Win Quigley’s Aug. 17 front-page column in the Albuquerque Journal should have helped put to rest – for that paper’s readers at least – the furor that had been whipped up nationwide about an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. “Religious Freedom a Key Value” was a pointed, calm and factual piece that exposed some of the misconceptions about the project, while recognizing that rising numbers of Americans viewed the project as desecration of the nearby 9/11 site.

But indignation was not put to rest and poll-sniffing politicians continued to join the condemnation chorus in the name of true American values. According to Quigley’s follow-up column of Aug. 31, Albuquerque Journal readers who responded to the first column expressed fear.

In his unwaveringly calm voice, Quigley responded to the response with yet another explanation. In this column, headlined “Islam’s Complex, But Not a Threat,” Quiqley evenly pointed out that:

The culture of American is always under siege. Countless new arrivals have transformed American culture over the generations. . . . The idea that a handful of Islamic radicals can destroy a nation of 300 million people protected by the world’s largest military is absurd.

He then “cribbed” (his word) from the writings of a former Roman Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong, to present the core teachings and life of Muhammad in order to provide a contrast to the extremist views of terrorists whose actions belie claims of adherence to those teachings. Reliably, Quigley backed this up with history:

The vile and blasphemous philosophy of Osama bin Laden and his ilk dates from the mid-20th century, not the Quran. Islamic rulers in the Middle East had dominated much of civilization for centuries. By the end of World War I, the Islamic Middle East was little more than a colony of the West. To believers, that was proof that the favor of God had been lost because Muslims were not living a life consistent with God’s will. Religious and secular leaders in the Middle East have been trying to respond to this crisis ever since.

Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Saddam Hussein in Iraq thought the solution was to create a strictly secular society, accomplished in part by imprisoning and executing Muslim activists. A Pakistani Muslim, Abdul Ala Mawdudi, in the 1950s said God’s favor could be reclaimed by waging war on barbarians. Sayyid Qutb, executed by Nasser in 1966, said Muslims needed to isolate from secular society and wage war on non-Muslims. Both views were completely new in Islam, were directly contradicted by the Quran and flew in the face of Muhammad’s life of engagement in the world and respect for others.

Sadly, it’s likely that Quigley’s thoughtful instruction will be drowned out here at home, as it is nationwide, by well-financed faux news and its commentators, who will continue to protest the community center. The result is likely more fear, more distrust of those with different viewpoints, and a victory for deconstructionists who oppose moving forward – whether with plans for a community center or solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems.

Which brings me to last Saturday’s extraordinarily thoughtful piece in the Chicago Sun-Times about “Beckapalooza.”

Fortunate enough to be in Chicago that day, I was reminded  by Sun-Times writer Christopher Benson that Aug. 28 — the day self-aggrandizer Glenn Beck had chosen to wrest “race” from American civil rights dialogue — was significant in more ways than the fact that it fell on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful “I Had a Dream” speech of 1963 .

It was the 55th anniversary, too, of the 1955 murder of Chicago boy Emmett Till, a 14-year-old who was lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta.

And it also was the anniversary, Benson reminded us, of Barack Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech as the nation’s first African American to receive a major party nomination for the presidency.

I have been burdened all week by the juxtaposition of these pieces by Quigley and Benson and the realization of two things:

That fellow United States citizens would expend valuable voice and energy to eschew the rights of others in terms of freedom of speech and religion (not to mention defiance of New York City zoning laws) in order to object to a perceived desecration of the 9/11 site. (And draw attention from more pressing national matters.)

And yet, those politically aligned with objections to the so-called “9/11 mosque” fully utilized that same freedom of speech (and invoked a lot of religion) as they desecrated with impunity the anniversary date of  King’s best-known speech (and its Lincoln Memorial venue), and at the same time hijacked the anniversary of one the more horrific examples of murder and racism in U.S. history.

To illustrate the significance of Beck’s date and location choice, Sun-Times writer Christopher Benson summoned up the voice and spirit of Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmett’s mother, when he wrote his Aug. 28 column, “Listen for echoes of past at Beckapalooza.”

Benson, who co-authored a book with Till-Mobley before her own death, wrote that “Mother Mobley” would see the gathering at the Lincoln Memorial as “a teachable moment”:

She understood the politics of difference, the politics of place. She recognized the potential pushback when you stepped out of place. Whistling at a white woman. Living in the White House.

