Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Why Hasn't the MSM Covered The New Cell Phone Tax?

I'm getting a little static from WAMK about how the liberal media doesn't run with all those talking points - one he didn't mention is the trope that the administration was going to tax cell phone use if you have a business-issued cell phone. You didn't see ANYTHING about that in the MSM yesterday, and it was all over the right wings blogs. Much was made of Obama's new tax.

Well, that was yesterday. Today there is this:

The Obama administration is in favor of repealing a 1989 law that asked to tax people for using their work cellphones for personal calls. A turn of events after last week, when the IRS said they wanted to enforce it.

Of course, the law was dumb nowadays and almost impossible to enforce, as Douglas Shulman—Internal Revenue Service Commissioner—puts it:

[Treasury] Secretary [Timothy] Geithner and I ask that Congress act to make clear that there will be no tax consequence to employers or employees for personal use of work-related devices such as cellphones provided by employers. The passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete.
Interstingly, Gizmodo quotes two sources; Reuters headlines it as The Obama Administration wanting to repeal the law, while the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal manages to tell the whole story without even mentioning Geithner. I'm just wondering - should the MSM have run with this story yesterday?

6 comments:

  1. I think it's really adorable how you point to the "big" issues, and keep ducking the "little" ones, like the illegal firing of the Sacramento IG. Even Claire McCaskill is slamming Obama for what he did.

    Why are you silent on it?

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  2. Same reason the MSM is... because it isn't illegal. It's another one of those issues that you people spin outta nothin'.

    And McCaskill WAS slamming. (http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1257751.html)

    "One day after criticizing the Obama administration for mishandling the firing of an inspector general, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said Wednesday that the matter had been satisfactorily resolved.

    McCaskill, a Democrat and ally of the president's, had been miffed that the administration did not follow a law she wrote that requires the president to give Congress 30 days advance notice of an inspector general’s dismissal along with cause for the termination.

    She said neither of those conditions had been met in the firing of Gerald Walpin, who watches over AmeriCorps and other programs in the Corporation for National and Community Service.

    “The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of (Walpin),” McCaskill wrote on Tuesday.

    She was among several senators to who had expressed concerns over Walpin’s dismissal.

    But on Tuesday night, after McCaskill had voiced her displeasure, Obama ethics counsel Norm Eisen wrote a letter to Congress in which he said Walpin was removed in part because he was “confused” and “disoriented” at a meeting last month and “unable to answer questions.” "

    Hannity didn't report that last part, probably.

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  3. Oh, well if Obama's own lawyer said it was ok, it must be so. Just like how you agree with Bush's lawyers on how they said waterboarding wasn't torture.

    I wonder what Obama promised McCaskill to do a 180. Didn't Barney Frank do a similar 180 on the Obama DOMA snafu?

    We already know Obama has threatened freshman Congressmen with not helping during re-election time. Why stop there?

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  4. Probably Obahitler threatened her family, just like he killed the only people who could prove that he's not a US citizen. There's your untold story! Call the Wall Street Journal!

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  5. Snark away all you want, but your willing ignorance further solidifies your.status as a laughingstock.

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  6. I know, and that's why I keep going to to your blog... I don't get enough of that reality in the rest of the world. You guys keep me grounded.

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