AP editorializing in the 'news' again

By Warner Todd Huston

In a recent article on the dissatisfaction of Big Labor we once again we see making its way into what is otherwise supposed to be a normal, everyday "news" story, the Associated Press indulging its penchant for using biased labels and left-wing "definitions" in order to push a left-wing agenda on its readers. Even while presenting straight "news" the AP can't resist swinging all terms and discussions to the liberal side of the fence, a tactic that it employs to push every story to the left.

In an article headlined, "Labor Unions Adjust to New Reality Under Obama," AP writer Sam Hannanel reports the dissatisfaction that Big Labor leaders are increasingly expressing about their Obammessiah. Even though he's been the most union-friendly president in American history their grumbling is rising as they see Obama "failing" them.

The complaint is that Obama hasn't done enough for unions — an astounding claim for what he has done for them in comparison to what past presidents have done.

One can almost understand Big Labor's lament, truthfully. After all, Obama ran as a red-fisted, union-pushing, socialist extremist when he campaigned with unionistas throughout the 2008 campaign. They certainly expected Obama to act Chavez-like assuming the sort of dictatorial powers that one would need to push the union's agenda.

While he has done more than any other president to implement Big Labor's agenda he hasn't been able to defeat the voter's concerns that that agenda is detrimental to any hope of economic recovery and certain political realities have prevented el Presidente Obama's grand reordering of things in the union's favor.

Instead of being grateful for his attacks on business and for using his powers to regulate to hurt the private sector as much as he can, Big Labor is threatening to abandon Obama and the Democrats national aspirations and push their political donations to local races to try and reorder things on a smaller, local scale.

In any case, that was the subject of the AP piece — a report on all the whining, lies, and BS being unleashed by Big Labor on poor old Barack's incompetent head.

But stuck about halfway through the story was one of AP's fast ones, if you will. AP writer Hannanel used pure liberal lies to frame a definition to lead readers into defining that thing using the liberal's terms.

Here is the 12th paragraph of the story (my bold for emphasis):

Union leaders grew more disappointed when the president's health care overhaul didn't include a government-run insurance option. Then Obama agreed to extend President George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

There is no such thing as "Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy," but there it is, right there in the story as if it was a strict definition, a proper characterization of the facts. It was presented straight on as if Hannanel had said, "water is wet."

Now, the real "fact" would have been to say that, "Obama agreed to extend President George W. Bush's tax rates." But the way Hannanel wrote it is to use the liberal's terminology... terminology built upon a lie. Bush's tax cuts (and yes they were tax cuts) were not "cuts for the wealthy." They were cuts for almost everyone that pays federal taxes.

In fact, "the wealthy" ended up paying proportionally more taxes under the Bush tax rates. As Brian Riedl wrote in 2007, "From 2000 to 2004, the share of all individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40% of taxpayers dropped from 0% to -4%, meaning that the average family in those quintiles received a subsidy. The share paid by the top 20% of households increased from 81% to 85%."

It would have been different if the AP's Hannanel said that the union thugs he was writing about had been using the false term "Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy." But that is not how Hannanel wrote the paragraph. He is the one that defined the Bush tax rates as "cuts for the wealthy." Hannanel presented it as fact, not as his opinion.

So, what we have here is a typical example of how the AP frames the debate using the liberal's terms and base assumptions. This is how the AP turns it's "news" into just another effort to push the liberal agenda and this is why the AP is not a trustworthy source for straight, unbiased news.

Hannanel, it is presumed, is just another liberal that wants to push the false idea that tax cuts hurt our economy. This, of course, is another liberal lie. History has shown that tax cuts have usually increased revenue to the government, not reduced it. As Michael T. Griffith so ably writes,

Many liberal commentators argue that tax cuts have caused budget deficits. This is an erroneous argument. As we've seen, every major tax cut since JFK has been followed by a large increase in revenue. The problem has been that government spending has usually risen even more than revenue has risen... Deficits have never been caused by tax cuts but by excessive government spending.

As the Chief Deputy Whip in the House of Representatives, Republican Peter Roskam of Illinois, told me earlier this year, "We don't have a tax problem in Washington. We have a spending problem."

But people like Hannanel and the Associated Press do not want to trim government. Their goal is to increase the reach, scope, and power of government. They are huge supporters of bigger government and smaller citizens. So, instead of reporting facts in a strictly factual manner, Hannanel and the AP flavor the "news" in lib-speak.

This was a perfect example of that tactic.

© Warner Todd Huston