So she would see parallels between then and now. She could interpret the code, the messages of hate and racism that get embedded in the vocabulary of patriotism. . . .

That is why slogans like “Restoring Honor” and “take back our country” today would sound so much to her like preserving “a way of life” once did in the euphemism of resistance — the reign of terror — in the 1950s South.

. . . After all, restoring honor is exactly what Emmett’s racist killers thought they were doing by forcing him back into his place — beating and torturing him to death.

Benson continues:

Remembering is about more than sorting our emotions. It’s about understanding the powerful significance of these important moments, appreciating the journey we have taken to develop a more inclusive society. The slaying of Emmett Till — as horribly tragic as it was — moved people forward with a new resolve to dismantle a system of violently enforced exclusion. American Apartheid.

Dr. King’s “Dream” speech and Obama’s acceptance speech shared the vision of a better place out on the horizon. And Obama’s acceptance speech also was crafted in the language of unity.

The common theme that ties these moments together is forward movement. Of all the ways one might describe Beckapalooza, Mamie Till-Mobley likely would opt for “backward.”

Backward indeed. Vitriolic rants against mosques and immigrants are encouraging violence, just as rallies exhorting “taking back” the nation further pull the country apart. Meanwhile, attention and energies are being diverted at a time when the United States desperately needs to get moving on implementing solutions to joblessness, hunger and preservation of the union itself.

Is whiplash one of the approved conditions for prescribing the use of medical marijuana in New Mexico?

Because I’ve got a bad case of it after reading today’s editorial in the Albuquerque Journal.

The piece, headlined “Why Would Congress Evict the Deathly Ill?” was an impassioned critique of the recent situation involving the owners of a number of Albuquerque apartments, who announced recently that they would not rent to any tenants who use medical marijuana.

The apartment owners’ reasoning? That they get federal housing subsidies for their projects and, to protect that money, need to ensure that federal drug law is followed to the letter.

The Journal editorial chose to excoriate Congress for allowing this sort of legal and policy discrepancy between state and federal law to exist.

In many ways, the editorial was a welcome illustration of a core problem plaguing state-run medical pot programs – namely, the difficulty of administering a state medical marijuana program in a country that has ruled all marijuana use illegal. It’s a valid issue for those who sincerely support compassionate pot use – and one that deserves scrutiny and pressure.

But how does the editorial square with how the Journal has treated the state’s medical marijuana program in the past?

That’s what has my head spinning.

In the past, the Journal editors have said they support the concept of the compassionate use of medical marijuana. But in countless editorials, they have appeared to ridicule everything about New Mexico’s  highly-regarded and tightly-controlled program, from the qualifying medical conditions it uses, to the rules governing pot suppliers and even the motivations of its top administrator, New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil.

In this editorial, though, Journal editors come off as the most passionate medical pot advocates around.

From the piece:

“You can understand where the tenants are coming from – they have debilitating conditions ranging from HIV to bone cancer and have state-sanctioned marijuana prescriptions to get a little relief.”

Oh, the editors couldn’t pass up a dig at Vigil and his “penchant for secrecy.”

But this editorial, unlike many others that precede it, makes it sound like Journal editors really care about medical marijuana patients.

Forgive me for my lack of compassion, but it seems a little cynical to me.

Perhaps the chance to slam Congress for its inaction on this matter of state vs. federal law was too good for Journal editors to pass up.

But please, Journal editors, don’t use this issue to pretend that you suddenly care about the pain of medical marijuana patients now.

The Aug. 30 New Yorker story “Covert Operations,” Jane Mayer’s chronicle of the Koch brothers’ “war against Obama,” is worth reading.

Mayer may overstate the power of those wealthy far right activists, but she does support her hypothesis with evidence and – here’s our local angle – the article casts some (incidental) light on the Albuquerque Journal.

Before we get there, let’s recap Mayer’s story. David and Charles Koch, 70-somethings, own Koch Industries of Kansas, a conglomerate based on oil refineries and pipelines with significant interests in lumber (Georgia-Pacific), textiles (Stainmaster carpets, Lycra) and paper products (Brawny, Dixie cups).

They have given millions to laissez-faire foundations, several “institutes” that fight environmental regulation, the market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University and groups abetting Tea Party activists.

