In a recent Reuters article, New York Gov. George Pataki (R.) says that a major tax increase will be a job killer in his state. The writer of the article, Joan Gralla, then brings forward an "expert" to dispute that claim-without mentioning that the "expert" is a Gore 2000 political operative!
Peter Orszag, senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, was one of two Gore advisors who together assembled a county-by-county analysis of the Florida 2000 vote, giving birth to the fallacious theory that Palm Beach voters accidentally chose Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Gore. Prior to working for Gore's campaign, Orszag served as senior director of President Clinton's National Economic Council.
And believe it or not, Orszag doesn't think a tax hike will hurt New York's economy.
Gralla (who misspells the Gore campaign worker's name) paraphrases him as stating that "because the economy now has too much capacity-idle machines at factories, for example-raising taxes on the wealthy would not hurt growth by cutting their appetite for goods and services."
The reporter does not identify Brookings as the liberal think tank it is, nor does she quote any opposing expert who buys the idea that higher taxes will lead business owners to scale back their businesses, cancel their expansion plans, or even leave New York-all of which could lead to new layoffs.
