Are you a Republican politician yearning for approval by The Washington Post? All it takes is standing up for tax increases or for hiking the minimum wage.
In separate articles in the August 3 Post, reporters Jeffrey Birnbaum and Michael Shear used the “moderate” label to describe Republicans amenable to either tax hikes or minimum wages increases.
“Prodded by moderate Republicans eager to undercut criticism by Democrats that GOP economic programs overwhelmingly favor the rich, the House approved” legislation gradually phasing in a $7.25-an-hour minimum wage, Birnbaum wrote.
Elsewhere in the August 3 paper, reporter Michael Shear painted conservatives in the Virginia General Assembly as inflexible opponents to progress on the Democratic governor’s transportation plan.
In “Why House GOP Has Hardened Opposition to a Tax for Roads,” Shear reported that lawmakers “abandoned their efforts to reach a compromise on transportation spending” following “months of rancor.”
Adding that “there are no indications that anything has happened to alter the resolve of House Republican leaders to reject tax increases,” Shear later explained that polling data showed overwhelming opposition by Virginia voters to more taxes.
Even so, Shear worried that “hard-core” Republicans would be all too willing to sacrifice “moderate, tax-raising ones” in the next election as the price for holding the line on new taxes.
Nowhere in his article did Shear explain that Virginia currently has a $1-billion surplus or that Gov. Mark Warner (D) enacted a $1.6-billion tax increase in 2004.