Koch founded Americans for Prosperity (led by Tim Phillips, former Ralph Reed business partner) and FreedomWorks (chaired by former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey), according to Adele M. Stans of AlterNet (Alternet.org), which explored the story early.

The Koch company has denied direct links to the Tea Party, writes Mayer, but:

“As their fortunes grew, Charles and David Koch became the primary underwriters of hard line libertarian politics in America.”

That’s Libertarian, not conservative.

When David Koch ran for VP on the Libertarian ticket in 1979-80, “his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools — in other words, any government enterprise that would either inhibit his business profits or increase his taxes.” (Read “The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party,” a summary by Frank Rich, N.Y. Times Aug. 29.)

The late conservative William F. Buckley called it, “Anarcho-Totalitarianism.”

Getting the picture? Good. We’re nearing the New Mexico angle.

In 1977, the Koch brothers helped launch the nation’s first libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. (They sparked the laissez-faire Heritage Foundation, too.)
Cato campaigns against government regulation of business and environmental abuse, while decrying Social Security and Medicare.

That same CATO played rich uncle to the Rio Grande Foundation of New Mexico, providing seed money.

Regular Journal readers know that Rio Grande Foundation president Paul J. Gessing frequently opines for the Journal. And that RGF board and staff members also write columns for the Journal; sometimes, they’re even so identified.

Observant readers also see many Gessing letters. Journal reporters quote him often. And – such is the Journal’s appetite for Gessing’s expertise – the daily profiled him this spring.

As Tracy Dingmann noted in her Journal Watch post of May 13, Gessing was frank:

“Right now, of course, a lot of the talk’s on trying to work with and maximize the effectiveness of the tea parties and keep them on message and try to help guide that whole thing without trying to manage it.”

Great image, no? The “independent” and “nonpartisan” Rio Grande Foundation helping “guide” the “nonpartisan” tea parties.

But the picture of the Journal and Rio Grande Foundation ambling down Newspaper Lane hand-in-hand raises better questions. Independent or co-dependent? Platonic soul mates or bedmates? Financially, I mean.

I don’t know the answers. Indisputably, however, the Journal’s adoration of Buckley conservatism is history, its worship of St. Pete the Subsidizer, waning. The newspaper’s dominant narrative is laissez-faire.

Like the Koch brothers.

Since that’s where we came in and you now see how their crusade for corporate sovereignty connects with the Albuquerque Journal-Rio Grande Foundation narrative, I’ll quit here.

After asking that you read my entire connecting-of-dots as FYI. Because you’ll never read it or anything similar in the Journal.

Asking who’s behind the curtain is not the Journal’s cup of tea. Not, that is, when the Wizards manipulating the innocents of Oz are corporatists.

Here’s another thought regarding that front page Journal story from Aug. 30 about the undocumented family who moved from Arizona to New Mexico in the wake of the state’s controversial immigration law.

Yesterday I wrote about the paper’s failure to use the story to make a case that Albuquerque Public Schools is being overrun by undocumented students fleeing Arizona.

Today I must ask – why on earth did the paper choose to run a picture of those two children on the front page? I’m talking about the 14 and 17 year-old-brothers who moved here from Arizona with their mom. The Journal ran a large photo of them to illustrate the story about the boys’ illegal status and the fact that they are attending APS schools.

I ask because, for the paper, running that feature photo on the front page was exactly that – a choice. And it was a bad one.

They Are Children

As minors, those children should not have been allowed to give consent to be photographed for the paper – to identified for all to see as undocumented immigrants, subject to deportation. Was their mother consulted? Did she understand the ramifications?

Even if the answer to both of those questions is yes, the paper should not have run the photograph of these children.

The whole way the Journal handled this story is just odd. In the story, the boys are only identified by their first names.

But their pictures are plastered over the paper!

If the intent was to disguise their identities, the paper had to know that strategy wouldn’t work.

When To Use Last Names

And I don’t even know how to square the Journal’s handling of this story with what I’ve heard from immigration advocates who’ve sought meetings with the paper’s editors.

In the interest of getting the Journal to run stories from the immigrants’ point of view, local immigration advocates told me they’ve met with the papers editors and been rebuffed. The reason? If the immigrants aren’t willing to give their full names, the paper cannot use them in stories. In other words, the advocates were told, the paper simply can’t tell immigrant stories, because they can’t let people be in the paper if they can’t run their last names.

A Porous Policy

I wrote for the Journal for years, and I know that editors DO grant permission for dropping someone’s last name or using a pseudonym sporadically, on a case-by-case basis.

I distinctly remember getting permission to use a pseudonym for a female sex addict for a story I was writing about women who were addicted to porn.

If permission was granted so I could tell that incredibly newsworthy story – shouldn’t it be granted to undocumented immigrants, so the paper can better report on what’s become one of the biggest news stories of the year?

Apparently, for this latest story, the paper was able to change its policy. Because at last, it interviewed undocumented immigrants and didn’t use their last names.

It just put their pictures on the front page.

Where there’s heat, there’s not always fire.

That’s what I thought after reading today’s front page Journal story about the apparent influx of undocumented students in APS schools in the wake of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law? (read: “New Home: Family Came to N. M. to Escape Immigration Law”).  The story traced the journey of one undocumented family, a mother and two teen-age sons, who came to New Mexico from Arizona.

Or was the story actually about the apparent increased flow of undocumented families to New Mexico in the wake of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law?

I’m not quite sure – but the story really didn’t prove either as a trend.

Here’s what stuck out to me as I read it.

Questions With No Answers

Regarding how many undocumented students are in APS, overall:

So, it’s not clear how many are citizens, legal residents, or are here illegally.

Regarding how much money is being spent on immigrant students:

It’s also hard to figure out exactly how much money is being spent on immigrant students.

(The closest the story is able to come up with is an irrelevant figure reporting how much the district spends on bilingual education each year.)

An Influx From Arizona?

And, regarding the possible wave of undocumented students fleeing Arizona and flooding APS schools?

While some families have moved from Arizona to New Mexico over the summer, it doesn’t appear to be making much difference in enrollments.

APS spokesman Rigo Chavez said preliminary estimates show an increase of fewer than 1,000 students total in the district this year, or less than 1 percent.

Highland principal Scott Elder said he has heard anecdotal evidence of families from Arizona signing their children up for classes at his school.
‘There are no hard numbers, though,’ he said.”

Not Exactly Proof of a Trend, Or Much Else, Really

So essentially what we have in this story is evidence of exactly one family who moved to New Mexico from Arizona and who will enroll two kids in Albuquerque Public Schools.

I am not saying reporter Juan Carlos Rodriguez didn’t try to find a bunch of illegal immigrants from Arizona moving in on New Mexico schools. I’m sure his editors asked him to go out and do exactly that, and I’m sure he tried very hard to do so. I remember doing the same when I was a reporter. An editor has an idea – and you go out and try to bring home a story that matches it.

But what Rodriguez found in this case was anything but a trend.

So it’s interesting to me that this non-story still made the front page.

Check in tomorrow to see what else I noticed about this story (I bet you noticed it, too…it’s staring you right in the face)!

We have written here before on Journal Watch about the time-honored separation of news coverage and editorial opinion to which – thankfully – most American newspapers still adhere.

Why is this separation important? Well, for newspapers that tout themselves as objective, keeping a firewall between news stories and the opinion page ensures that readers actually get objective news coverage – untainted by mere opinions, which are something quite different. Without a strictly-maintained firewall, for all we know, the news presented in the state’s “Paper of Record” could be shot through with manipulative propaganda.

We’ve noted the many times the Albuquerque Journal has violated this time-honored journalistic principle and noted how it constitutes a disservice to its readers.

On Aug. 25, someone else thought they noticed the same thing about the New York Times.

Wrong On Social Security

The Center for Economic Policy and Research, a research institute established in 1999 to “promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives,” noted that the Times carried a column by Matt Bai that got a few key facts about Social Security wrong.

The center was co-founded by economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot, and its advisory board includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Janet Gornick, Professor at the CUNY Graduate School and Director of the Luxembourg Income Study; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

In a blog post called “New York Times Ends Separation of News and Editorial Section in Attack on Social Security,” center co-director Dean Baker wrote:

The NYT has apparently decided to give up on the old-fashioned distinction between news and opinion running a piece by Matt Bai insisting that there is no alternative to cutting Social Security to deal with the federal debt. The piece includes the bizarre assertion that Treasury bonds are “often referred to as i.o.u.’s.”

This is of course absurd. The business pages of major newspapers are full of references to Treasury bonds all the time. The bonds are never referred to as “i.o.u.’s.”

