Network Reporters and Sunday Hosts Rue Increased Deficit from Tax Compromise, As If Not Hiking Taxes is a ‘Cost’
Nearly 80 percent of the $858 billion “cost” of the compromise tax bill signed Friday by President Barack Obama is, per a Congressional Research Service estimate, from the $675 billion over the next ten years the government would have received if income tax rates were raised, a perspective widely adopted by network reporters and hosts who assumed just keeping rates at their current levels should be counted as a “cost” to the national debt and annual deficits.
“The $858 billion price tag for this bill will be added to the already $14 trillion national debt,” ABC’s Jake Tapper concluded Friday night, “meaning we, our children and our children's children will likely be on the hook for the law that was passed today.”
The Sunday interview shows echoed Tapper’s spin. On CBS’s Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer lamented how the tax bill “is going to just add to the deficit.” David Gregory, interviewing Vice President Biden on Meet the Press, bemoaned how the tax compromise will “add a trillion dollars to the deficit.” Later in the program, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough also exaggerated the $858 billion to $1 trillion as he declared: “It straps us with another trillion dollars worth of debt.”
Over on the roundtable on ABC’s This Week, Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Thomson-Reuters, expressed the core of the media hostility to the compromise – it didn’t raise income tax rates. Deriding the “Santa Claus deal. It’s really easy to cut everybody’s taxes and then have more money for poor people,” Freeland yearned:
Seriously attacking the deficit is going to mean looking forward to also increasing taxes. Someone’s gotta pay them.
From Sunday, December 19:
Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar:
Both sides agree that we’re facing this fiscal abyss here, and yet you did have this bi-partisan tax bill pass that is going to just add to the deficit. So how do you justify that?
From Meet the Press:
David Gregory to Vice President Joe Biden: “Can you be thought as being serious of cutting the deficit when, within 80 hours of announcing the deficit commission's proposals, this administration agrees to add a trillion dollars to the deficit?”
Joe Scarborough: “There was nothing tough about this bill. In fact, it's frightening. It straps us with another trillion dollars worth of debt.”
Andrea Mitchell: “Basically, they have so raised the level from which you’re eventually going to have to cut. To say that we're going to get serious about deficit cutting in the future is really silly at this point.”
Jake Tapper concluded his story on Friday’s (December 17) World News, in which he noted the two percentage rate cut in the payroll tax and how “wealthy individuals like the President - he made $5.5 million in 2008, mostly from brook sales - will keep more of their money” as “the President will keep almost $300,000 because of the law” while “for the unemployed, it's a more modest benefit - $270 a week,” by telling anchor Diane Sawyer:
And, Diane, none of this takes into consideration that the $858 billion price tag for this bill will be added to the already $14 trillion national debt, meaning we, our children and our children's children will likely be on the hook for the law that was passed today.
— Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
- Brent Baker's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Those who actually pay attention
Submitted by The_Barrel_Guy on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:11pm.
to the likes of Sawyer, Tapper, Gregory, Schieffer, Scarborough and Mitchell deserve what they get... The sad part is that the rest of us may have to go along for the ride...
Funny, I don't recall them
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:11pm.
Funny, I don't recall them worrying about the "stimulus" bill and all the other massive spending programs adding to the deficit and debt. This must be a very recent concern of theirs....
By the way, if the money kept in people's pockets gets out into circulation, won't government coffers benefit in the end through other taxes down the line?
Yes, my memory must be
Submitted by ant on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:22pm.
Yes, my memory must be failing also. I ,in fact, didn't hear much wailing about the debt when the Omnibus spending bill was recently unveiled. One big-ass propaganda machine, that's all the MSM is anymore.
So Scarborough and his pals turn 858 billion into 1 trillion. Hey, what's another 142 billion dollars after two years of insane spending? To Obama and Pelosi that is chump change, except we're the chumps.
You sure got that right........
Submitted by NeoKong on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:28pm.
They didn't seem so concerned about collecting taxes when it involved Charlie Rangel or Timothy Geithner.
They are just trying to score points and take a shot at Republicans because the Dems are having such a bad week. Like they ever gave a damn about the deficit before now. If you think they are whining now just wait until next year when Republicans control the house. All of a sudden the homeless will be in the news again and children will be starving on every corner. I cannot wait to see who will be the first one to cry how the mean Republicans aren't being inclusive enough to Democrats. All of a sudden they will be so concerned about how fast legislation is crafted and by whom. They will be crying about how no one has had time to examine it or that it has so many pages.
