Glenn Beck’s Tax Problems and The Curious Workings of The Liberal Mind

posted at 11:51 am on January 9, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
[ Media ]   

I read the news today (oh boy!). Well, not the news per se. Rather, I read an opinion piece—not unlike the one you are currently reading, except that my column (I like to thank) makes at least a little sense. The piece that I read does not.

It appears at the website fredericksburg.com. The author, one Kenneth P. Vogel, writes somewhat gleefully about Glenn Beck’s production company having tax problems.

As Beck evolved from a medium-market local radio personality to a one-man media empire with top-rated radio and television shows, best-selling books, a monthly magazine and a traveling one-man comedy tour, his production company, Mercury Radio Arts, has at times struggled to keep up with the heightened tax and filing demands accompanying his success.

Mercury, a private corporation that lists Beck as chief executive officer and his wife, Tania Beck, alternately as vice president or secretary, since 2007 has fallen behind on its New York City business income taxes and has been cited for filing errors related to its obligations under Texas franchise tax and New York state workers’ compensation insurance rules.

Okay, let’s stop and review so far, shall we? Beck’s company has grown rapidly and, by Ken’s own lights, “at times struggled to keep up with the heightened tax and filing demands accompanying his success.” The company, moreover, “has fallen behind on its New York City business income taxes.” All right. I think I understand the situation. But what of it?

To understand why author Vogel finds delicious irony in this turn of events, you have to read the rest of the column. Actually, the first paragraph will suffice to give you the flavor and general tenor of the rest of the article:

No one has been less forgiving than Glenn Beck when it comes to Democrats with tax problems. Not just the well-known ones like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner but also less serious ones such as Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose husband only recently paid off $6,400 in tax liens on his auto repair business, and Nancy Killefer, who withdrew her nomination to be White House chief performance officer, citing a $946.69 tax lien on her Washington home.

So Vogel’s point is that Beck has made fun of employees of the federal government with greater or lesser tax problems. Obviously, any fair-minded observer will concede that Nancy Killefer’s tax lien problem is a fairly minor one. And Beck’s (“In October 2007, New York City issued a tax warrant against Mercury Radio Arts, indicating that the company had been penalized $10,927.49 for overdue 2006 general corporation taxes. . .”)—well, it’s impossible to say without knowing the company’s adjusted gross, which information Vogel does not provide.

But again, what of it? Let’s suppose Glenn Beck’s company owed $80 million. I still ask, “What of it?” Glenn Beck is not an employee of the federal government. He is a television personality. In contrast, the people he holds up to ridicule, such as Timothy Geithner, are employees of the federal government. Because they are charged with the responsibility of running some aspect of the nation’s government, they are expected to live according to a higher standard of behavior. Which part of this do liberals have trouble grasping?

Cross-posted at Manhattan Conservative Examiner

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