Binyamin Appelbaum

The sequestration may have fizzled out as a national crisis, but it's still killing jobs, apparently. Saturday's New York Times lead story by Nelson Schwartz and Binyamin Appelbaum strongly insisted that last Friday's surprisingly good job numbers from the Labor Department are endangered by the 2.4% federal spending cuts known as sequestration, "Jobless Rate Dips to Four-Year Low – 236,000 Jobs Added – Unemployment Level Down to 7.7%, but Analysts Fear U.S. Spending Cuts."

Appelbaum said in an August 2011 Times podcast that "the real problem is that there's this tremendous political pressure to get smaller, and everything we know about economics tells us that they should be doing the opposite, they should be getting bigger right now....it's as cheap as it's ever been to borrow money, invest it in infrastructure, invest it in things that will pay off in the long run, and help out the economy." On Saturday he and Schwartz (who also likes government stimulus) argued:

The front page of Wednesday's New York Times featured another lament for the supposed new "austerity" encompassing the nation, from economics reporter (and enthusiastic Keynesian) Binyamin Appelbaum, "As Budget Cuts Loom, Austerity Has Killed Off Government Jobs." An accompanying graphic with text insisted "Austerity Is Already Here."

Federal government spending often falls after recessions and wars, but the current round of cuts in investment and spending on goods and services is unusually deep. Combined with cuts by state and local governments, the drop in government’s contribution to economic growth is the largest in more than 50 years.

The economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2012, indicating that growth remains a problem. The woes made the New York Times front page on Thursday, "Growth Halted In 4th Quarter Despite the Fed," though the story by Nelson Schwartz and Binyamin Appelbaum was not prominently featured (and Obama wasn't mentioned until paragraph 12, in a quote from Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee). The Washington Post made it the lead story under the headline "GDP shrank at end of 2012."

Friday's enormous A1 New York Times story by economics reporters Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff tried to soften Americans up for tax hikes under a misleading headline: "Complaints Aside, Most Face Lower Tax Burden Than in the Reagan ’80s." They write:

But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes -- federal, state and local -- than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.

Sunday’s New York Times led with a 4,200 word-feature co-written by economics reporter Binyamin Appelbaum and welfare reporter Robert Gebeloff reporting from middle class Chisago County, “Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It.”

Reporter Matt Bai wrote on the paper's Caucus blog Monday that “A bunch of my liberal friends applauded and sent around this piece, which seemed to validate their sense that the conservative argument about government dependency is specious -- that, in fact, the poor are getting a smaller share of government assistance than they used to, while middle-class voters who resent government are gobbling up more of it.” Although Bai saw some warning signs for the left in the story as well.

Double standards on story placement in the New York Times? A “Political Victory” for the White House over trade deals that promise only “small” economic benefits was trumpeted in the headline to Thursday’s lead story, while a “major setback” for Obama and his jobs bill was buried on Wednesday’s inside pages.

The stack of headlines over Thursday’s lead story by Binyamin Appelbaum and Jennifer Steinhauer trumpeted a “Political Victory” for the White House in three trade deals involving South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, though the reporters themselves admitted “The economic benefits are projected to be small.” The headlines: “Trade Deals Pass Congress, Ending 5-Year Standoff – Support Is Bipartisan – Accords With 3 Nations Give Political Victory to White House.” How did the Times determine this story of "small" benefits was the most important news of the day?

The New York Times’s “Caucus” podcast last Friday was focused on the financial crisis. Washington correspondent Binyamin Appelbaum, who focuses on financial issues, joined hosts Sam Roberts and Michael Shear to call for yet more federal spending on infrastructure "investment" in the face of a national debt of $14 trillion.

Binyamin Appelbaum: “....we’re in the middle of this economic malaise, as you said it a moment ago. And for governments, the real problem is that there’s this tremendous political pressure to get smaller, and everything we know about economics tells us that they should be doing the opposite, they should be getting bigger right now.”

Better late than never, perhaps, but in Sunday’s paper the Times noted that “Lowering Nation’s Credit Rating May Have Little Effect, Economists Suggest.”

The article, by Binyamin Appelbaum article, was buried on page A14 (emphasis mine):

Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but in late August 2010 Ben Bernanke took on complete responsibility for everything -- especially everything mediocre or bad -- that occurs in the economy.

I know this because on August 27 and 28 (covered here and here), the Associated Press issued three reports essentially telling readers that it was up to Ben to save us. There wasn't anything Barack Obama, Tim Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or then-present Larry Summers could possibly say or do to improve the economic situation, described at the time as "appears to be stalling" in one of those AP items.

Out of this came what has come to be known as "QE2" (the second round of "quantitative easing"), otherwise known as "electronically printing money to buy U.S. debt because possibly no one else will."

Well, it hasn't worked out so well, according to the New York Times, whose Binyamin Appelbaum reported the "surprisingly" pathetic results on Sunday: