Thursday, December 3, 2009

If this is real journalism...

Frank Ahrens is an economics reporter for one of the most well-read newspapers in the country, and "back atcha" is the best he can muster as a response to being proven wrong?

(via Balloon Juice.)


Taxes are killing us.: The US at 26.1% pays less tax than any other industrialized country except Japan at 25.8%. Sweden is at 50.2%, the UK at 35.8%, and Spain at 35.5%, for example. BTW each of these three countries had higher growth (average per capita growth 1995 - 2005) than we did. 2.5%, 2.4% and 3.1% resp. compared to our 2.1%. Also Japan's was 1% growth.

Frank Ahrens: But did you know our corporate tax rate is among the highest in the world? That makes a real difference if you're a business and you're thinking about locating in the U.S. or, say, India.

But did you know our corporate tax rate is among the highest in the world?
: Dead wrong. Our nominal tax rate of 35% is among the highest, but because of loopholes our real tax rate of 18% is among the lowest real corporate tax rates.

Frank Ahrens: Back atcha.

1 comment:

evan said...

I don't really know what the specific facts are on this instance, it's more the "back atcha" that really bugged me. That's entirely possible, but shouldn't the Washington Post reporter point that out instead of saying "back atcha?"