well, corporations need a break also....

[Guest guest]

ACTION ALERT: " Political Dynamite " Fails to Explode

Extreme proposals of Treasury's O'Neill mostly unreported

 

June 13, 2001

 

When a high-level government official calls for drastic changes in U.S. law,

it ought to be big news. But in an interview reported by the Financial

Times' Amity Shlaes (5/19/01 & 5/22/01), treasury secretary Paul O'Neill

called for sweeping changes in U.S. tax and social policy, and some three

weeks later, those statements have made hardly a ripple in the U.S. media.

Most Americans have probably not heard a word about them.

 

In the interview, O'Neill called the current U.S. tax system " an

abomination " that required changes to its " very structure. " His preferred

changes? O'Neill " absolutely " supports the elimination of taxes on

corporations-- and the shifting of the tax burden to individuals, saying

government would work better if it " collected taxes in a more direct way

from the people. "

 

He also called for the abolition of Social Security and Medicare, on the

grounds that " able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis so

that they can provide for their own retirement, and, for that matter, health

and medical needs. " In fact, O'Neill believes the U.S. should reconsider the

whole purpose of taxation: " National defense is a federal responsibility, "

Shlaes paraphrases O'Neill as saying, " but all other outlays need review. "

 

And O'Neill assured Shlaes he was not speaking only for himself: " Not only

am I committed to working on this issue, the president is also intrigued

about the possibility of fixing this mess. "

 

The Financial Times described O'Neill's comments (approvingly) as " radical "

and " political dynamite. " Yet the story has so far failed to take hold in

the U.S. press.

 

Three columnists at New York's Newsday noted O'Neill's remarks: Robert Reno

(who said the Treasury Secretary " comes across as a man who has paid a lot

of taxes and clearly resents it " -- 5/27/01) Marie Cocco (5/31/01) and Paul

Vitello (5/24/01). An obviously irked Vitello took it the furthest, actually

calling O'Neill's spokesman at Treasury to confirm that these were not

" made-up quotes " :

 

" The secretary didn't really mean to say that no matter how old, no person

who has paid into the Social Security system all his or her life would be

entitled to benefits until he or she is physically no longer able to work?

He didn't really mean to say that ExxonMobil and Time Warner should be

treated as we treat the church-- as tax exempt?

 

" 'Yes,' said the spokesman, 'that is our position. The quotes were all

accurate.' "

 

Thomas DeFrank of New York's Daily News also reported O'Neill's comments

(5/22/01), but he apparently got a different response from the Treasury

Department. " Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said O'Neill's comments on

Social Security reflected his personal views, not the Bush

administration's, " he noted.

 

Outside of local New York papers, the story was harder to find. Cox wire

service reporter Scott Shepard filed a story (5/20/01), which noted only

O'Neill's description of the tax system as an " abomination " and the claim

that the president was " also intrigued " about major changes, including

cutting corporate taxes. A short piece in the May 22 Investor's Business

Daily ( " A Whiff of Reform in the Air " ) did the same, and was echoed in its

approving tone by a column in the May 23 Washington Times ( " Signals for Tax

Repair? " ).

 

O'Neill has made several television appearances since the Financial Times

interview, but a search of the Nexis.com database turned up just two TV

references to the remarks, neither on a Big 3 network. The Financial Times'

own Robert Thomson teased his paper's interview at the end of a May 18

appearance on CNNfn's " The N.E.W. Show " whose main subject was the

Lucent/Alcatel merger. And Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow asked O'Neill

about the idea of " getting rid of the corporate income tax " on June 3.

(O'Neill declined to answer, saying only that " we need to fundamentally look

at the way our tax code works. " )

 

What about the country's major outlets, the place one would look for a story

of such import? So far, O'Neill's radical statements have made it into the

New York Times only in an op-ed by Democratic partisans James Carville and

Paul Begala (5/27/01). USA Today ran an Associated Press column (5/22/01)

that placed O'Neill's calls for eliminating taxes on corporations at the

end, after discussion of estate taxes and " simplification " of the tax

system, and noted only that the Treasury Secretary has plans for " reform " of

Social Security. (AP's original headline on the piece: " O'Neill: Further Tax

Relief Coming, " 5/21/01.)

 

Washington Post columnist John O. Fox used O'Neill's " abomination " quote to

shore up his own argument about the U.S.'s " monstrously complicated " tax

code, but ignored the rest of his statements. And the Post's David Broder

made no reference to the Financial Times interview in his June 6 column,

which referred to Bush administration plans to " open [social Security and

Medicare] up to market forces. "

 

Broder did note congenially that " as Treasury Secretary Paul

O'Neill...reminded me the other day, what makes the task so difficult is the

need to educate people about the current system, before they can be

persuaded that it needs to be changed as the administration proposes. "

 

Indeed, the American people could use " educating " about just what the Bush

administration and its Treasury Secretary propose. But where will they get

it if not from the mainstream news media?

 

 

ACTION: Please write to national and local media outlets and ask them why

Paul O'Neill's calls for eliminating corporate taxes and Social Security

were not a major news story.

 

Some suggested contacts include:

 

ABC World News Tonight

Anchor and Senior Editor

Peter Jennings

PeterJennings

 

NBC News

DC Bureau Chief & Host, " Meet the Press "

Tim Russert

mtp

 

New York Times

nytnews

Toll free comment line: 1-888-NYT-NEWS

 

Washington Post

Deputy National Editor (Domestic Policy)

Leonard Bernstein

bernsteinl

 

Los Angeles Times

DC Bureau Chief

Doyle McManus

doyle.mcmanus

 

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