The statewide vote in Alabama on whether to pass Gov. Bob Riley’s (R) $1.2 billion tax plan is today. If any of you happen to be reading this from Alabama, polls close at 7 pm Central time.
All recent polls show opposition to the Riley plan is significant and, in all likelihood, will fail. As I mentioned about three weeks ago, Riley’s plan is sound and would help improve Alabama, but it’s an uphill climb to raise taxes in the state with the absolute lowest tax burden in the country.
On a related note, I noticed that Gregg Easterbrook, a Brookings Institute scholar and all-around smart guy, has a new blog at The New Republic’s website. His first-ever post, oddly enough, was about the moral dimension of the Alabama tax vote.
Easterbrook’s point was interesting, but as far as I can tell, flawed. He argued that “the national media” has ignored “the religious impetus of Riley’s attempt.” Worse, Easterbrook insists it’s because of a media-driven bias to avoid making religion look good. Unfortunately, I think Easterbrook’s argument is premised on a false assumption.
“Not many Republican leaders lay it on the line for a tax increase — the Alabama proposal would raise taxes on the affluent in order to cover the funds lost by exempting the poor and working poor, black or white,” Easterbrook explains. “Why isn’t this effort being lavished with praise by the national media? Because the reason Riley is pushing the initiative is that his Christian faith compels him to do so. Riley has openly promoted the tax reform to Alabamans as justified by religion, saying, ‘According to our Christian ethics, we’re supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor.’ Have you heard much about how a Republican leader is using a Christian appeal to advocate taxing the rich to help the poor? Of course not.”
As Easterbrook sees it, the media covered the Roy Moore controversy in Alabama because he’s a “crackpot” who casts religion in a negative light. Riley’s effort to cast the tax increase as in moral terms, however, “shows Christianity at its luminous best.” Therefore, Easterbrook argues, “the media ignore Riley.”
This is, to be sure, a provocative and interesting accusation. If accurate, Easterbrook, who has a background in Christian theology, may have demonstrated a telling example of media bias against religion.
The problem, however, is that Easterbrook is wrong, at least as far as his media criticism goes.
I agree that Riley has cast his tax increase in a religious language that casts his faith in a positive light. In many ways, Riley, a fundamentalist Christian, is calling on Alabamians who share his faith to follow the best of Christian teachings on compassion and charity.
I disagree, however, that a) the media is ignoring this angle of the story, and b) that reporters are intentionally avoiding the story as part of a broader conspiracy-like effort to keep positive news about religion away from public attention.
Easterbrook effectively accused the media of negligence on this story. Yet the Washington Post ran a detailed feature on Riley’s tax plan and the pro-Christian strategy. The article, while unbiased, seems to paint a sympathetic picture of Riley’s entire campaign. The Post even ran the article on the front page of a Sunday edition — its best selling paper of the week.
In addition, the New York Times ran its own lengthy article about Riley and his Christian appeals for a tax increase. Like the Post, the Times ran the article on its front page — the most valuable real estate in all of U.S. journalism is Page A1 of the New York Times — and cast Riley and his religious strategy in a positive light.
A similar LA Times article highlighted Riley’s “moral arguments to justify restructuring the tax system to lighten the burden on the poor and force big landowners to pay their fair share.”
Additional articles have run in USA Today, Orlando Sentinel, Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Wall Street Journal, Charlotte Observer, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Philadelphia Inquirer. Several of these ran on the front page of their respective papers and all of them highlighted the religious element of Riley’s effort.
So how, exactly, is the national media “ignoring” Riley? They’re not, which may be why Easterbrook complained only about a generic negligence on the part of the “national media” and avoided specifics.