looks like lazy reporting to me.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200412220008AP article or White House press release?
A December 21 Associated Press article on President Bush's expected tax reform proposals used the same language as the White House to describe Bush's agenda on taxes. And the article quoted five supporters of that agenda but no dissenters.
AP economics writer Martin Crutsinger opened the article by unquestioningly referencing "President Bush's campaign to make the tax code simpler, fairer and more pro-growth." This description echoed nearly verbatim a December 15 White House economic fact sheet that advocated for Bush's tax reform agenda by contending that "America's taxpayers deserve, and our future economic prosperity demands, a simpler, fairer, pro-growth system." After noting opposition in Congress to a proposal to "eliminate state and local income tax deductions" that would "nick" Democratic-leaning states more than they would hurt Republican-leaning states, Crutsinger wrote: "The money, though, has to come from somewhere."
Rather than providing a balanced report and analysis of Bush's likely proposals, the article featured comments from five individuals, all of whom are supportive of the Bush administration and its tax agenda and three of whom are current or former Bush administration officials:
"'The president has said he wants to look at all the options that would make the code fairer, less complex and more growth oriented,' Treasury Secretary John Snow said in an interview."
"'There are only a handful of things where there is real money and that is where people are going to have to look,' said Glenn Hubbard, who was a key architect of tax policy as Bush's first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.".........