Budget

Politico's Mak Buries the Lede: Austan Goolsbee, Supply-Sider
October 21st, 2011 8:08 PM
The easy catch in former Obama administration economic adviser Austan Goolsbee's Thursday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," as reported by the Politico's Tim Mak, is that he believes that "if given a second chance he would not have backed the Cash for Clunkers program or the home buyer tax credit." Goolsbee's excuse for his changed position -- that the administration didn't think the recovery…

WaPo's Kessler Exposes Biden's 'Absurd Claims About Rising Rape and Mu
October 21st, 2011 6:07 PM
In June, when yours truly last blogged on a Glenn Kessler piece (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the Washington Post's "Fact Checker" was calling Barack Obama's claims about the accomplishments of the auto-company bailouts "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech." He gave Obama's claims three Pinocchios ("Significant factual error and/or…

CBS Covers Biden's 'Controversial' Rape Remark; ABC, NBC Punt
October 20th, 2011 12:39 PM
CBS's Early Show on Thursday stood out as the only Big Three network program that covered what anchor Jeff Glor labeled as Vice President Biden's "controversial comments linking rape and the jobs bill," where he attacked the GOP for opposing the legislation. ABC and NBC's morning shows on Thursday didn't air anything on the story, and none of the networks' evening news shows on Wednesday…

CBS Tosses Softballs at Axelrod on GOP Debate; No Republicans
October 19th, 2011 6:20 PM
CBS's Early Show on Wednesday somehow couldn't find time for any Republicans to comment on the most recent GOP presidential debate, and instead, brought on David Axelrod, the chief strategist for President Obama's reelection campaign, to bash the GOP. Anchors Erica Hill and Jeff Glor gave Axelrod the kid glove treatment, instead of pressing him about the issues that may negatively affect the…

New York Mag Finds 'Occupy Wall Street' Ignorant About Top Tax Rate, F
October 18th, 2011 6:03 PM
New York Magazine, no right-wing rag by any stretch, recently asked 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters some basic questions about U.S. fiscal policy. While the survey is not scientific, the rank-and-file protesters in Zuccotti Park seem to be woefully ignorant on such basic questions as what the SEC stands for (Securities and Exchange Commission), what the top marginal income tax is (35 percent…

Unlike Wis. and Ohio, Illinois, the Democrat 'Deadbeat State,' Gets Li
October 15th, 2011 9:29 PM
Sometimes it's really hard to understand why certain events get heavy national press coverage while others which are arguably at least as significant and serious get little if any notice. This is one of them. Scott Walker, who solved a $3 billion projected deficit in Wisconsin, is a media and leftist (but I repeat myself) arch-villain because much of the balancing was done by adjusting public-…

CNN's Burnett: Aren't Tax Hikes Part of 'Rational' Deficit Strategy
October 13th, 2011 4:53 PM
CNN's Erin Burnett argued that, according to a Pew study, tax hikes and spending cuts together would be more effective in trimming the deficit than spending cuts alone, and asked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) if tax hikes weren't "part of a rational independent strategy here?"
Burnett also pressed the conservative presidential candidate as to why she stuck to her positions on social and…

Multimillionaire Tim Robbins Tells Protesters 'You Can't Rip People Of
October 13th, 2011 12:34 PM
NewsBusters on Wednesday shared a list of the top ten richest celebrities that have so far expressed their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Currently in ninth place is actor Tim Robbins who recently told protesters, "You can't rip people off that long and expect to get away with it," (video follows with transcript and commentary):

AP Laughably Argues Regulations Aren't Job-Killers, Because Companies
October 12th, 2011 1:55 AM
Somebody needed to give Calvin Woodward and Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press Five-Hour Energy drinks or some other boost before Tuesday night's GOP debate. Their brains must have totally turned off late in the afternoon without re-engaging before they filed their late-evening post-debate report.
Behold how the AP pair "proved" that excessive government regulation doesn't kill jobs…

Gingrich: Media Blaming Business Community for Financial Crisis Should
October 11th, 2011 9:39 PM
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during Tuesday's Republican presidential debate once again went after one of his favorite targets - the media.
In response to a question about the Occupy Wall Street protests, Gingrich said, "Everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is…
Shocking AP Headline: 'Obama Disconnects Rhetoric, Reality
October 10th, 2011 10:22 AM
Many right-thinking Americans have been wondering when Obama-loving news outlets would notice that even Democrats don't support the president's new jobs bill.
On Monday, the truth came from a surprising source - the Associated Press:

Fareed Zakaria Agrees With Obama: America IS Getting Soft
October 9th, 2011 11:37 AM
Barack Obama took a lot of heat last week for saying America has "gotten a little soft."
Not from Fareed Zakaria who when not advising the president on foreign policy acts as one of his propaganda czars every Sunday on CNN (video follows with transcript and commentary):

AP Unbylined Report on CBO's Fiscal 2011 Deficit Estimate Avoids All t
October 8th, 2011 9:04 PM
You would think that an Associated Press story about the Congressional Budget Office's preliminary estimate of the federal government's full fiscal year results would include things like total federal collections and total spending during the year and how they compared to the previous year.
Don't be silly. If the AP let numbers that big -- and their direction -- get into its report, readers…

LAT's Oliphant Lets Joe Biden Babble Away, Part 1 of 3: On the Origins
October 6th, 2011 6:01 PM
In a report filed at the Los Angeles Times's Politics Now blog earlier today, Washington Bureau reporter James Oliphant relayed a number of whoppers delivered by Vice President Joe Biden without anything resembling a challenge.
Breaking Biden's bilge into three sections, they involve his claim about the historical origins of the Tea Party, which Biden characterized as a collection of "…