NY Times Doesn't Shock Us on Taxes

You begin to realize that you've been around the NY Times too long when the editorials that you craft in your head on a topic-anticipating the paper's position-end up being published the next day. So it is with the mayor's proposal to-Oh my God!-cut taxes and return the money to the citizens of the city.

When we did the post on the cuts yesterday we ended our remarks by musing that "We eagerly await the Times' comments...," knowing full well that the paper has never met a tax cut that it approves of. So-Volia!-in today's editorial on the subject the salons of the paper came forth with this predictable observation on the mayor's clarion call to give the people's money back: "It was an undeniable moment of political triumph, but it was less clear that it was a triumph for prudent government."

Why, you might ask? Well because "fiscal responsibility" in Times jargon means to never cut any government excess (an alien concept at 43rd Street) when a tax increase is available; just in case a deficit may lurk around the corner. At the end of the editorial the paper does grudgingly admit the possibility that; "The tax cuts could end up helping the city's fiscal outlook by improving its competitiveness, especially for small business..." As long as it doesn't come at the expense of "fiscal responsibility." Only in the Timesworld do the two ideas appear to be mutually exclusive.