Day After Hitting Budget "Cuts," Post's Weisman Rues "Cost" of Tax Cuts

February 3rd, 2006 12:32 PM

A day after passing off reductions in the rate of growth for entitlement spending as "cuts" which will "pinch the elderly," The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman bemoans tax cuts which will "cost" the government $70 billion:

One day after Congress gave final approval to a contentious measure to reduce the deficit by nearly $40 billion through 2010, the Senate last night easily approved a $70 billion tax-cutting measure that would more than wipe out all those savings.

But the $40 billion in "cuts" are really reductions in the rate of growth, not actual budget cuts [more below the fold]:

Heritage’s senior budget analyst, Brian Riedl, told the Free Market Project that “$40 billion in five-year savings are remarkably modest” when compared to budget bills from the late 1990s, which “saved an inflation-adjusted average of $308 billion over five years.” In other words, the “cuts” which the media are now lamenting were seven times larger during President Bill Clinton’s second term.

Riedl was also quoted in a Los Angeles Times story on the budget’s passage.

In June 2005 The Free Market Project issued a report which documented how the media often categorize reductions in the growth of government programs as “cuts.”