"tax" or "penalty"?
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jul 3 12:22:31 UTC 2012
Every commentator I've seen on TV (and I watch a hell of a lot), whether
right or left, pol or journo, expert or otherwise, is passionately hung up
on the question of whether the inidividual mandate is a "tax" or a
"penalty."
What's remarkable is that *nobody* has been able to utter the simple truth
that "It's like a penalty in some ways and like a tax in others."
Is this a political, a journalistic, a semantic, or a brain problem? Or all
of the above?
OK, don't answer that. But the point is, in media journalism, don't
address the issue if you can address the label instead.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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