TJ Walker discusses MSNBC hosts with reported IRS tax liens, including Al Sharpton, who publicly advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy. He argues this is hypocritical and compares it to past pundit scandals like Rush Limbaugh's tax issues.
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Is msnbc harboring tax fugitives? Okay, I'm overstating the case by a little, but a lot of haze being made by the enemies of msnbc, principally National Review, other conservative media outlets. And unlike a lot of cheap shots that are allowed back and forth in political pundit wars, this one is real and this one is serious. National Review has a story and apparently by all accounts is true that there is not one or two but four separate on air hosts for MSNBC who are in trouble with the IRS who have tax warrants against them. Tax liens. Now, if this were just any corporation and four employees out of hundreds or thousands, you said, well, big deal. People have tax complications from time to time. But the problem here is you have on air host who all consistently call for higher taxes of the wealthy, the wealthy paying their fair share, and yet here they are not paying their taxes. So it certainly is very fair to criticize them for hypocrisy. The other problem is it's one thing if they were community activists making $20,000 a year. Now, the host, Al Sharpton is one of them. He's a special case. But three other hosts, and it would be one thing if they were making very little money, but they're making presumably a lot of money. Now, they're not making Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity money, $30 million a year, but they're presumably making many, many times the national average for a family of four of 50, $55,000 a year. So it begs the question, why can't they pay their taxes? Now, if you're going to be a pundit on the air, pontificating, casting judgment on others, you got to be able to take it as well as give it. Now, this happened to Rush Limbaugh. He routinely mocked drug users, drug abusers, those caught on drug crimes, and yet he himself was caught illegally using OxyContin and became a He had his own troubles with the law, and he was roundly criticized for that, justly so. And it looks like the MSNBC hosts are going to continue to be criticized for this. There's no real solution to this PR problem other than one, they need to pay their taxes.
