Note: This post has been moved near the top for the rest of Tuesday.

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US Tax Revenues Up 9.7% through four months, Deficit Down 57%; US Media Outlets Mostly Ignore the News

There’s a good chance you didn’t hear about this (original US Treasury report is here):

Both Brian Wesbury at FT Portfolios and yours have to confess to being wrong so far this year on revenue growth. We both have been thinking (Wesbury here, BizzyBlog here) that it’s going to come in at 9%, but as you see, through four months it’s actually pushing 10%.

Even with spending control slipping a bit (up 6.4% in January 2007 compared to January 2006), the deficit is 57% lower through the first four months of FY07 than it was at the same time in FY06. I believe that merits a “Wow.”

There is a very real possibility that the federal budget will be in a surplus situation when President Bush hands over the keys to the White House in January 2009. Four months ago, I first suggested that it might very well happen. Brian Wesbury now agrees. The Skeptical Optimist has seen this happening for an even longer time. (Update — SkepOp’s latest post [Feb. 13; HT Ironman in comment below] is projecting that the budget is on track for balance in June 2008.)

While there is some coverage of the budget news — this Yahoo! search at about 6:30 a.m. this morning on “federal deficit” (without quotes) has about 20 citations in the first 70 listings going back to the time of the yesterday’s Treasury release — there is no disputing its relatively muted treatment. The online versions of the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today do not have links to the news on their home pages, or even on their business section home pages (USAT does have an “On Deadline” blog entry). The Times has a fairly long article (may require registration) comparing the current expansion, which started in 2003, to the early years of the Clinton economic expansion, but does not bring out yesterday’s news about the shrinking deficit.

ABCnews.com? Nope (not on home page or at Money & Business). MSNBC? Get real (”New evidence bolsters teen driver training” is apparently a more important home-page business story listing; there is no mention of the Treasury release on MSNBC’s business page). CBSnews.com? Surely you jest (not on home page or business page). Fox? Sorry (not on Main, Business, or “U.S.” home pages).

An exception? The BBC’s business home page (Note: The home-page link to the story was taken off shortly after the picture below was taken):

BBC apparently believes that the falling US deficit is of more interest to its British readers than the formerly Mainstream Media believes it is to US news consumers.

Again, what happens if a deficit falls and almost no one reports it?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers!

UPDATE 2: TaxProf has a great chart showing how capital gains realizations/reported, and capital gains taxes collected, ballooned after the 1997 capital gains tax rate cut from 28% to 20% (many of you didn’t know Bill Clinton was a closet supply-sider, did you? Now you know real reason why the late 1990s were prosperous.) — and then again in 2004 after the 2003 Bush-led rate cut to 15%. 2005 and 2006 data will almost undoubtedly show similar results.

More important than the taxes collected is that average annual reported capital gains subject to taxation TRIPLED from 1990-1996 to 1998-2004 (I do not know why 1997 is not included).

An even cooler number (one that isn’t available at the PDFs linked at TaxProf, would be the annual gross proceeds from all of the asset sales that gave rise to those gains. I would expect that it is a multiple of the gains alone that were subject to taxation. Why would those numbers be important? Because the increases in annual gross proceeds would represent capital deployed to a higher use that would likely have stayed locked in before tax rates were lowered. To the extent that capital is redeployed to better uses by people who know what they are doing, that should lead to greater innovation and higher economic growth.

UPDATE 3: In response to the many commenters and trackbackers concerned that the Formerly Mainstream Media will attempt to portray a return-to-surplus situation as something the new congressional majority is entitled to credit for when it comes — Be ready with these responses, and in fact plant the seeds now where needed:

• Anything that happens in the economy and with the federal budget between now and September 30, 2007, will be affected by the budget passed by the 109th Congress and agreed to by the Bush Administration. The new Congress will only have an impact if it takes specific action that affects the CURRENT fiscal year.
• Anything that happens in the economy and with the federal budget during the next fiscal year that will end September 30, 2008 will be affected by both the 110th Congress and the Bush Administration — not necessarily in that order.

UPDATE 4: American Shareholders Association’s blog is predicting further cap-gains windfalls.

UPDATE 5: I’ve said it a lot before, but I’ll say it again for those who are new here. This is from yesterday’s post that went up before the Treasury report was released:

If you go to this October BizzyBlog post, you’ll see that I’m not particularly impressed with the concept of a “surplus” as most define it, because the current large Social Security annual surpluses are needed (i.e., “raided”) to accomplish that. A true surplus that begins to actually leave the Social Security surplus where it belongs (i.e., the Social Security system) won’t, according to my projections, take place until FY 2012 — and that’s only if the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are extended past their current expiration in 2010. If that doesn’t happen, forget about the idea of getting to a true surplus while leaving Social Security alone for quite a long time.

The lastest media story I could find is here.

Michael Savage opened his radio program by reporting that the first name of the murderer is (rough spelling) “Suleman,” (update — Solejman Talovic) who is:
- 18 years old
- A Bosnian
- A Muslim
- A Refugee
- Brought into Salt Lake City by a (sponsoring) family.

Savage is saying that a reporter named Linda Thomson (not sure of spelling) has been told the above by immigration officials.

Let’s see where else this gets confirmed/reported.

More info will come as it is heard, and found.

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UPDATE: An official interviewed by Fox Radio at 6:30 PM ET is characterizing the murders as “random.”

UPDATE 2, 6:40 PM: This report from just after 6PM (strangely dated Feb. 14) says:

No known motive in Utah shootings

SALT LAKE CITY: The gunman who shot dead four people in a Salt Lake City shopping mall rampage was an 18-year-old Bosnian refugee, but his motive was a mystery, police said on Tuesday.

The teenager, dressed in a trench coat and carrying a shotgun, a.38 calibre pistol and what police said was a “backpack full of ammunition,” opened fire at random on Monday evening, sending terrified shoppers running for cover.Salt Lake City police chief Chris Burbank said the gunman appeared determined to “shoot as many people as he possibly could.”

Five people were killed and four others were wounded before an off-duty police officer opened fire and stopped the youth from moving farther through the mall. He was killed by police who arrived in force.

Police identified the gunman as Solejman Talovic, who they said had lived in Salt Lake City for a few years with his mother. He had four minor incidents with police when he was a juvenile, they said.

“We don’t have any motive or reason behind his actions. We know very little,” Burbank said, adding that the victims were picked at random.

The living circumstances could be contradictory to Savage’s “refugee” and “(sponsoring) family” claims. See Update 4 — “Refugee” would be accurate.

UPDATE 3: A Savage caller is claiming that Bosnian Muslims are not violent fundamentalists. Hmmm — but they both agreed that the name is indisputably Muslim. Update 3A: A follow-up caller about an hour later disagreed strongly, and even claimed that Sarajevo is now a city where the majority of women wear burquas. That would seem possible, since Wiki says that Sarajevo, which had been 50% “Bosniak” (Bosnian Muslim) in the early 1990s was 87% Bosniak by 1997.

UPDATE 4: E Canada Now says — “The shooter has been identified as Solejman Talovic, a bemulleted eighteen year-old Bosnian refugee living in Salt Lake City.”

UPDATE 5: SLC Deseret News — Here is Linda Thomson’s report, but it does not contain the word “Muslim.” Savage’s link to the story at his home page does.

UPDATE 6: Judi at Canada Free Press e-mailed Savage and told him that there is no shortage of violent Bosnian Muslims. Another caller from SLC claimed to have verified that the local news stations are refusing to broadcast that the murderer is a Muslim. Another SLC caller claims that there is a mosque three blocks from where the shooting took place.

FINAL UPDATE: I don’t think there is any question that the religious background of the murderer is being glossed over and avoided, which was the point of creating this post in the first place. A Savage caller claiming to be in law enforcement says that the agenda behind the non-identification is to keep fundamentalist Muslims from getting to enjoy or celebrate the “fruits” of their extremism. First, I’m not convinced the guy was for real, but second, even if he was, I believe that the people need to know the truth. The erosion of trust in what people are told is palpable. FINAL-FINAL, Feb. 14: DeseretNews.com acknowledges Muslim identity of family.

From John Edwards’ blog earlier today (the Edwards post is still there, but the pictured text has been taken down; HT Michelle Malkin):

Here’s how it looks now:

A little too much “truth to power,” eh John?

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UPDATE: Is this site scrubbing a congenital leftist thing? Here’s an example from last Friday (read the “SPECIAL UPDATE, 2PM” at the top) that arose because yours truly compared the Columbus Dispatch report that Ohio’s new governor Ted Strickland was not going to offer a school-funding plan to specific statements and promises made on his campaign web site. The campaign site was taken down within about an hour of the BizzyBlog post, and within about 2 hours of the briefer Right Angle Blog post that led to it. Coincidence?

Charlie Norwood.

Monday’s subscription-only editorial in the Wall Street Journal tells the sad tale:

After hiding her intentions during last year’s campaign, Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell wants to thank constituents for electing her with 63% of the vote by socking them with a 10% hike in the personal income tax rate. Fellow Republicans in the state legislature are understandably scratching their heads. But the proposal has no doubt also left many taxpayers wondering why they even bother to pull the lever for Republicans.

Ms. Rell dropped this bombshell last week when she presented her biennial budget. In addition to the income tax increase, which would push the top marginal rate to 5.5% from the current 5% over two years, the Governor also proposes increasing cigarette taxes, hiking bus fares and phasing out a $500 property tax credit.

Democrats, who control both houses of the legislature, welcome the plan. So does much of the state’s liberal media, who are hailing Ms. Rell as “brave” and “courageous.” But as Susan Kniep of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations put it to the Associated Press, “Gee, why didn’t we kind of hear about this before we went into the polls?”

Governor Rell says a tax increase is necessary to fund more education spending. But Connecticut already spends more money per student on public schools than all but three states.

….. The larger danger of a tax increase is its impact on the state’s overall economy. Connecticut adopted its income tax in 1991, and it has since ranked last nationally in employment growth while losing tens of thousands of people to other states. Increasing the income tax rate seems an odd way to reverse these trends.

….. By the way, it’s not as if Connecticut taxpayers haven’t been doing their part; the state will end the current fiscal year with a $600 million revenue surplus. The problem is that the politicians want to spend the money faster than it comes in. Governor Rell’s budget would grow government by nearly 13% over two years and bust constitutional spending caps approved by 81% of voters back in 1992. No wonder she kept her plans secret until after the election.

If Connecticut voters wanted tax-and-spend, they would have voted the straight Democrat ticket (13% in two years? I don’t think even Bob Taft was that bad). Rell’s betrayal is disgraceful, and may deliver the Nutmeg State’s governor’s mansion to the other party for decades. No wonder the liberal media there love her.

New England has had an interesting habit of electing many GOP governors to be the designated adult in charge (e.g., Mitt Romney and his Massachusetts predecessors; George Pataki in New York, and the current governors of Rhode Island and Vermont), supposedly making sure that their far-left legislatures don’t get too out of control. With Pataki and Rell, at least, all you can say is “So much for that strategy.”

From AP:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Two large BP PLC stockholders asked an Alaska court on Friday to freeze millions in retirement benefits for outgoing chief executive John Browne, saying he does not deserve compensation in light of recent crises at the oil giant’s facilities in Texas and Alaska.

At stake is at least $140 million in cash bonuses as well as stock, stock options, long-term performance pay and pension benefits, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The motion, filed in Alaska’s Superior Court, asks that Browne’s retirement package be placed in a court-approved trust while shareholders litigate with BP over alleged violations of worker safety and environmental protection laws.

Browne’s obsession with placating enviros and with so-called “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) got him to this place.

Hopefully, this item will eventually be moved to the “Just Desserts” file.

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Previous related posts:

• Jan. 17 — This Would Explain Why Browne Is Stepping Down Early
• Jan. 12, 2007 — BP: Browne Stepping Down Early
• Nov. 25, 2006 — Friedman and ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ — It’s Not the Line That’s Blurred, It’s Peoples’ Thinking That Has Moved the Line
• Sept. 14 — BP CEO Lord John Browne Should Resign, Says Group
• Sept. 9 — The Corporate Social Responsibility Appeasers Are Probably Long-Term Market Underperformers
• Aug. 22 — Column of the Day, Plus Timeless Essay of the Day, on “Corporate Social Responsibility”

The complete text of Manes’ review is here at KeepMedia, and it doesn’t require a subscription.

But if you’re a Microsoft employee, it will probably require a double-dose of antacid tablets.

Manes’ review starts thusly:

Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump.

That’s mild. He gets a LOT rougher from there.

I hear Broadway is taking up a collection to pay Manes not to get into theater (or is it theatre?) reviews. Heaven help any actor or actress who doesn’t do a good job in a Manes-reviewed production.

Disclosure: I’m a 20-plus year Mac User conversant (enough) with Windows through XP.

From AP — Amanda Marcotte, alleged “I am woman” feminist, plays the whiny victim card on resigning from her position as one of John Edwards’ campaign bloggers (even though she couldn’t leave the Catholic- and Christian-bashing alone even after being hired by an obviously too-forgiving Edwards):

“No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it,” Marcotte wrote Monday night.

Translation: “It’s the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue’s fault that I slandered Catholics, the Pope, and conservatives with hate-filled, potty-mouthed postings for years, and made myself unemployable by political campaigns.”

What a load — but it could be a good (and calculated?) career move. I would guess that there’s money to be made in gullible leftist circles and on the university speaking circuit (but I’m being redundant) playing the faux martyr.

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UPDATE: Of course, Mike Baker of AP played along, referring only cryptically to “her history of provocative online messages,” and describing the controversy thusly –

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded last week that Edwards fire Marcotte and a second blogger, Melissa McEwan, for remarks he deemed anti-Catholic. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, called the messages personally offensive, but decided to keep Marcotte and McEwan on staff.

Baker (natch) provided no examples. If he had, it would have become obvious that Marcotte’s remarks for years have been objectively and deliberately anti-Catholic, not just “deemed anti-Catholic” by Bill Donohue — as if he’s the only one on earth who sees it that way. Zheesh.

