NPR Complains As Reid's Unicorn Whopper Grows

NPR has asked me to correct certain facts “that undermine the basis” of my blog  Sen. Harry Reid’s Unicorns: Fact Checking a Whopper.

For those who missed it, I demonstrated the utter nonsense of Reid’s Senate-floor statement that “millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They’re impossible to find, and they don’t exist.” Reid went on to claim that only one percent of million-dollar-plus earners are business owners. Most are hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers, who don’t need a tax break.

I showed that the 236,000 millionaire tax filers earn almost a quarter of a trillion dollars from businesses and professions according to the IRS, and only some 15,000 are hedge fund managers or wealthy lawyers. The Treasury lists 126,000 millionaire small business owners. Seems like quite a few unicorns and unicorn-generated jobs to me.

NPR does not dispute these facts. Instead, NPR objects to my “mischaracterization” of its December 9 broadcast that Reid cited in his December 12 Senate statement.

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Sen. Harry Reid's Unicorns: Fact Checking A Whopper

Tax policy should be serious business carried out by serious politicians using real facts and figures. This is why we have the Library of Congress and the Congressional Budget Office, among other expert institutions.
How can we take Congress seriously when the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, makes patently inaccurate, outrageous and bizarre claims on an important tax-policy issue without any heads being turned? I guess this is what we have come to expect of Congress. No wonder citizens with favorable opinions of Congress are as rare as unicorns, to borrow a phrase.

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