An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on a recent surge in Michael Bloomberg's charitable giving. "While his company may derive some tax benefits from its charitable donations, Mr. Bloomberg's personal tax returns show he is already in the highest tax bracket and his campaign said he derived no tax benefit from the additional giving," the Times reports.
That sentence displays a stunning lack of understanding of the tax code. In fact, it doesn't particularly matter if Mr. Bloomberg is already in the highest tax bracket. Taxes are a function of a rate and a base. While Mr. Bloomberg is already paying the top rate, he can adjust the base -- his taxable income -- by making charitable donations. The more he gives away, the more his taxable income is reduced, so the base that he has to pay the high rate on is reduced, and his taxes are reduced. It's just nonsense to say that Mr. Bloomberg derives no tax benefit from the additional giving. The fact that he is in the highest bracket makes the tax benefit of the giving greater than if he were in a lower bracket, because he has to pay the government a bigger share of every dollar that he doesn't give away.
Almost: A front-page dispatch from Jerusalem in today's New York Times reports that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "has given almost no interviews since forming his center-right coalition government seven months ago." The Times reporter must be paying almost no attention to what is going on around him, because there is almost no truth to this claim. Mr. Sharon granted an interview to editors of the Wall Street Journal in March. He granted an interview to Newsweek's Lally Weymouth for the March 19, 2001 issue of Newsweek, and he granted her another interview for the July 2, 2001 issue of Newsweek. He gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post in April. The New York Post's Uri Dan interviews Ariel Sharon so often that Mr. Sharon probably qualifies to be put on the Post payroll as a news stringer. In the New York Times itself, columnist William Safire reported on September 6, 2001, about a phone interview he had with Mr. Sharon.
Unemployment: An editorial in today's Times claims that "Just a year ago, America's labor market was the envy of the world. The unemployment rate was hovering at 30-year lows." The editorial goes on about the "sad story" and "bad news" of the recently announced uptick in the unemployment rate. In fact, a year ago, news articles in the Times were bemoaning the crisis faced by employers encountering shortages of qualified personnel -- not a situation anyone would "envy." And while the increased unemployment is bad news for those who are out of a job, it's good news for employers, who are now having an easier time hiring well-qualified workers at reasonable wages. The Times editorial identifies with the out-of-work person but not with the employer.
Today: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on a dispute over seats on the governing board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The article says the librarian of Congress, who sits on the Kennedy Center board, "said in a telephone interview today" that he knew nothing about the dispute. What's "today"? The article has no dateline, so one would assume that "today" means the day at the top of the page. Was the Times reporter really on the phone with the librarian of Congress about this matter in the early morning hours of Saturday?