David Leonhardt

Ridiculous: NYT's Leonhardt, Brookings Spin Student-Loan Debt as a Non-Problem — Using 2010 Data
By Tom Blumer | June 25, 2014 | 12:42 AM EDT

On Tuesday, the Brookings Institution, with a David Leonhardt column at the New York Times serving as its de facto press release, published a study (full PDF here) entitled, "Is a Student Loan Crisis on the Horizon?" Unsurprisingly, their finding, in one word, was "No." Their more qualifed finding: "[I]n reality, the impact of student loans may not be as dire as many commentators fear." Their underlying "logic": "typical borrowers are no worse off now than they were a generation ago."

It's bad enough that much of the data presented by Beth Akers and Matthew M. Chingos, the study's authors, directly contradicts the sunshine they're trying blow up our keisters. What's even worse is that you don't even need to dig into the detail once you learn which year's data they used — 2010. For heaven's sake, guys, total student loan debt has grown by between 50 percent and 60 percent since then.

NYT Public Editor Says Paper Playing Down Benghazi; Dismissive Hearing Coverage Vindicates Her Concern
By Clay Waters | May 8, 2013 | 12:19 PM EDT

Benghazi hearings open in the House on Wednesday, and the New York Times printed a preview on page 16 of Wednesday's edition that downplayed any possible revelations about the Obama administration's reaction to the terrorist attack, which killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Testimony is expected by three State Department officials, led by U.S. diplomat Gregory Hicks, deputy mission chief in Tripoli, who said his pleas for military assistance were overruled.

Feeling reader pressure after the Washington Post led its Tuesday's edition by setting up the House hearings, Public Editor Margaret Sullivan addressed the issue on her blog Tuesday afternoon, posing a coverage question to Washington bureau chief (and former neoliberal economics reporter) David Leonhardt, who didn't anticipate hearing much new on Wednesday:

NYT Sunday Review Contributor Finds 'Political Racism' in Long Voting Lines for Minorities
By Clay Waters | November 14, 2012 | 2:11 PM EST

Since taking over the section, editor Andrew Rosenthal has transformed the New York Times Sunday Review from a selection of liberal-leaning political and sociological analysis into a bulletin board for the far left.

From the softer end of the spectrum, an essay by Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt, who proposed liberal tax solutions to the "fiscal cliff" in "The Cliff Is a Hard Place to Compromise." Holding up the hard left, professor Steven Hahn (pictured) dutifully uncovered "Political Racism in the Age of Obama."

Selling Socialism: The Media's Campaign for ObamaCare
By Geoffrey Dickens | March 21, 2012 | 10:00 AM EDT

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector.

Starting even before Barack Obama became President, the press has been campaigning hard for passage of the most liberal version of health care reform as a cure-all elixir to all of America’s health problems. First, they pitched the public on the desperate need to, as ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson demanded, fix America’s “national shame” of no universal coverage. (Worst of the Worst quote compiliation with videos after the jump)

NYT's David Leonhardt: All True 'Fiscal Conservatives' Support Tax Increases
By Clay Waters | July 28, 2011 | 9:22 AM EDT

Wednesday’s “Lessons From The Malaise” is David Leonhardt’s last economics column before becoming the New York Times's Washington bureau chief. It pretty much encapsulates his liberal worldview, while assuming his premises are universally shared.

One of the tricky things about the subject is that almost nothing is certain in the way that, say, two plus two equals four. Economics -- which is at root a study of human behavior -- tends to be messier. Because it’s messier, it can be tempting to think that all uncertainty is equal and that we don’t really know anything.

Leonhardt again writes as if it is all serious thinkers admit tax increases are necessary.

Tax-Loving, Obama-Defending Writer David Leonhardt Rises to NY Times's Washington Bureau Chief
By Clay Waters | July 22, 2011 | 2:04 PM EDT

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.

New York Times's David Leonhardt (Once Again) on Obama the 'Fiscal Conservative'
By Clay Waters | July 21, 2011 | 8:19 AM EDT

Chief New York Times economics writer David Leonhardt celebrated the return of Obama the “fiscal conservative” in his Wednesday column, “Negotiating Election Headwinds.”

Maybe it’s not the economy, stupid.

White House officials have begun to entertain the idea that they can run for re-election without being able to point to a strengthening economy. For one thing, they may not have a choice. For another, they believe that recent Republican budget proposals have given President Obama an opportunity to draw contrasts in which he is more in line with most voters.

