Staffing shifts continue at the New York Times. The paper’s chief economics writer David Leonhardt will be the paper’s next Washington bureau chief as of Labor Day, a move confirmed by Times’ media reporter Jeremy Peters Friday morning . Leonhardt will replace Dean Baquet, who is moving to New York to be managing editor under Executive Editor-in-waiting Jill Abramson. Leonhardt’s columns in defense of Obama’s “stimulus” package and Obama-care health “reform” made him a very popular man at the White House and among congressional Democrats , who passed around his pieces via email and Twitter. In 2009 he demonstrated “ the upside of paying more taxes ” and has twice claimed the big-spending Obama was in fact a “ fiscal conservative .” In May 2010 Leonhardt called on Obama to break his promise not to raise taxes on those making under $250,000 a year, since he considers high taxes necessary in a modern society. As he wrote in October 2009 , “taxes are supposed to rise as a country grows richer.” He followed up in April 2011 : “In reality, finding a way to raise taxes may well be the central political problem facing the United States.”
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Tax-Loving, Obama-Defending Writer David Leonhardt Rises to NY Times’s Washington Bureau Chief