Maybe....
Submitted by CommanderTaya on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:22pm.
they shouldn't have "counted" on the non-extension of the Bush tax rates. There is NO increase. It's all about that tired refrain..................tax the rich more, they can afford it! It will benefit the "little guy" Libs can't wait to tax and spend. Redistribution of wealth, the Lib mantra.
the $675 billion over the
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:31pm.
the $675 billion over the next ten years the government would have received if income tax rates were raised,They continue to believe that raising tax rates wouldn't cause any reactive behavior. They "know" that raising the rates would have brought in $675 billion over the next ten years.
As usual, they ignore the Law of Unintended Consequences.
“meaning we, our
Submitted by goldbough on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:33pm.
“meaning we, our children and our children's children will likely be on the hook for the law that was passed today.” Yet we're not on the hook for Medicare and Social Security?I Guffaw At Tingles and Fellow Travelers ...
Submitted by LibertyAtStake on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:35pm.
...And I Say That PISSED OFF at the reading of this, even after my beloved Jets have logged a key victory.
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"
Ugh
Submitted by CommanderTaya on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:55pm.
Imagine being a Giants fan tonight. What an embarrassment.
Amen!
Submitted by Mary Louise Turner on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:11pm.
Ugly, ugly, ugly...This is one of the worst meltdowns in NFL history, not to mention Giants' history. What is it about the Eagles that turns the Giants into midgets? First, the original "Miracle at the Meadowlands" (aka The Fumble) in 1978, and now this! The booing must have been deafening. Can Tom Coughlin survive?
Debt
Submitted by grammajane on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 8:44pm.
If Tapper and all the other libs are so worried about the debt the Bush rates continued will cause, why, were the evening news spinners jumping out of their seats reporting the fact BO won all his campaign promises this past week. Not one word of "compromise" just total excitement over this lame duck congress and all the winnings of liberals. The mention of the Dream Act being squashed was said to be a real mistake for the Republicans as they will loose millions of votes in 2012
Government never loses
Submitted by TRH on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:04pm.
These idiot talking heads always act like government loses money any time taxes are not raised. The government always gets their money. It is the producer that loses to the government, every time.
Taxes are now a cost??
Submitted by MightyMax on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 9:47am.
Wouldn't it be funny if we heard companies talk like that if they didn't make their projected revenues for the year??
"People didn't buy enough of our products, so they "cost" us our reveunue".
If anyone remembers back when Obama passed his stimulus, I think it was just a week later they passed an omnibus bill that had jumped from the previous year 23% or something outrageous.
Close enough for government work?
Submitted by drsamherman on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:15pm.
So they include fictitious revenue as "lost income" and cost it out?
Funny how every private company and individual in the United States would be prosecuted for tax evasion or fraud if they did that.
Why don't these lieberals just shame us into it
Submitted by TheHistorian on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:34pm.
Hey, Tingles, it is reputed that you make $5 million. That is $4.75 million over $250K. At 38% instead of 33%, you can write a check to Uncle for about $225,000. Get out your pen, write it to the "Bureau of The Debt", and mark "debt reduction" in the memo line. Then you can go on your CS show and gloat at all of us about how wonderful you are, how great you feel, and how you are helping our grandkids by writing this check.
David Gregory, you have done a good job of hiding your salary. So why don't you just pony up 2X that recommended for Tingles, or about $500,000. Think how good you will feel.
Anybody else want to help contribute? Maybe John Kerry? Tim Geithner? Let's try for a billion, lieberals. After all, we have ALL heard you and your ilk say on TV or radio that you don't need this money, and you would be HAPPY to pay additional taxes.
Dennis Prager
Aren't they forgetting
Submitted by Tugboat Phil on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:52pm.
that Obamacare is going to drastically reduce the deficits? I mean he DID tell us that didn't he?
If history is any guide,
Submitted by big.league.slider on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:54pm.
If history is any guide, keeping the current federal tax rates in place will reduce the budget deficit, versus letting them revert back to pre-2003 levels. In the half decade (2003 to 2008) after the Bush tax cuts, federal tax revenues increased 20%. In the half decade (1997 to 2002) before the Bush tax cuts, federal tax revenues only increased about 7%.
Keeping the Bush tax cuts in place should reduce the buget deficit by almost $400 billion by 2015.