UPDATE 2: As you’d expect, Michelle Malkin and Bryan at Hot Air have much, much more, including the HUGE point (ignored by AP, of course) that a lot of progressive-side Christians were and are offended by Marcotte’s writings, and wanted Edwards to send her away.

UPDATE 3: Howard Kurtz at the WaPo actually referred to a couple of Marcotte’s writing without crossing into R-Land. Michelle Malkin’s original post on Marcotte has some that do (so you’ve been warned).

Just pretend you’re here illegally.

Hugh Hewitt, last Friday — elaboration not necessary:

Memo To Our Sources In Iraq
The Democrats in the Congress have decided to allow access to the intelligence in which your identity is either made explicit or from which it could be deduced. We are sorry that the Democrats have no grasp of the danger in which they are putting you, or if they do have that grasp, no concern for you, your family members, or the continuing effort to bring stability to Iraq.

We can predict with great certainty that some of the 435 Members will read the report and intend to say nothing, but that they will bleat out something or other at some point.

We are also certain that some will return from the secure office with the ink still fresh on their secrecy pledge, and dial up any reporter they can find if they figure out that there’s a way to damage the Adminstration in the process. If you are, for example, somewhere in the Mahdi Army and you have expressed to us certainty of Sadr’s willingness to pretend to cooperate with the government for the time being, that will spill out quickly, and possibly the sort of clues that the Iranian intelligence services will use to put the finger on you. If you are close to the al Qaeda fanatics and have given us a tip from time to time, well, let’s hope that level of detail didn’t make it into the NIE. Of course we have always assumed the classified versions of the NIE would be well protected, so in the past we have been expansive in the discussions to assure we wouldn’t get blamed for cherry-picking again. Hard luck, I know. I can’t tell you what’s in there, but someone in Congress almost certainly will.

From AFP (HT Spacetropic via e-mail):

Opponents of Poland’s former communist regime reportedly want to pay a posthumous homage to US President Ronald Reagan by erecting his statue in the place of a Soviet-era monument.

In an open letter to the mayor of the southwestern city of Katowice, the former anti-regime activists said that the staunchly anti-communist Reagan had been a “symbol of liberty,” the Polish news agency PAP reported.

As a result, they said, he deserved to become the centrepiece of the city’s Freedom Square, replacing a monument to the Soviet troops who drove out the occupying Nazis in 1945.

They also said that they wanted the site to be rebaptised “Ronald Reagan Freedom Square.”

….. There are already separate plans to erect a statue in memory of Reagan in the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, which would be paid-for from private funds.

Reagan, who dubbed the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” is widely credited by Poles with having driven communism to the wall.

That’s close, AFP. Reagan, with the help of Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, and Lech Walesa, is credited by anyone with a clue about history with taking down and defeating Soviet communism. Poles are especially grateful, as we all should be.

Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite and the AP’s Kathleen Carroll are two ignorant peas in a pretty populous pod.

First, Cronkite:

Pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned Thursday.

In a keynote address at Columbia University, Cronkite said today’s journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer could journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, “to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed.”

Cry me a river, Walter. These people have always thought they are “above” messy things like making money. That may have worked when there was no meaningful competition. Those days are over.

Now to Kathleen Carroll in the same article:

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated Press, said that getting news to report on has become increasingly difficult, even as individuals have more outlets online and elsewhere in which to distribute information.

She said cities and states have passed more than 1,000 laws affecting access to public records in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The United States and other governments around the world are also raising barriers.

Where does one start? AP can’t even get the basics of reporting right, like the correct identity of who they’re talking to (go to the italicized section at the end of the post). And when they’re handed their precious information on a silver platter, they can’t even read it correctly, and are forced into embarrassing retractions. And I’m supposed to be worried that they can’t get their hands on even more information that they’ll only further abuse?

Cronkite and Carroll are two Old Media dinosaurs facing extinction who don’t have the first clue as to how they and their ilk will survive.

From London, they’re not kidding:

Last updated at 22:00pm on 5th February 2007

A romantic chap hoping to surprise his young lady with a bunch of red roses on Valentine’s Day would have trouble hiding these behind his back.

Unless, that is, he happened to be ten feet tall. The supersize blooms grown high in the Andes are the longest stem plants in the world.

They are 6ft from top to toe – three times the normal size – and have a flower six to eight inches in diameter with more than 60 petals, although the fragrance is only slight.

One variety is a deep crimson, the other a lighter red with blood-red streaks. And they come at a supersize price — at least £150 a dozen.

The roses, some of which should make it to Europe in time for the 14th, are grown in rich Ecuadorian soil at an altitude of 9,000 ft.

The stems are as thick as a man’s finger and very thorny. California wholesaler Gerald Prolman also supplies a special deep steel vase to display them, costing another £40 on top.

He said the 400,000 blooms grown this year were selling fast. “People who are giving flowers want to make an impression, and this is the ultimate impression you can make.”