Bob McCarty Writes

Sometimes, the truth hurts.  In the case of an article they published yesterday at 4:04 p.m. Eastern, it appears Reuters editors were afraid writer Terri Cullen’s adventure into truthful journalism might hurt their news agency’s relationship with President Barack Obama — so they pulled it.

Published under the headline, Backdoor taxes hit middle class, the article opened by describing the Obama Administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade as relying “heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.” Four hours and three minutes after it hit the wire, the story was “withdrawn” with a promise that “A replacement story will run alter in the week.”

Why did Reuters pull the story?  Business Insider cited a Reuters rep as saying the piece was withdrawn “due to significant errors of fact” and “should not have gone out.”  I think it was the language used in the article that prompted Reuters to pull it.  In particular, it was a series of phrases shown below that, combined with the one mentioned above, must have made the hair stand up on the back of Rahm Emanuel’s neck:

“…effectively a tax hike by stealth.”

“middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.”

Perhaps the largest contributing factor to the article being yanked is a list of tax break provisions popular among middle-class families that Obama might allow to expire:

* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;

* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;

* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;

* Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;

* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

The last line of the story was, perhaps, the proverbial “nail in the coffin” for the Reuter’s piece:

Trickle-down-taxation.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Terri, if you’re looking for a job, drop me a line.

Ten-Gallon Hat Tip: Many thanks to the folks at the Dump The Democrats blog for managing to snag the text of the article and publish it in a post this morning before it vanished from the web.

* * *

UPDATE 2/2/10 at 1:35 p.m. Central: Just moments after publishing this post, I discovered that Reuters had issued a more-recent advisory regarding the article which reads as follows:

“The Feb 1 story headlined “Backdoor taxes to hit middle class” is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration’s budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.”

UPDATE #2 2/2/10 at 4:14 p.m. Central: Cross-posted at BigJournalism.com.

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