Democrats’ Socialist Spending Spree Gives Journalists a $50,000 Tax Credit

The Big Picture

The Democrats’ socialist spending spree is set to subsidize just about every part of Americans’ lives – from the time they are born to when they die. That’s why the Wall Street Journal has dubbed the reconciliation package as the “cradle-to-grave” legislation.

This bill is riddled with terrible funding streams for all kinds of things, and in the weeks ahead, we will be informing you of some hidden pork barrel funding items in the budget reconciliation package.

Today, we are covering the Democrats’ plan to give a tax credit to the very same journalists who work day-in and day-out to put a political spin on the news and undermine journalistic integrity.

The same Democrats that are all too eager to raise taxes on hardworking Americans intend to give a cushy tax break to their political allies. In fact, as a refundable tax credit, the program works more as a de facto subsidy for publishers.

The Details

• Each quarter, any individual working for a local newspaper publisher is set to get a $12,500 tax credit. That’s $50,000 per year.
• This is a refundable tax credit, meaning if the tax credit exceeds the publisher’s Medicare payroll taxes, the publisher will receive the difference in the form of a check from the IRS. Functionally this program works as a subsidy for publishers.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) rightly called out the Democrats’ ridiculous journalist tax credit program for exactly what it is. “Not only is this proposal a grotesque waste of taxpayer money,” said Mr. Johnson, “it would be a dangerous precedent of government collusion with the media.”

The IRS already has a history of wrongfully targeting conservative organizations. President Obama’s IRS was riddled with scandal as agents purposefully targeted conservative groups. It is not hard to imagine the corruption stemming from IRS bureaucrats pouring over a publisher’s material to see if they qualify for the Democrats’ lavish journalist tax break.

Why It Matters

Bernie Sanders and the Democrats’ partisan reconciliation package is a mountain of wasteful spending designed to line the pockets of their political allies at the expense of American taxpayers.

It is no surprise that among the first in line to benefit from the Democrats’ socialist spending spree are journalists who routinely shirk objectivity in favor of blatant partisan bias.

Rather than passing a $3.5 trillion left-wing boondoggle, Congress should be focusing on getting our fiscal house in order. For the first time in our nation’s history, the national debt is set to eclipse the $30 trillion mark. Yet out-of-touch champagne socialists in Washington are committed to pushing through their radical proposal, and conservatives must oppose it.