In a piece biased enough to appear on The Huffington Post, AP writer Charles Babington goes after House Speaker John Boehner, asserting that the Democrats are aligned with "many mainstream economists" -- and the economists cited are liberals, with no label. The "mainstream" apparently favors cutting nothing from the enormous deficit, and adding more "stimulus."
Democrats and many mainstream economists, however, dispute GOP claims that deep federal spending cuts will lead directly to more private-sector jobs.
Boehner forwarded a letter to the White House from 150 economists – many with conservative backgrounds – saying: "To support real economic growth and support the creation of private-sector jobs, immediate action is needed to rein in federal spending." The three-paragraph letter did not seek to document a link between lower government spending and increased jobs, and some rival economists said it would be hard to do so.
With unemployment at 9 percent, the evidence that federal spending hurts job growth "is thin to nonexistent," said Princeton economist Alan Blinder.
Wait, wait! Alan Blinder served on President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, and was an economic adviser to the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry. Couldn't Babington be honest and say "Democrats and Democrat economists dispute GOP claims"? Instead, he stresses an independence and "mainstreaminess" that Blinder doesn't have.
Who's up next among "mainstream economists"?
Alexander J. Field, an economics professor at Santa Clara University, said he had "very little sympathy for the sentiments" in the letter Boehner forwarded. Spending cuts should be pursued when economies are strong, not weak, he said, and the House Republicans' agenda would probably increase unemployment.
Unlike Blinder, Field's resume doesn't seem to have any Democrat political appointments on it. However, this article in the Juneau Empire establishes he's an Obamanomics man:
The Obama administration deserves credit for championing the stimulus bill even if it widened the deficit. The time to pay down the federal debt is when the economy is strong, not when it is weak. Indeed, if the Obama administration is to be criticized, it should be for not having pushed to make the stimulus bill larger...
The preponderance of blame for the current anemic economy does not lie with the Obama administration. Its origins actually are to be found in a process of deregulation that extends back at least to the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
Babington started this charade in paragraph three: "Republicans say a smaller government eventually will spur private-sector job growth. Many economists challenge that claim, noting that the government helps pays for research, infrastructure, education and other programs that promote both public- and private-sector jobs."
Later, he brings in the Economic Policy Institute, and identifies them as "liberal," but also works to establish how mainstream their measurements are:
The liberal Economic Policy Institute says that overall, the House GOP plan "would likely result in job losses of just over 800,000."
The office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., criticized the group's use of a "fiscal multiplier" in its analysis. John Irons, an economist and chief researcher for the Economic Policy Institute, said the multipliers are a standard, broadly accepted tool used by the Federal Reserve, Wall Street analysts and others.
The EPI's most prominent economist in recent years, Jared Bernstein, is now the chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden. Why can't reporters be honest and call liberal economists liberals instead of "mainstream"? Instead, they use "mainstream" as an descriptive term for "what should be accepted as wise."
