Budget

AP: After Years of Touting It, Dems Told Not to Say 'Recovery'
By Tom Blumer | April 18, 2014 | 11:13 AM EDT

In a Friday morning dispatch which comes off more as a set of election instructions from "Democratic strategists" than as a real news report, David Espo at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wanted to make sure that political operatives who don't read boring pollster reports still get the message: Don't use the word "recovery" during your fall campaign.

In the course of his missive, Espo falsely claimed that economic growth since the recession officially ended has continued unbroken, and failed to remind his audience that the party has trotted out "recovery" themes several times, only to see historically weak economic and employment results each time. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):

MSNBC’s Bernstein (Purposely?) Confuses Budget Deficit with National Debt
By Paul Bremmer | April 17, 2014 | 10:35 AM EDT

MSNBC contributor Jared Bernstein pulled off a deft sleight-of-hand on Tuesday’s PoliticsNation. It started after host Al Sharpton played a clip of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calling for fiscal responsibility: “If Washington is serious about helping working families or serious about getting families out of work back to work, then it needs to get serious about our national debt. How do we do it? First we stop spending money we don't have.”

Bernstein, formerly Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist, blasted Ryan for being “wrong on the numbers” (even though Ryan didn’t cite any numbers in the clip). He claimed:

Andrea Mitchell Gushes Over Liberal Nun Simone Campbell: ‘The Honor Is All Mine’
By Jeffrey Meyer | April 16, 2014 | 2:49 PM EDT

MSNBC is not known as a champion of religion, unless it’s someone who is liberal coming on to criticize religious individuals, especially if they are a member of the Catholic Church. Take Sister Simone Campbell, president of the liberal Catholic organization NETWORK, who has been featured on the “Lean Forward” network multiple times for her criticism of Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his budget priorities.

Appearing as a guest on Andrea Mitchell Reports on Wednesday April 16, the fawning over Ms. Campbell was evident, with Mitchell proclaiming how “the honor is all mine” to finally meet Campbell in person. [See video below.]

In Covering House's Passage of Ryan Budget, AP's Taylor Presumes $600B Annual Deficits Are 'Sustainable'
By Tom Blumer | April 15, 2014 | 11:55 AM EDT

Monday afternoon at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Andrew Taylor predictably described the House's passage of the Ryan Budget in shrill terms (in order of appearance): "A slashing budget blueprint"; "Sweeping budget cuts"; balances the budget "at the expense of poor people and seniors"; "sharp cuts to domestic programs"; "staking out a hard line for the future"; and "tough cuts." Naturally, he failed to disclose that the Ryan budget increases the federal government's total outlays in each and every fiscal year from 2015 to 2024, with the final projected year coming in at $4.995 trillion, or 42 percent above the $3.523 trillion in spending the Congressional Budget Office predicted yesterday for fiscal 2014.

In the process of performing the AP's usual hatchet job, Taylor let loose with a howler about the federal government's ability to continue on its current financial path. The AP reporter may also have inadvertently let something slip into his narrative about the viability of a cherished government program, something which is a deep, dark secret to most Americans, but is quite well-known to those who watch things more closely:

AP's Rugaber: Continued Large Deficits Signify 'Improvement in the Nation's Finances'
By Tom Blumer | April 14, 2014 | 11:56 PM EDT

On Thursday, Christopher Rugaber's assignment at the Associated Press was to cover that day's release of Uncle Sam's Monthly Treasury Statement for March.

If the AP economics writer had limited the scope of his coverage to the statement itself, his coverage would have been passed muster. But, as he and his AP colleagues so often do, Rugaber felt it was duty to offer what he must have thought was helpful analysis. He wrote that March's reported $37 billion deficit, an admitted significant improvement over the March 2013 result, even after adjusting for timing differences in end-of-month receipts and outlays, was "the latest sign of improvement in the nation's finances." The last time I checked, running significantly in the red is not an improvement. It really signifies less rapid deterioration, especially since fiscal 2014 in full is still expected to end with deficit of over $500 billion.

Networks Fret Over IRS Budget Cuts, No Mention of Ongoing Scandal
By Kyle Drennen | April 14, 2014 | 11:45 AM EDT

On Monday, all three network morning shows found time to worry about IRS budget cuts meaning fewer audits and longer wait times for taxpayer assistance, but not one mentioned the ongoing scandal embroiling the agency, including Congress issuing a criminal referral for former IRS official Lois Lerner. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

On ABC's Good Morning America, news anchor Amy Robach warned: "More tax evaders could slip through the cracks this year....we are learning the IRS will have the fewest agents auditing returns since the 1980s due to budget cuts and new IRS responsibilities." On Friday, ABC's World News covered the same story – while ignoring the House Ways and Means Committee calling for Lerner's prosecution.

