A policy proposal is being discussed!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2024

Here's how it's discussed on Fox: As far as we know, Andrew Gruel is an excellent chef. 

Also, he may be the world's nicest person—superb as a next-door neighbor. We're less thrilled with him as a television personality. Here's the start of his basic thumbnail:

Andrew Gruel

Andrew Gruel (born 1980) is an American chef and television personality, based in Orange County, California. He appeared as a judge on Food Network's Food Truck Face Off and as a host of FYI's Say It to My Face!, and is the founder of Slapfish, a seafood restaurant franchise that he launched in 2012 and sold to Mac Haik Enterprises in 2022...

The profile continues from there.

We're down on Gruel as a "personality" because of what he recently said. He said it Tuesday evening on the Fox News Channel's Gutfeld! show, where he's an occasional guest.

As background, consider an amazing fact:

All of a sudden, this very week, a policy proposal is being discussed by major American news orgs! At one time, that was a regular thing. Given the way our discourse currently works, it's been quite a while since something like that happened.

We refer to "No tax on tips," the policy which Candidate Trump proposed in June. Candidate Harris followed suit last weekend, though perhaps in a less expansive form. 

Despite the support from Candidate Harris, is "No tax on tips" a good idea? For starters, no! At the Washington Post, it isn't! 

At the Post, the whole thing started with Catherine Rampell. On Tuesday, the dual headline on her column said this:

Hot tip: Both parties should stop bribing voters with tax cuts
Exempting tips from taxes is a terrible idea, regardless of which party is proposing it.

Never mind what her reasoning was. In the end, that won't be our point. 

Oof! Harris proposed it—and Rampell slammed it! That same day, so did a trio of Post reporters in an Economic Policy analysis piece:

Why Trump and Harris’s ‘no tax on tips’ plans may not help tipped workers
Economists say the proposals are unlikely to have much practical impact, though either could cost the government at least $10 billion to $15 billion a year.

That's what the dual headline said atop their analysis piece.

Yesterday, along came the Post's Editorial Board. The dual headline on their editorial says this:

Not taxing tips is a dumb gimmick. Harris is wrong to follow Trump.
The Biden-Harris team dismissed an idea it now embraces. How it went from a waitress to mainstream.

As Casey Stengel might have put it: Can't anyone play this pro-Harris game here at the Washington Post?

For what it's worth, it isn't just the Washington Post! Here's the dual headline on the report for NPR's All Things Considered:

Trump and Harris support no tax on tips, but experts say it could complicate things
Both presidential nominees support no tax on tips. But this now-popular campaign issue is making tax experts and economists shake their heads.

The AP decided to play the same game! On Tuesday, Dee-Ann Durbin did the Associated Press report. Here's the headline on Durbin's AP report, along with her first few paragraphs:

Why Trump's And Harris' Proposals To End Federal Taxes On Tips Would Be Difficult To Enact

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris agree on one thing, at least: Both say they want to eliminate federal taxes on workers’ tips.

But experts say there’s a reason Congress hasn’t made such a change already. It would be complicated, not to mention enormously costly to the federal government, to enact. It would encourage many higher-paid workers to restructure their compensation to classify some of it as “tips” and thereby avoid taxes. And, in the end, it likely wouldn’t help millions of low-income workers.

“There’s no way that it wouldn’t be a mess,” said James Hines Jr., a professor of law and economics and the research director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Both candidates unveiled their plans in Nevada, a state with one of the highest concentrations of tipped service workers in the country. Trump announced a proposal to exclude tips from federal taxes on June 9. Harris announced a similar proposal on Aug. 10.

Durbin's buzzkill has been widely published—for example, right here by the Boston Globe.

The gloomy assessments have been general across the "liberal press." So much for bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems! 

The naysaying has been general over Blue America's orgs. Unless you're watching the Fox News Channel, where every single thing you're told comes straight outta the channel's easy-to-memorize propaganda playbook.

Key point! On Fox, you're always being screwed by "the media;" they're constantly screwing you bad! There's no need to cite a specific example. If you simply say "the media," that will be close enough.

Within the realm of the Fox News Channel, "the media" are always running a pro-Democrat [sic] Party con! With that in mind, here was the aforementioned Gruel, serving a conventional dish on Tuesday evening's Gutfeld! program, to the approval of all:

GRUEL (8/13/24): The funnier piece of this—let's take a step away—is the way in which the media is covering it, right? 

So when Trump came out and said that he was going to remove the tax on tips, it was like, "We're going to lose $250 billion to the federal"—right? It was all about, "This is going to be absolutely horrible for the government."

And then the media comes out when she says it, and it's some anodyne approach. "This policy is amazing. No problem at all." 

As he continued, the chef offered a theory about what Candidate Harris is really planning to do with her fiendish tax policy. His host rewarded his brilliance:

GUTFELD: See! It's all a Trojan horse!

A great deal more inanity followed during the segment in question. But if you watch the Fox News Channel, you will always receive a platter resembling the one Gruel served.

You will always be told what "the media" is doing to you. One tiny example will be more than enough. If someone somewhere has made some remark, that means that "the media" said it!

(Or you need provide no examples at all! That was the strategy the Gutfeld! guest selected.)

If you watch the Fox News Channel, you're automatically being screwed by "the media!" In this case, a television personality adopted the script. He's likely an excellent chef.

Calling the roll: On the evening in question, the termagant's panel include one former professional wrestler; two people who perform as comedians; and one guy who was described as a chef:

It's amazingly easy to master the scripts. Occasionally, an accurate statement or two may be made, but it isn't considered good form.

This conduct is being normalized—by the media!—through widespread benign neglect.