Yesterday it printed an editorial that implied (incorrectly) that U.S. corporations face a higher tax burden than their competitors in other wealthy countries. Today it has a column by Amity Shlaes that is a diatribe against all the economic damage the Democrats will do. While much of the column is just random ranting against Democratic policies, the column does include the assertion that the Democrats want to eliminate the cap on the Social Security payroll tax, "an effective increase in the top marginal tax rate of 6.2 percent, or for some 12.4 percent, all by itself." The problem with this charge is that no one of any prominence in the Democratic party is proposing removing the cap on the payroll tax. Senator Obama has called for imposing a tax of 2-4 percent on income over $250,000. This would affect only about one-fifth as many people as would be affected by removing the cap on the tax and the maximum impact would be less than one-third as large as Ms. Shlaes suggests. Columnists are supposed to have considerable leeway in expressing their views, but they should not be allowed to attribute positions to their opponents which they do not hold.
--Dean Baker