The article then includes the bizarre assertion about government bonds that the only way for the government to make good on the bonds it has outstanding: “is to issue mountains of new debt or to take the money from elsewhere in the federal budget, or perhaps impose significant tax increases — none of which seem like especially practical options for the long term.”

Bai’s opinion, it is radically at odds with perceptions in financial markets. These markets view it as almost inconceivable that the government will not honor its bonds, which is why the interest rate on long-term bonds is near its lowest level in the last 60 years.

While presenting what is supposed to be a non-partisan view of Social Security, remarkably Bai never once examines the program’s finances nor the financial situation of the people who would experience the cuts that are being considered.

It’s notable that the esteemed economists took such umbrage at Bai’s arguments – and they do have a point about the things he got wrong.

My Take

Here’s what I thought: It is not clear to me at all whether Bai’s pieces are supposed to be considered opinion or fact. He’s billed as a staff columnist at the Times, which would suggest that he is free to express his personal opinion in what he writes. But his columns don’t appear on the opinion page – they run elsewhere among the paper’s news stories.

So I guess for me, it’s the same kind of mildly queasy feeling I get when I read one of those “UpFront” pieces the Journal runs on the front page – the ones were you can’t tell whether a columnist is expressing their opinion or reporting straight news.

Journal readers are constantly writing in to complain because they’ve mistaken Leslie Linthicum’s wicked sarcasm for news or been confused by the way the paper wraps former investigative reporter (OR IS HE?) Thom Cole’s hit pieces in a vaguely column-y format.

If I have a point here, it’s this: It sure is hard to find straight news in the paper these days.



“Spree, n. 1. A carefree, lively outing. 2. A drinking bout. 3. A sudden indulgence in or outburst of an activity. See synonyms at binge.” – American Heritage Dictionary.

I offer the definition above to cast light on an Albuquerque Journal headline this Wednesday morning, Aug. 25:

“Stimulus Spree is Over, Sen. Says.”

The Senator, Jeff Bingaman, said nothing of the kind.

Not if we are to believe reporter John Fleck’s story, 18 paragraphs on the Senator’s remarks to the Journal’s editorial board.

According to Fleck, Bingaman defended the stimulus while opining that the Congress won’t add more – hardly what the headline said.

Now the Journal’s passion for headlines misrepresenting the stories below isn’t news, but insinuating ”spree” into the Senator’s mouth may represent a new low.

A great preponderance of economists – including conservatives like Journal favorite Robert J. Samuelson – believes the bailouts and stimulus saved us from a second Great Depression and mitigated the Crash’s economic fallout.

Some, in fact, regret the stimulus wasn’t bigger.

The primary dissenters are those laissez-faire economists who didn’t abandon the Faith after the Crash.

Of course, the Republican Party is campaigning against the stimulus. Which isn’t to say the Journal headline reflects a GOP agenda.

It’s also possible the headline writer lacked a dictionary.

Kudos to the Journal for the Aug. 22 front-page news story “City Police Wrestle with Spike in Shootings,” in which reporter Astrid Galvan examined the recent increase in APD-involved shootings. City police have shot 10 people so far this year, and seven have died.

I wrote about the alarming rise in shootings on Journal Watch back in June and expressed my hope that the city’s only daily would continue to look into the circumstances of each incident.

Why? In my mind, police shootings are a critical barometer of the health and safety of a community. In a civilized society, we must depend on the police to protect us, but we must also have constant reassurance that they are not abusing the unique power that we as citizens bestow upon them. That is especially true when we are talking about police actions against the powerless and voiceless among us – who sometimes have no one else to speak for them. But we should also remember that the issue of police shootings of civilians could potentially affect any one of us who lives in Albuquerque.

Traditionally, asking tough questions about police conduct has been and should be a newspaper’s bread and butter. In the absence of strong voices from the community (or in addition to them), it is the media’s duty to ask questions like: Is there a pattern in these most recent police shootings? Was someone killed wrongfully? Could police policy be changed to prevent such shootings?

With Galvan’s story, the paper gets serious about asking these questions. The story contains a breakdown of crucial data about the shootings, including an aggregation of the details behind each, in an effort to elucidate themes or patterns behind them.
It also compares the rates of shootings in Albuquerque with rates regionally and nationally.

