Local Businesses Pay Political Price

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In what can be viewed as their second installment for Rep. Paul Ryan’s re-election campaign, the Janesville Gazette posted two stories today side-by-side about the upcoming tax credits and rebates connecting Ryan’s efforts with the so-called $150 billion stimulus plan.

One story beginning innocently enough with a downtown Janesville coffee shop owner evolved shamelessly into an unabashed GOP propaganda effort promoting the politics and proposals of the Republican Congressman. At least two short passages were distinguished with margins in a blatant attempt for emphasis, linking government Ryan with job creation.

JG Excerpt:
And she would hire more people to help her do so.

Putting more people to work is exactly what Ryan thinks his proposal will do.

One has to now wonder whether the downtown coffee shop owner would have gotten any free ink on the front page of the Gazette without the newspaper tying in the local political angle. This is too bad but something we’ve grown accustomed to here in Janesville.

The article parsed actual quotes from the coffee shop owner with unquoted statements and assumptions, and effectively painted Ryan’s proposals as something exclusive and positive from the stimulus plan. Both articles were also absent rebuttal or criticism of the stimulus plan touted by Ryan, and completely ignored the nation's debt and the fact that the last emergency economic stimulus plan came as a result of the 9/11 terror attack.

JG Excerpt:
“It’s always late,” Ryan said. “Why don’t we do these things in the first place to try to maximize our economic potential? It’s clear we’re headed for an economic downturn. It’s not clear that we will have a recession,” he said. “There’s more Congress could have done to make the economy grow faster and be more resilient than where we find ourselves now.”

Sounds like another tax cut to me, but this most recent economic plan, no less an emergency instead comes on the heels of seven years of Bush-style voodoo economics rubber stamped by Rep. Paul Ryan.

Now Ryan, sensing the disgust voters have for career partisans representing Big Oil, Big Pharma and private health care interests in the halls of Congress continues to exclude himself from the fray. But he recovers from extending too much government control with this.

JG Excerpt: “Congress cannot micromanage the U.S. economy,” he said.

I can’t even recall when was the last time the fallible yet objective humans working at the Janesville Gazette wrote a story with the frequency and balance they allow for Paul Ryan to Rep. Tami Baldwin. Baldwin’s district encompasses the entire western half of Rock County including Beloit. If the Gazette is your only source of local news, God forbid, you’d have never known.

The second article continued to tie in Ryan as the supporting confirmation of an assuming optimism towards the stimulus plan.

JG Excerpt:
……the package would provide tax rebates of $600 per individual, $1,200 for married couples filing jointly and $300 payments to people who don’t pay income taxes, such as the elderly and the poor.

I could be wrong here but it's becoming increasing clear to me that the so-called “stimulus package” is nothing more than an advance on next year's taxes. Perhaps that’s why its called a rebate for those who pay income taxes and a payment for those who don’t. Those on low fixed incomes, the people who need a booster shot the most, get nothing. Next year's tax form will likely contain a box asking whether you’ve “gotten yours” in 2008. So much for a hand up.