NYTimes biz reporter accepts buyout

David Cay Johnston, a New York Times business reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for writing about taxes, has accepted a buyout offer from the paper, according to an AP story.

The AP story stated, “Johnston has covered taxation issues for the Times since his arrival in 1995. A best-selling author, he opted to leave to concentrate on writing books, long-form magazine articles and documentaries.

“‘There’s some sadness about it,’ he said by phone from his home in suburban Rochester. ‘Flaws and all, there’s no newspaper in the league of The New York Times. I’m happy with the Times and they’re happy with me, but it’s just time for me to do something else.’

“His last two books, beginning in 2004 with ‘Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich — and Cheat Everybody Else,’ show how taxes, subsidies and regulatory policies in the United States ‘take from the many to give to the already superrich,’ Johnston said.

“In this year’s ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill,’ Johnston writes that government policies from 1945 to 1980 aimed to develop and nurture the middle class via such projects as the GI. Bill, interstate highways and 30-year mortgages.”

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