Budget

If future historians look back on the ruins of the American economy after a U.S. bond crisis struck in the second decade of the 21st century, many causes will be noted. Obviously, it will be seen that for decades before the catastrophe, the U.S. was spending vastly more than it could afford on government health and retirement programs. And, just as after the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and…

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That could accurately describe Republicans' relationship to the liberal media on budget matters. While the mainstream media often raise a clamor about GOP plans to cut back on arts funding -- see this article from yesterday's Washington Post -- it seems any move to do the opposite will also face scorn. Take ABCNews.com's "The Blotter" and its take on…

The New York Times's chief economics writer David Leonhardt has won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. The prize committee praised Leonhardt for “his graceful penetration of America’s complicated economics questions.” The White House and congressional Democrats are huge fans as well, emailing around his previous defenses of programs like Obama’s stimulus. However, the paper's Public…

Do you read Ayn Rand? Do you enjoy her novels? You do? Well then, you're clearly a proponent of - or at the very least sympathize with - domestic terrorism. That, at least, is the logic put forth by Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston on last night's "Ed Show," in what may be the most absurd, laughable attempt to demonize Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to date.…

For the second night in a row Tuesday, MSNBC's Ed Schultz called Republicans liars. Also for the second night in a row, he did so moments before lying himself (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday, the New York Times assembled a panel of alleged experts in its Room For Debate section. Each weighed in on Monday's ratings agency outlook downgrade by Standard and Poor's in an item entitled "Is Anyone Listening to the S.&P.?" (Don't ask me why "the" is there. It shouldn't be; the item is about the firm Standard and Poor's, not "the" Standard and Poor's stock index.) One of…

As part of its effort to "shore up" the backing of social conservatives, House Republicans today "issued a contract today to pay former Solicitor General Paul Clement $575 an hour, up to $500,000 to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act," San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Lochhead insisted in the paper's Politics Blog. "Republicans claim they will take the money out of the Justice…

I am beginning to wonder whether President Obama is so cocky about his 2012 re-election prospects that he thinks he doesn't even have to be serious in his budget plan offerings. Unfortunately, the nation's unfunded liabilities aren't so casual as the president; they are growing by more than $10 trillion per year, which means that our looming debt crisis becomes far more problematic with each…

In a discussion with CNBC's Erin Burnett on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer was skeptical of Standard and Poor's downgrading of the chances of the U.S. addressing its massive debt and worried: "Is this a kind of a delicate line for the folks at the S & P to walk? Are they venturing into politics here when they should be sticking to fiscal policy?" What Lauer failed to mention was…

“I’m not biased,” CNN host and ex-Democratic politician Eliot Spitzer told NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell on In the Arena Monday night. Bozell was on CNN to talk about the budget fight and his 800,000 member grassroots political organization, ForAmerica, but Spitzer first wanted to ask about various NewsBusters items documenting his liberal approach, particularly about the recent budget…

As NewsBusters has been reporting, America's media have been on a full-court press to raise taxes ever since Barack Obama proposed this in his deficit reduction speech last Wednesday. So supportive of soaking the rich is MSNBC's Ed Schultz that on Monday's program bearing his name, seconds after claiming "Republicans are forced I guess you could say to make stuff up," he lied about what…

As night follows day, the press is beginning to go after a business entity which had the nerve to do its job and call attention to Uncle Sam's dire fiscal situation. Standard and Poor's is presumably not 100% populated with angels, but it didn't deserve the gratuitous and ignorant shots fired at it this evening by the Associated Press's Bernard Condon and an "expert" he quoted. In attempting…

Credit ratings agency Standand & Poor's Monday placed a negative outlook on the future of America's AAA debt rating as a result of looming budget deficits as far as the eye can see. Later in the day, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer of Fox News's "Special Report" said this move by S&P was actually a negative review of President Obama's deficit reduction speech last Wednesday (…

In my book "Crimes Against Liberty," I described President Obama as dishonest, hyper-partisan, a bully, a narcissist and a hard-core left-wing ideologue. Anyone who thinks my description is exaggerated or too harsh didn't hear his Wednesday speech on the budget. One might have expected that a newly elected president who had "inherited" such a disturbingly high deficit, a growing national debt…