You Thought the MSM Was Biased *Before*???

Just wait until this goes through:

Will Washington bail out the MSM with an iPad tax?

This is actually quite astonishing. A “staff discussion draft” from the Federal Trade Commission recommends ways the government can save journalism. First, it lists a number of ways Washington can subsidize the media (to the tune of $35 billion a year):

– Establish a “journalism” division of AmeriCorps.

– Increase funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

– Establish a National Fund for Local News.

– Provide a tax credit to news organizations for every journalist they employ.

– Establish Citizenship News Vouchers (lets you direct money from tax return).

Hmmm. Let's see. The first suggestion involves adding people to a bloated, unnecessary "feel good" agency whose "volunteers" cost some $28K/year on average. The next three involve increasing our taxes in one way or another. Only the last suggestion is purely voluntary - and notice the position on the list.

It gets worse, though, when they detail where the money is going to come from to pay for this:

Tax on broadcast spectrum. They argue “commercial radio and television broadcasters are given monopoly rights to extremely lucrative spectrum at no charge,” and this is a massive public subsidy. They therefore suggest the revenues generated by that spectrum be taxed at a rate of 7 percent, which should result in a fund of between $3 and $6 billion. In exchange, commercial broadcasters would be relieved of any obligations to engage in “public-interest programming,” which the broadcasters claim costs them $10 billion annually.

Tax on consumer electronics. A 5 percent tax on consumer electronics would generate approximately $4 billion annually.

Spectrum auction tax. They suggest there be a tax on the auction sales prices for commercial communication spectrum, with the proceeds going to the public-media fund.

Advertising taxes. They note a considerable amount of our broadcast spectrum has been turned over to disseminating commercial advertisements, and a 2 percent sales tax on advertising would generate approximately $5 to $6 billion annually. In addition, they suggest that changing the tax write-off of all advertising as a business expense in a single year to a write-off over a 5-year period would generate an additional $2 billion per year.

ISP-cell phone tax. They suggest consumers could pay a small tax on their monthly ISP-cell phone bills to fund content they access on their digital services. A tax of 3 percent on the monthly fees would generate $6 billion annually. They note, however, this is the least desirable approach because demand for these services is “elastic” and even a slight rise in price could result in people dropping the service.

Are you kidding me? This is the best they can come up with? Raise taxes across the board? They're going to add taxes to broadband internet, computers, and cell phones to pay for what is essentially a media bailout - that's the proposal here. This is, without hyperbole, a raw, naked attempt to steal money from us and throw it at the dying mainstream media as a giant wet "thank you" kiss for covering for the left for the past, oh, 60 or 70 years. The model is flawed - people don't want bias in their news, they just want to know what's going on - and yet the media is about to be rewarded handsomely for failing.

In some way, it's the perfect analogy for the entire Øbama presidency so far, when you think about it...

That is all.

Story sent to me by reader PISSED, who apparently thought I'd been too sedate recently...