The New York Times has become increasingly strident about labeling as a "lie" false claims about the 2020 election. A front page news article on Saturday, for example, reporting on the victory of a Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, described the Republican candidate as "a venture capitalist and political newcomer who embraced former President Donald J. Trump's lie that the 2020 election was stolen."
The problem with the "lie" label is that the Times applies it so selectively that it makes the paper appear partisan rather than independent. Contrast it with a Times news article, also in Saturday's print newspaper, reporting that "More than a dozen protesters, including scientists, were arrested on Thursday at private airports in the United States, coinciding with similar actions around the world to highlight the toll of private jets on the environment, activists said."
The Times article concludes with this paragraph:
"It is obscene that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can fly their private jets tax free, while global communities starve," Gianluca Grimalda, a social science researcher and member of Scientist Rebellion, said in the news release. "It's only fair that wealthy polluters pay the most into climate loss and damage funds to help the most vulnerable countries adapt."
It's simply a falsehood—unlabeled as such by the Times—that Bezos, Gates, or anyone else flies a private jet "tax free." At Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, for example, the state of New Jersey imposes six cents of taxes per gallon of jet fuel or aviation gasoline, which is on top of the 21.9 cent a gallon federal tax on jet fuel. You can say the tax winds up getting paid by the business, but if the passengers on the jets are shareholders in the business, they are essentially the ones paying the taxes. Also wrapped up in the cost of operating these jets are employment taxes for the pilots. Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, one of those blocked by the protesters, is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and collects a fee for each takeoff.
One can debate whether the taxes should be higher, whether businesses should be able to expense private jets, or what the depreciation schedule should be, or whether the "ticket-tax" or Federal Transportation Excise Tax should apply to private flights, or how to fairly account for personal, family, non-business use of the jets by executives. But no one is flying the jets "tax free." When the Times lets climate-change activists make false claims unlabeled as such, while slapping a prominent "lie" marker on Trump and his allies, it's the sort of thing that undercuts whatever reputation the newspaper has left for political independence and factual reliability.