LA Times Gives Readers One-Sided Budget Story, Leaves Out Source's Partisan Leanings

It's budget time again, kids. And you know what that means. News stories that hype liberal talking points about President Bush being stingy with our tax dollars.

Were that the case, many fiscal conservatives might say, but you won't find any attention paid them in Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar's February 5 article.

The Times staff writer cited complaints from Democratic Rep. Pete Stark (D), and of course found a squishy Republican, Sen. Gordon Smith (Ore.) to blast the White House.

Smith has a moderately conservative 75 lifetime average ACU rating, but scored only 58 in 2005, the last year for which a rating is available.

[cont'd...]

What's more, Alonso-Zaldivar tossed in a study from the "Lewin Group, a health-care consulting company," to add fuel to attacks on Bush's plans to change how health care benefits are taxed.

In doing so, the L.A. Times reporter seems to suggest the consulting firm has no political ax to grind. Yet a search of OpenSecrets.org shows that in 2006, Lewin Group health economist Pete Welch gave a total of $2,350 to James Webb, the freshman senator from Virginia who delivered the Democratic response to Bush's 2007 State of the Union.