The Wisconsin Newspaper Association reports:

Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WNA) representatives met with U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, in Milwaukee April 10 to voice opposition to a proposed tax on advertising that would slash advertising revenue.

A group called the Advertising Coalition, composed of media companies, national media associations and advertising trade associations, scheduled the meeting. Members include the National Newspaper Association, the Newspaper Association of America, the American Advertising Federation, as well as broadcast media groups and companies. …

The meeting with Ryan, who serves as chairman of the powerful U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, comes as Congress scours the tax code for ways cut to corporate taxes and keep companies from relocating to countries with lower business tax rates.

A proposal from the former leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees recommended a $169 billion tax on advertising to help pay for tax reform bills. Advertisers would be allowed to deduct only half of their advertising costs as a business expense, as opposed to the current 100 percent deduction. Under the new plan, advertisers could amortize,or gradually write off, the remaining 50 percent of advertising expenses over 10 years.

Ryan told meeting attendees that everything was on the table regarding U.S. tax code at this point.

“This provision is a real threat to the newspaper industry, as wellas the entire advertising industry,” [Wisconsin Free Press publisher Andrew] Johnson said. “If we don’t fight it early on, it will be put in the bill and it would have devastating consequences for our industry.”

Advertising dollars reverberate throughout the economy and generate more spending beyond the initial exchange.

Every dollar of ad spending generates nearly $22 of economic output and every million dollars spent on ads supports 81 American jobs, according to IHS Global Insights, an economic consultancy.

According to IHS Global Insights data sited by the Advertising Coalition, advertising expenditures account for $105.8 billion in economic output in Wisconsin, or 17.6 percent of the $600 billion of the state’s total economic output. Advertising-driven sales of products and services support 16.8 percent of the 2.8 million jobs in Wisconsin.

Nationwide, advertising expenditures account for $.58 trillion in economic output in the United States, or 17.2 percent of the $33.8 trillion in total economic output in the country. Advertising driven sales of products and services help support 21.7 million jobs or 16 percent of the 136.2 trillion in the country.

The Advertising Coalition’s goal is to meet with key members of congress in their home states where local media and advertising executives can describe the role that advertising creates in their business.

You should find this ironic since it is increasingly rare for newspaper opinion pages to editorialize in opposition to tax increases, or in favor of tax cuts. Just like it’s ironic for a Republican to appear to be considering a tax increase, even a tax increase one of that politician’s party’s enemies.

Then again, newspaper opinion pages don’t stand up for civil liberties in the legal system either, as Rick Esenberg noticed:

You’d think that much has been written locally – and in the Journal Sentinel – about the John Doe proceeding. In a sense, you’d be right. But, in another equally important sense, you’d be wrong. The legacy media’s utter indifference to the profound implications for both freedom of speech and the way in which politics will be waged in the future is staggering. …

But a few things are clear. What the Doe prosecutors are trying is extremely aggressive and highly controversial. Even if you don’t think, as I do, their position is beyond the pale, it is on the outer reaches of what can reasonably be supported by state statutes and the Constitution. But even more troubling, they have decided to advance tenuous theories in the most aggressive way imaginable. They have not sought civil forfeitures, they have gone directly to DefCon 1 – criminal prosecution.

They have done so in a way that seems calculated to deter at least as much political speech as possible. They have invoked the mysterious John Doe process and attempted to gag their targets. As a result, no one who wishes to participate in the political process can really know what they think is illegal and how their conduct might lead to the same treatment. They have used strong arm police tactics – the type normally deployed against organized crime and drug dealers – that are certain to draw attention and strike fear in the hearts of activists who wonder if they might be next.

And all of this has been done at the instigation of partisans of one party who have directed a long running and enormously expensive investigation exclusively at their principal political opponent. (And, no, there is no evidence that any Republican prosecutor has had anything other than perfunctory involvement in any of this.)

It is not necessary to question the motivation of prosecutors to be troubled by this. Even if their sin was bad judgment and not bad intent, the impact on free speech is disturbing. And even if they didn’t regard themselves as engaged in political warfare, you can be sure that what goes round will eventually come around. Democrats who cheer secret investigations into the other side’s speech and associational activities and are heartened by leaks that place their political opponents in a bad light can be certain that, if the Doe stands, they will eventually be hoisted on their own petard. I’m not advocating that his happen (quite the opposite), but I am recognizing that one side’s tactics, if successful, will always be emulated by their opponents.

You’d think that legacy journalists would love the First Amendment. No matter what the merits of a campaign finance case or how highly they might regard any particular prosecutor, you’d think that they would see the problematic nature of this type of behavior.

But that hasn’t happened. Part of the problem, I think, is that the mainstream media has traditionally believed that it is not like you or me. It believes that as “the press” it has enhanced First Amendment rights as if the Constitution protected institutions and not actions. This was always wrong. Those who own broadcasting license or who used to buy ink by the barrel (you don’t need as much these days) have no greater right to expression than the hoi polloi.

But, in an era in which the barriers to becoming “media” are almost nonexistent, it is an incoherent distinction. It is increasingly impossible to know who “the media” is. Perhaps the inability of the legacy media to see the constitutional threat posed by the Doe investigation is a product of its commitment to its own privilege, even at a time when that privilege is slipping away.

(Until last week I didn’t even know — and I bet most people in the media didn’t know — that there is a criminal libel statute in Wisconsin. Many states don’t, and Wisconsin shouldn’t, particularly given that no one is likely to be able to tell you the last time anyone was prosecuted for libel. And Walker isn’t going to be the next person prosecuted.)

For the record, I do not support taxing advertising. At every level it is obvious except to the willfully blind that government wastes our tax dollars, therefore government should get no more of our tax dollars.