Yep, it's obvious that revenue will go down
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:19pm.
If the Tax cuts were repealed. But also has more spending that isnt paid for.
I am pretty close to saying lets raise taxes and pay the bills.Then watch it fold like a cheap tent. Starting to look like this will be the only way to rid ourselves of these createns, force them to walk the walk.
How long will these idiots
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:57pm.
Keep spewing their "Glass Half Empty" crap. So, when a thief does not steal your wallet he can sue you for lost income?!Why don't they lower the tax
Submitted by rbosque on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:08pm.
Why don't they lower the tax rate, I bet tax revenues would increase! Mr. Laffer thinks so and so do I!
Shocker
Submitted by Unsane on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:11pm.
Here is a very odd idea: when you get less revenue, why not spend less?
(Of course, refer to Mr. Laffer, as rbosque did, for why revenue will probably stay the same or increase)
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Because these are libtards
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:22pm.
Were talking about, least for the most part.
Agreed
Submitted by Cappmann1962 on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 9:11am.
I was going to say that I have just one word to solve the deficit problem - STOP SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE AND WASTING IT ON THINGS THAT ARE FRIVOLOUS AND CUT YOU OWN SALARIES AND QUIT EARMARKS AND STOP BLAMING EVERYONE BUT YOURSELVES FOR THE HOLE YOU'VE DUG US ALL INTO AND OBTW ALL OF YOU ARE WHAT YOU CONSIDER RICH SO IF THE RICH ARE EVIL THEN I GUESS EVERY CONGRESS CRITTER IS TOO... Sorry about that. I may have used a few more than one word there...
The tax compromise bill doesn't "cost" $858 billion?
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:35pm.
So what is the correct terminology to be applied to the bill if "price tag" is improper. And is Brent suggesting that the original stimulus package was not actually one for $787 bil since nearly $300 bil of that figure was attributable to tax cuts?
Jer
I'm a little confused by the
Submitted by 26CX on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:43pm.
I'm a little confused by the concept that not raising taxes from their current levels is considered a tax cut. If I don't get a raise at work next year, is that a pay cut, or does my pay stay the same?
26CX...
Submitted by Jer on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:52pm.
That question would be better addressed to someone who has referred to them as--and believes them to be--"tax cuts". I haven't and I don't.
Jer
Well, Jer
Submitted by 26CX on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:58pm.
If you and I are going into the week agreeing on something, that's a good start!
Then we have found two points of agreement...
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:04am.
in a matter of minutes. T'is the season of miracles.
Jer
This has the makings of a
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:07am.
This has the makings of a heart warming Christmas movie.
Gosh, I sure hope they can
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:15am.
Gosh, I sure hope they can get Sean Penn to play the role of "Jer".
Jer
I want to play the role of
Submitted by 26CX on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:19am.
I want to play the role of 26cx myself and do all my own stunts.
...with your onscreen wife -
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:24am.
...with your onscreen wife - played by who? Be careful now... :)
Since I already have a wife
Submitted by 26CX on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:29am.
Since I already have a wife I'll have her play the role in the movie. It will save me a lot of strife and losing half of everything I have now.
Her role will be comprised of several short scenes where she comes into the room and tells me to get off the computer and get something done...
I advised you to be careful.
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:38am.
I advised you to be careful. You answered correctly - and wisely. :)
Thank you. Now, if only I
Submitted by 26CX on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 7:23am.
Thank you. Now, if only I could snatch the pebble from your hand, I'd be outta here...
Sean Penn? Good gried, surely
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:26am.
Sean Penn? Good grief, for all that's right and holy, surely you can do better than that.
so jer, you figure sean penn could just
Submitted by porpoiseboy on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:32am.
reprise his role from "i am sam"......therefore saving some $$$$ since he wouldn't have to learn a new character?
Ecclesiastes 10:2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left
The best social program is a JOB...ronald reagan
Now, now. Christmas spirit.
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:35am.
Now, now. Christmas spirit and all...
No, it isn't a cost
Submitted by ckc1227 on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 12:38am.
Me letting you keep the money you have in your pocket doesn't cost me a dime. It doesn't cost the government a dime either.
"is Brent suggesting that the original stimulus package was not actually one for $787 bil since nearly $300 bil of that figure was attributable to tax cuts?"
What portion of that nearly $300 billion(assuming that number is accurate) in "tax cuts" went to people who pay no taxes to begin with, which would be an expense?