Welcome to the best of the left podcast with clips today from CounterSpin, The Young Turks,

Bill Moyer's Journal, The Onion Radio News, and Ring of Fire.

With the announcement of President Obama's first budget, newspapers were filled with talk

of a radical shift in the nation's economic policy, if not its overall politics. This was

not seen as a good thing, mind you. Primarily because of the White House's decision not

to renew some of the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy, how the media reacted was telling.

According to the LA Times, on February 26th, Obama's budget, quote, laid down controversial

markers on almost every major issue facing the country.

Close quote, their evidence, tax cuts for the poor in middle class, and tax increases

for their wealthy and for major corporations. It's hard to imagine that would be considered

controversial by the public. Meanwhile, The New York Times sounded a bit like Fox News,

calling Obama's proposals, quote, a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by re-imposing a

larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers, close quote.

That's strong language, to be sure. We're the Bush tax cuts, which distributed wealth

upwards, ever described this way. We couldn't find any such language in the Times archives.

We did find a February 2001 article that announced Bush's tax plan in which he calls it a

boon for the working poor. The Times also stressed that the Bush White House would fight to

make sure corporate lobbyists were not reaping the benefits of their policy.

So the lesson would seem pretty clear. Raising taxes on the wealthy is more controversial

than cutting them, or so say to corporate media.

Come on to my house, my house, come on, come on to my house, my house, come on to my house,

I'm gonna give you candy. Come on to my house, my house, I'm gonna give you everything.

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