Today (Aug. 24), the paper followed up with an editorial calling for an independent party to take another look at the 10 shootings. In “Put Another Set of Eyes on APD Shootings,” the paper’s editors urge Mayor Richard Berry to follow through on his promise to find an independent agency to review the police shootings.

For me, here’s the money paragraph:

The killing of someone by an officer is the ultimate exercise of police power of the state. Its use should be rare; its examination rigorous.

Exactly. Kudos to Mayor Berry for pledging to “put another set of eyes” on these shootings, and kudos to the Journal for promising to hold him to it.

UPDATE:

One question the Journal didn’t ask about the police shootings – or at least didn’t make clear WHETHER it asked it – was whether the officer named Josh Brown who shot and killed Enrique Carrasco on Aug. 17 was the same officer Josh Brown who shot and killed Jay Martin Murphy in 2007.

It doesn’t sound like it’s the same police officer – according to an (unattributed) statement in an Aug. 18 story by Galvan, the Josh Brown involved in the most recent shooting had only been on the force for two years – and this was his first officer-involved shooting.

A quick check of The Albuquerque Tribune’s archives shows that the Josh Brown who shot Jay Martin Murphy in 2007 was a ten-year veteran of the force.

But it’s not like the Journal not to make something like that clear.  Someone else noticed – and asked me about the similar names.

So I put in a call to APD’s Internal Affairs to try to get the answer. If they call me back , I’ll let you know what I find out.

UPDATE II

APD Internal Affairs called back: Not the same guy.

As I was saying the other day, journalism schools may benefit from reading the Albuquerque Journal.

“Benefit” may be understatement though, as a description of the Journal’s gifts to the trade. Consider what New Mexico’s most widely distributed daily contributed Sunday, Aug. 22 – an entirely novel use for the headline!

Eugene Robinson, whose mildly-stated liberal opinions the Journal often publishes, devoted his Washington Post-syndicated column (B2) to a few of President Obama’s recent accomplishments.

The Journal headlined it:

“Obama’s the Best President Ever.”

Since Robinson didn‘t say that or anything like it, the rubric was – get this – ridicule.

What a great contribution to journalistic theory and practice!

Presumably, UNM journalism instructors henceforth will tell their students newspaper editors can and should employ headlines to ridicule, denigrate their columnists or the opinions thereof.

Either that, or the teachers will note that the Albuquerque Journal no longer even pretends to respectability and move to another topic. Like, for example, the moral superiority of honestly corrupt folks in journalism and life.

You know, those who don’t pretend to have principles.

Remember when the Albuquerque Journal was fighting health care reform tooth-and-nail in its “news” columns?

I was struck at the time by the Journal’s respect for the “nonpartisan” Congressional Budget Office. Every time the “nonpartisan” CBO projected the cost of a particular health reform plan under Congressional consideration, the Journal highlighted it. Editors often gave it page one.

These were CBO projections that the reform would be very costly.

When the CBO projected that the final plan would save big money over several years, the Journal, curiously, hardly noticed. But no matter – my point is the Journal gave great credence to those “nonpartisan” reports.

That was in the back of my mind as I read Lori Montgomery’s August 12 Washington Post story headlined:

“GOP plan to extend tax cuts for rich adds $36 billion to deficit, panel finds.”

The panel wasn’t the CBO; it was the “nonpartisan” Joint Committee on Taxation.

Democrats on House Ways and Means asked the JCT to analyze how a Republican plan to extend the Bush tax cuts, including those for the richest Americans, would affect the deficit next year.

The JCT responded that it would add $36 billion “and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires,” wrote Montgomery.

Specifically, the committee came up with new data showing that “households earning more than $1 million a year would reap nearly $31 billion in tax breaks under the GOP plan in 2011, for an average tax cut per household of about $100,000.”

President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the cuts only for families making less than $250,000 a year and individuals making less than $200,000 – 98 percent of American taxpayers. That would cost $202 billion.

But they’d allow the tax cuts for the richest two percent to expire.

The Post story noted that “ Even some Republicans, including Reagan administration budget chief David Stockman and former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, have urged lawmakers to let them expire and allow income tax rates to pop back up to their levels during the Clinton administration.”

The Albuquerque Journal publishes a lot of Washington Post stories. The Journal publishes many stories on taxation. And, as noted, the Journal respects what nonpartisan panels say.

But it didn’t publish this story.