Budget

CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield apparently thinks some Republican players in the debt ceiling debate are concerned that President Obama is conceding too much. During the 12 p.m. EDT hour Friday, Whitfield alleged that many important players from both parties think Obama may be "caving" to Republicans. "You know, there are a lot of players who are very concerned – Democrats and Republicans who…

ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the existence of the Cut, Cap and Balance (CCB) bill until last week, a Nexis search revealed, despite multiple polls demonstrating overwhelming public support. In addition to the blackout, none of the broadcast networks ever mentioned the positive polls in their coverage of the bill, even though 65 percent of the public backed a constitutional amendment requiring a…

Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) twice told CNN's John King Thursday night the results of CNN's own poll showing Americans favor a Cut, Cap, and Balance plan. King would not affirm his claims and instead reported other poll results showing that Americans favor compromise on the debt ceiling. Throughout Thursday afternoon, the network selectively touted results from its newly-released poll showing a…

CNN's Fareed Zakaria Thursday called the debt ceiling battle a "sideshow" caused by the Tea Party. Appearing on "In the Arena" as a supposed "astute observer of the economy," Zakaria proceeded to bungle economic and historic facts like a high school dropout (video follows with transcript and commentary):

While the media have been busy persistently denouncing the Cut, Cap and Balance plan as Republicans "wasting time" with a "show" plan that has "no chance of passage," the public aren't accepting the media spin. A CNN poll shows nearly 2/3rds of Americans favor that approach to tackling the national debt and balancing the budget, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the July 21 "Hannity…

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was at his worst Wednesday morning in a press conference. Sure, there was the usual immature Democratic Party name-calling -- calling Republicans "dead-beat debtors" and characterizing Republicans who oppose raising the debt ceiling as a "cult fringe," even though polls seem to be showing that 60% of Americans are in that "fringe." But beyond that, Harkin uttered a…

CNN touted results from its newly-released poll Thursday showing Americans favor a balance of spending cuts and tax increases in the debt ceiling debate, as well as raising the debt ceiling. What the network completely failed to report -- although NewsBusters reported it -- was that Americans also favored two conservative positions – passage of a balanced budget amendment, along with spending…

In the past week, you couldn't swing a debt cat without hitting a press report about how irresponsible the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill passed by House Republicans is. A new CNN/ORC poll released a few hours ago finds the media very much on the wrong side of public opinion concerning this issue:

CBS's John Blackstone apparently couldn't find many opponents of imposing sales taxes on online retailers for his report on Thursday's Early Show, as all but one of his sound bites came from proponents. Blackstone also warned that "states that are already suffering under huge budget deficits will lose more than $11 billion in uncollected sales taxes next year." The correspondent first…

MSNBC once again repeated the liberal line that returning to the higher pre-Bush tax rates is somehow not raising taxes. "If you just go back to normal tax standards, it's not a break of the [no tax hike] pledge that many of them signed" said Mika Brzezinski on Thursday's Morning Joe.

Although President Obama and the Democrats have stridently insisted that increased tax revenues be part of a debt ceiling deal, CNN is content to choose sides and paint only the conservative Republicans as stubborn extremists for opposing the revenue increases. Anchor Kyra Phillips asked Thursday morning if Republicans would listen to the warning of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to the House GOP…

After the House passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance act Tuesday evening with the support of five Democrats, Sen. Jim DeMint is circulating a Club for Growth video with 20 prominent Democrat senators previously announcing support for a balanced budget amendment in hopes of swaying their votes this weekend. Do you think any of these Democrats will maintain support for such an amendment? Check out…

House Republicans have a budget-cutting proposal that stands no chance of getting by President Obama while some Senators have a big tax-hiking plan which stands no chance of passage in the House, but CBS, in illustrating the larger media take, framed the conservative plan as a distracting waste of time while cheerleading the Senate’s “Gang of 33” plan in the name of “bi-partisanship.”

Chief New York Times economics writer David Leonhardt celebrated the return of Obama the “fiscal conservative” in his Wednesday column, “Negotiating Election Headwinds.” Maybe it’s not the economy, stupid. White House officials have begun to entertain the idea that they can run for re-election without being able to point to a strengthening economy. For one thing, they may not have a choice…