROGERS


Chief economist at the Concord Coalition and blogger at EconomistMom.com


President Obama will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to simultaneously keep two major policy promises: maintain the generously defined “middle class” portions of the Bush tax cuts and begin to restore fiscal sustainability by reducing the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2015. At the same time, current economic conditions


suggest a continued need for deficit spending to assist in the recovery. Even if the Bush tax cuts are far from the most effective form of additional fiscal stimulus we could come up with, it may be all we can get right now, politically. So one way Obama can avoid simply rubber- stamping the Bush tax cuts — and turning the policy he has labeled “fiscally irresponsible” into his own — while saving face on his promises would be to temporarily extend only those portions of the cuts he has proposed to permanently extend in his past two budgets. A one- or two-year extension would buy time for the economy to further recover, while providing policymakers with a realistic deadline to permanently reform the tax system to raise adequate revenue in a more efficient and equitable manner — in other words, to come up with a tax plan Obama would be proud to put his name on.


DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN Former director of the Congressional Budget Office; senior economic adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign


The debate over the 2001 and 2003 tax laws has been dominated by the tired rhetoric of “tax cuts for the rich.” Tax policy choices must instead be guided by the twin principles of economic growth and tax reform. The economy is growing — it is past the crisis and past the conditions that merit so-called stimulus. But it is growing too slowly, a burden borne by millions of out-of-work Americans. In the aftermath of a severe financial crisis it would be surprising, or even unwise, to expect households to be a robust source of growth. Households should repair their damaged balance sheets as quickly as possible, while the business sector


drives economic expansion. That means that taxes on innovation,


investment and competitiveness — marginal tax rates, dividend taxes and capital gains tax rates — should be low and predictable, especially for the small businesses taxed through the individual tax code. Temporary extensions of these rates do not resolve the uncertainty over the tax policy outlook, while actual rate increases would have an immediate economic downside and impair the long-run outlook. As a whole, the tax code is a disaster that does not merit permanence. Tax reform is a must — which means low rates and a broad base. Immediately raising rates and preserving an artificially narrow base — the president’s plan — is a step away from necessary tax reform. Reform focused on growth and jobs that also raises the needed revenue must necessarily move away from targeted, boutique tax breaks and tax-based social engineering. These are a tax policy luxury that Americans — especially the unemployed — can no longer afford.


LEONARD E. BURMAN Professor of public affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School


Max and Kathy return from a restaurant. Kathy complains, “The food was inedible!” Max nods in agreement. “Yeah. And the servings were so small.” The debate about extending the tax cuts is like that old joke. Everyone knows that our income tax code is a mess. It’s complex, unfair and inefficient and doesn’t raise nearly enough revenue to pay for the government we want. Most of the tax cuts enacted since 2001 expire at the end of 2010. But making those tax breaks permanent and locking in trillion-dollar deficits would be irrational. Given the economy’s fragility, however, it makes sense to extend the “middle class” tax cuts, but only for two or three years. Congress and the president should use that time to enact a major reform that would simplify the income tax code and help address our fiscal mess. There are two reasons not to extend the tax cuts for top earners. First, they are least likely to spend those extra dollars. Thus high-end rate cuts do little to boost the sluggish economy. Second, tax reform should aim to lower rates in exchange for paring loopholes, credits and deductions. Resetting top rates at their pre-2001 levels would give Republicans reason to engage in desperately needed tax reforms. And without bipartisan participation, major tax reform will be impossible.


TOPIC A ONLINE: Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.


 Five myths about the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Outlook, B1


OMBUDSMAN ANDREW ALEXANDER Betting on Sunday


very few years, The Post takes another stab at slowing the erosion of Sunday circulation. But the latest attempt, quietly gaining steam in recent months, has assumed special urgency. Whether it succeeds will have a major impact on Post efforts to return to profitability. And for read- ers, that will affect the quality and ambitions of Post journalism. The Post’s Sunday circulation, which once topped 1.1 million, has steadily declined by more than 350,000 over nearly two decades. Lower cir- culation affects the bottom line. But to really ap- preciate the implications, consider this: Sunday can account for about half of a newspaper’s total revenue. The Sunday stakes are huge. The slide was less worrisome when The Post was


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profitable. But when it tumbled into the red as the economy tanked, a problem became an outsize predicament. To cut costs, money-losing Sunday sections such as Book World and the Sunday Source were jetti- soned. TV Week was limited to subscribers who asked to receive it; then they were charged extra for it. Late-night game results and breaking stories no


longer make it into some Sunday papers. That’s be- cause The Post closed one of its two printing plants to save money, requiring earlier deadlines to print all papers at a single facility. And the price of the Sunday Post was increased, from $1.50 to $2 at newsstands and from $1.50 to $1.85 for home delivery. Many readers properly com- plain they are paying more for less, although few ap- preciate that the price had essentially remained flat since the early 1990s.


The signs of accelerated Sunday erosion have been clear in recent years. An internal Post report in early 2009 showed print readership declines were deeper on Sunday than weekdays. It noted an “alarming” drop within a critical market segment with high trust in the media but increasing reli- ance on the Internet for news. A newspaper-wide committee has been search- ing for solutions. What’s being contemplated should be good for readers. The first tangible step was taken several weeks


ago with newsroom leadership changes to beef up the Sunday product. Kevin Sullivan, a Post veteran and Pulitzer Prize winner, was named Sunday edi- tor with broad authority over that day’s news and features sections. He starts today. “We want to make some changes in the paper,


and we’ll do that sooner rather than later,” Sullivan told me. He declined to specify what’s in the works, but there are clues. Expect Sunday to include more stories that break news. Increasingly, major stories that used to be featured on Sunday have been shifted to weekdays, when online readership is higher. That’s left many Sunday-only readers feeling cheated. Sullivan said Sunday must “showcase” stories that are “newsy.” Also, Sullivan said, the “emphasis on Sunday will be as local as we can make it, because we know that’s who’s reading the paper.” Sunday’s Arts & Style section will get special atten-


tion. “It’s fair to say that we want [it] to pack as much punch as possible,” Sullivan said. Underscoring this emphasis, Style co-editor Lynn Medford has been tapped to focus exclusively on Sunday Arts & Style.


After losing Sunday sections to cost-cutting, read- ers can expect some additions. For example, a Sun- day KidsPost supplement is being considered, pos- sibly wrapped around the syndicated Mini Page. And there’s discussion about delivering some


“soft news” Sunday sections with the plastic- wrapped package of pre-printed comics, maga- zines and coupons delivered Saturday to most sub- scribers. The idea is to create more of a weekend reading experience. “Sundays now look a lot more like Saturdays,”


observed John P. Murray, vice president of audi- ence development for the Newspaper Association of America. “There was a time when Sunday was wide open for newspaper readership,” he said. But with Sunday now packed with shopping and other activities, “the time that can be devoted to the newspaper on that day is, we believe, an issue.” Some in the industry urge that Sunday papers be more aggressively promoted for their money- saving coupons, especially during difficult eco- nomic times. But the product’s worth rests on whether it is journalistically compelling. “If we do our jobs well, we have provable, empir-


ical evidence that people will come to us more.” Sullivan said. “People really do respond to good journalism.” Let’s hope he’s right. Given its importance, what happens to Sunday will affect everything else at The Post.


Andrew Alexander can be reached at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com. For daily updates, read the Omblog at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ ombudsman-blog/.


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