The NY Times's Main Economics Writer Pushes a Familiar Budget Solution: Tax Hikes
By Clay Waters | July 13, 2011 | 5:20 PM EDT

The New York Times's chief economics writer David Leonhardt proposed his usual solution – tax hikes – to the ongoing budget and debt-ceiling battles between congressional Republicans and President Obama in his confidently titled Wednesday column “Why Taxes Will Rise In the End.” Leonhardt struggled to ponder why his fellow citizens stubbornly refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

Polls show that most Americans are opposed to raising the federal debt ceiling. Even when the Pew Research Center included the consequences in its question -- a national default that would damage the economy -- slightly more people were against raising the ceiling than were for it.

How could this be? Above all, I think it reflects a desire to return to the good old days. Not so long ago, nobody was talking about tax increases or Medicare cuts, and the federal budget seemed to be in fine shape. If only we could get back to the past -- get spending under control, as the cliché goes -- we’d be O.K. The debt ceiling, with its harsh finality, offers the chance.

Unfortunately, this nostalgic view depends on a misunderstanding of the budget. It imagines a budget in which the United States indefinitely has the world’s highest medical costs, its largest military, an aging population and, nonetheless, taxes that are among the world’s lowest. Economists have a name for that combination: a free lunch.

New York Times Watch Quotes of Note: Stop Spending Cuts or People Will 'Starve to Death'
By Clay Waters | April 22, 2011 | 2:39 PM EDT

Stop Spending Cuts or People Will “Starve to Death”

“I stopped eating on Monday and joined around 4,000 other people in a fast to call attention to congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry....These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts -- they’d barely make a dent -- will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now.” – Food writer Mark Bittman in a March 30 op-ed, “Why We’re Fasting.”

 

“What causes the lack? Imprisonment, torture, being stranded on a desert island, anorexia, crop failure....and both a lack of aid and bad distribution of nutrients. Some (or much) of both of these last two stem from unregulated capitalism and greed.” – Bittman on his blog at nytimes.com, March 31.

David Leonhardt, NYT's Pulitzer Prize Winner for Commentary, Loves ObamaCare and Higher Taxes
By Clay Waters | April 20, 2011 | 12:27 PM EDT

The New York Times's chief economics writer David Leonhardt has won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

The prize committee praised Leonhardt for “his graceful penetration of America’s complicated economics questions.” The White House and congressional Democrats are huge fans as well, emailing around his previous defenses of programs like Obama’s stimulus. However, the paper's Public Editor chided the Times in January for placing Leonhardt's neo-liberal commentaries promoting Obama-care on the front page, which gives them the imprimatur of objective news.

As documented by Times Watch, Leonhardt's "graceful penetration" generally involves digging into citizen's wallets for even more federal tax money.

NYT Econ Writer David Leonhardt's Simple Budgetary Solutions: Ration Health Care, Raise Taxes
By Clay Waters | April 6, 2011 | 7:04 PM EDT

New York Times chief economics writer David Leonhardt argued against the deficit-reducing House Republican budget written by Rep. Paul Ryan in his Wednesday front-page Business Day column “A Lopsided Proposal for Medicare.” Instead, Leonhardt called for higher taxes on "affluent Americans"(his reasoning: All wealthy countries do it). It’s one of his favorite arguments for redistributing the wealth.

While admitting the Republican budget was “a daring one in many ways” he faulted it for not reforming Medicare, which he interestingly admits is a “welfare program,” since people generally get more out of it in care than what they paid into the program in taxes. Leonhardt again called for rationing health care in the name of cost control.

A fairer, more fiscally conservative plan would not postpone dealing with Medicare. It would leave in place the cost control measures in the health reform bill and go even further to reward the quality of care rather than the volume. Obviously, these steps would run some risk of restricting good treatments, too. But, remember, we’re facing “an existential threat.” We can’t limit ourselves to solutions without risks.

N.Y. Times Writer David Leonhardt: ObamaCare on Same Level as Civil Rights
By Clay Waters | December 16, 2010 | 10:22 AM EST

New York Times writer David Leonhardt is not happy with a judge’s ruling a vital part of Obama-care – the individual insurance mandate – is unconstitutional. In his latest front-page “Economic Scene” column, “In Health Law, Old Arguments Get New Airing,” the paper’s neo-liberal conscience on economic matters compared conservative opposition to Obama-care not only to past opposition to Medicare, but to opposition to civil rights for black Americans.

 

“We are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program,” said one prominent critic of the new health care law. It is socialized medicine, he argued. If it stands, he said, “one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

The health care law in question was Medicare, and the critic was Ronald Reagan. He made the leap from actor to political activist, almost 50 years ago, in part by opposing government-run health insurance for the elderly.

Today, the supposed threat to free enterprise is a law that’s broader, if less radical, than Medicare: the bill Congress passed this year to create a system of privately run health insurance for everyone. On Monday, a federal judge ruled part of the law to be unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court will probably need to settle the matter in the end.

We’ve lived through a version of this story before, and not just with Medicare. Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed.