One of the interesting notes about our major media outlets is that, while they are all huge corporate conglomerations, many of them try to present themselves as outsiders, not guilty of the very things they accuse others of. The truth is, if we are talking anything to do with wages, taxes, and/or unions, your average legacy paper is probably saying one thing in the editorial section and doing another in their business meetings.

Enter The New York Times attacking FexEx for supposedly not investing enough in the economy.

Under President Trump, capital investment has now grown more slowly *after* tax cuts than before.
⁦@bencasselman⁩ ⁦@uwsgeezer⁩ & me:https://t.co/cCteSDauyX

— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) November 17, 2019

The article is behind a paywall, but the gist of it is that FedEx has not reinvested enough of their tax-cut savings post-2017 back into the economy, therefore they are bad and Trump is bad for doing the tax cuts in the first place. It’s your typical orange man bad screed while ignoring all the other evidence of economic growth that’s stemmed from lowering the corporate tax rate.

If it stopped there, whatever; it’s no surprise that the Times would go after companies in disingenuous ways. This is the same paper that helped spread the “Amazon pays no taxes” myth far and wide.

What really makes this different is that FedEx, instead of cowering in the face of online pressure like companies usually do, punched back and it’s one of the more forceful corporate statements I’ve ever seen.

Absolutely brutal pic.twitter.com/wPRagUZddV

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 18, 2019

FedEx first starts by pointing out that the Times got it wrong about how much they’ve reinvested into the economy. But it really gets heated when they point out that the Times paid zero income tax in 2017 and then cut their capital investments in 2018. At the same time, the paper is lecturing FedEx for investing over $6B, the gray lady was slashing their investment, even when considered within the scale of company they are.

FedEx goes on to call the Times’ contribution a “rounding error.” In 2018, the paper only paid an 18% tax rate. Note the hypocrisy as their editorial board almost exclusively opposed the tax cuts, yet the bean counters were taking deductions that drove their rate below even the lowered rate of 21%. Then, just to make sure the Times wasn’t still twitching after that beat down, FedEx’s CEO challenges the writer to a debate on the topic.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess Tankersley goes running home and doesn’t accept. That would require actually being knowledgeable about the subject on which he wrote.

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