Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Et tu, New York Times?

I was minding my own business, reading The New York Times.
I read it the way you learn to when you grow up in New York City – with the intricate double-sided fold that lets you read even in rush hour, one hand on the paper and the other on the metal bar.
I was cool, calm and collected.
Until I saw it.

“Tax relief.”

It wasn’t in an editorial by David Brooks. It wasn’t in a quotation from the President. It was in an article, an every day article, a piece of journalism, a supposedly dispassionate report that was now adopting the most pernicious but successful frame offered by the right-wing.

Tax relief.

As in, “There were accomplishments in the governor’s first six months in office… He and lawmakers increased property tax relief by $1.3 billion.” (New York Times, June 22, 2007)

As in, “But here’s the rub for Mr. Schumer. There is a good chance raising taxes on really rich people will come attached to bills to provide education credits or tax relief to the not so rich.” (New York Times, June 22, 2007).

As in, “It would also provide about $110 million in sales tax relief by eliminating city sales taxes that now apply to clothing and shoe purchases of over $110…”. (New York Times, June 14, 2007).

I’m not saying that I think all taxes are fantastic. They aren’t. I’ve met many a tax I didn’t like, contrary to popular belief. Sales taxes, for example, are inherently regressive and should be reduced. But it’s the choice of language that matters here. Instead of saying that these taxes were cut, or instead of talking about the amount of money that would no longer flow into the city treasury, Ray Rivera wrote of “sales tax relief.” Why not just say, “It would also eliminate city sales taxes that now apply to clothing and shoe purchases of over $110, a tax cut valued at $110 million in total.”

I hate to sound like George Lakoff, but these terms matter. Tax relief signals that taxes are a burden we need relief from, not the gas that fuels a government that provides regular people with the schools and clean and safe streets and police officers we rely on. Taxes are bad, they say, because government is bad, they say. The very adoption of the term by The New York Times in their reporting, no less, is a victory for the conservative right, and sloppy reporting by the New York Times. (And, thanks for DMI intern Margaret Goodwin’s analysis, I can say for sure that the Times used this phrase repeatedly over the last month, several more times than the Daily News and New York Post. An overreaction to contrived accusations of liberal media bias?)

I gave a lecture last week to some bright students at Metropolitan College as part of their Urban Dialogues series. My talk was based on the notion that “ideas matter,” and that the notions that we hold are so important to how we see people, policy and politics. The students were very smart, yet the very questions they asked proved my point. When I talked about the estate tax, one young woman asked if I meant “the death tax.” They thought that there are too many lawsuits, that teachers unions were bad, and that lawyers were greedy. One questioner asked if programs that address poverty would facilitate complacency.

I was altogether depressed. I’m not saying anything new here – we all know that the conservative right has been overwhelmingly successful at mainstreaming the frames that, in sometimes subtle ways like “tax relief,” convey their politics. And, we all know that the way we think about taxes, the way we think about poor people, the way we think about our civil justice system has profound implications for the kinds of policies we adopt (or don’t).

This is a warning for all of us. Win the Congress, win the White House. All good. But if we allow Conservatives to continue to dominate the terms of the debate and control the lens through which the majority of Americans understand (and read about) their world, our victories will be limited.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 5:23 PM, Jun 27, 2007 in Media
Permalink | Email to Friend