MSNBC’s Sharpton Rips Paul Ryan’s ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Ruthless,’ ‘Heartless’ Budget
By Paul Bremmer | April 3, 2014 | 5:11 PM EDT

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton was incensed by Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) newly-released budget plan on Wednesday’s PoliticsNation. Referencing President Obama’s comment yesterday that “America is a place for everybody,” Sharpton added his own condemnation of Ryan’s budget as he hollered, “America is a place for everybody, not a place for dangerous ideas and a ruthless war on the poor!”

This sort of harsh language permeated the opening few minutes of Sharpton’s show. In fact, right from the very top, the reverend made it abundantly clear how he felt about the Ryan budget:

NY Times Laments Ryan's Budget Would Repeal Obama-care 'Just as Millions Are Reaping the Benefits'
By Clay Waters | April 2, 2014 | 5:14 PM EDT

The New York Times attacked Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's new budget proposal from several angles on Wednesday. Congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman adopted an accusatory pro-Democratic tone in his report, "Ryan’s Budget Would Cut $5 Trillion in Spending Over a Decade," warning that it proposed "steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, and the total repeal of the Affordable Care Act just as millions are reaping the benefits of the law," and promised it would give Democrats a big target in the 2014 elections.

Elsewhere, columnist Paul Krugman called Ryan a "con man," and an editorial accused Ryan of having "very dangerous ideas."

Networks Tout Tax Cuts for Millions in Obama Budget, Ignore Fuzzy Math
By Kyle Drennen | March 4, 2014 | 4:35 PM EST

The three network morning shows combined gave less than two minutes of air time to President Obama's proposed 2015 budget on Tuesday, though they all managed to highlight how the plan "will cut taxes for thirteen and a half million working Americans" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]. What the NBC, ABC, and CBS broadcasts all ignored was that the debt projections under the President's budget were off by $2.7 trillion compared to recent numbers released by the Congressional Budget Office.

As the Washington Post pointed out on Tuesday, "[Obama's budget] forecasts a dramatic reduction in deficits over the coming decade. The request paints a much rosier debt scenario than a report released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office a month ago."

Washington Post Wants You to Pay More for Food -- If the Money Goes to the Government
By Seton Motley | March 4, 2014 | 9:13 AM EST

The Washington Post Editorial Board has long had a government agriculture policy position that is actually grounded in Reality. 

Going back at least half a decade - to the passage of the last terrible Farm Bill - they have been rightly pointing out that the Crony Socialist, picking-losers-at-the-expense-of-winners matrix of taxes, subsidies and quotas is simply a disaster.

AP's Kuhnhenn: Debt and Deficit Worries Are So 2010
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2014 | 4:49 PM EST

Perhaps I'm being too kind in describing the Associated Press as "The Administration's Press." Based on Jim Kuhnhenn's ridiculous "Don't worry, be happy" Saturday report on how unimportant he says the still growing national debt and the still historically large federal budget deficits supposedly are, maybe I should start calling the wire service "The Administration's Publicists" instead.

Kuhnhenn stopped just short of writing that the national debt ($17.41 trillion as of Wednesday, up from $10.63 trillion when Barack Obama took office 61 months ago, an average increase of $111 billion per month) and the annual federal budget deficit (on track to be over $500 billion for the sixth year in a row, four of which saw deficits of over $1 trillion) aren't worthy of attention, but it's clear that he believes we shouldn't be concerned about them in making electoral choices (bolds are mine):

Hayes and Krauthammer Scoff at Media Claim of ‘Austerity’ Under Obama: ‘An Assault on the Dictionary’
By Brent Baker | February 22, 2014 | 11:42 PM EST

Steve Hayes and Charles Krauthammer, on Friday’s Special Report with Bret Baier, scoffed at the Washington Post’s front page characterization that President Barack Obama’s expected budget proposal “will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency.”

Hayes marveled: “This is one of the funny things about reading mainstream newspapers and watching mainstream media report on this President, is they somehow are operating under the illusion we’re living in this age of austerity.” Krauthammer proposed, “we have talked about Obama’s assaulting the Constitution. This is an assault on the dictionary. This is a guy who ran $4 trillion of deficit in three years...”