Budget

In the midst of outcry that Wisconsin teachers were skipping school to protest the governor's new budget bill and demand collective bargaining rights, NBC's Norah O'Donnell provided the teachers' motives as an argument for their side. She failed to mention why Wisconsin Gov. Walker cut into their benefits in the first place. Covering the story on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," O'Donnell…

Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union. The lowdown: State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion…

Update: Video and audio added. On Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge attempted to portray Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to curb costly benefits for public sector unions in his state as purely political: "Your teachers union, which votes Democratic...hit very hard. Yet your police, state trooper, firemen unions, who all supported and endorsed you, did not get touched in…

I knew we were in for real budgetary trouble with Obama, but his recent statements on the subject make me wonder whether he is so brainwashed with liberal ideology as to be divorced from reality — or worse. Based on his tireless rhetoric, it would appear that he thinks — contrary to all evidence, including the failure of his $868 billion stimulus package to create jobs — that even more…

ABC on Thursday night championed a “mutiny in America” by public employees in Wisconsin whom NBC’s Brian Williams trumpeted for “rising up and saying no to some of the most extreme cuts in the nation.” ABC’s Diane Sawyer teased: “Tonight on World News, a mutiny in America. Public workers take to the streets as governors try to cut their pay and perks.” Sawyer framed coverage from the grievance…

After the riots in Athens, the Greek authorities decided to enact new laws to deal with their obvious problems. The new laws, which treat rich and poor alike for the first time, have been seen has harsh. The name of the legislator who wrote the laws is a man called Draco. The date is believed to be 621 B.C. And more than 2,600 years later, the adjectival form of his name — draconian — is still…

On the home page of the Office of Management and Budget website, President Obama is quoted: "Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it's time to try something new." If only he would, but the president's proposed $3.7 trillion budget is more of the same: taxing and spending for which liberal Democrats are known and "cuts" as in Pell Grants and home…

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough thinks the GOP's house is already on fire in his latest Politico column, where he thrashes the party's leadership for a poor showing at CPAC. He ridiculed the gathering as "a conference cursed with dull speechmaking and intraparty battles." "Like most Egyptians, the conservative movement still has no idea who will lead it through the next election," Scarborough writes…

On Thursday's CBS Early Show, senior White House correspondent Bill Plante seized on a rare instance in which the Obama administration and conservative members of Congress happened to agree on a single budget cut: "It's not very often that the Obama administration finds itself on the same side as Tea Party Republicans when it comes to spending." The spending in question was funding for the…

Interviewing Donald Trump this morning, MSNBC's Chris Jansing put on her Democratic strategist hat to press the Republican real estate mogul with liberal talking points. After Trump, responding to Jansing's question about what he would do to fix the economy, suggested cutting taxes to spur economic growth, the host of Jansing & Co. groused: "A lot of people sitting out there, with all due…

Just a few years ago, double-digit unemployment seemed like a crazy idea. But when the economy began to stumble, it was fear of high unemployment and a promise to prevent it that the Obama administration used to usher in the $787 billion stimulus package. As The New York Times reported on Oct. 22, 2009, "The Obama administration's forecast at the start of the year, which predicted that…

Something rather shocking happened on MSNBC Wednesday. Not only was a compliment given to a Republican, but on the "Dylan Ratigan Show," it was said by a Washington Post columnist about a GOPer that is actually admired by conservatives (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In our ongoing quest to answer Paul Krugman's ironic question "How can voters be so ill informed [sic]," NewsBusters offers an exquisitely ignorant budgetary concern posed by Dylan Ratigan Wednesday. On the MSNBC program bearing his name, the host actually said that one of America's biggest problems is a "multitrillion dollar defense budget" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Opening Wednesday's 12PM ET hour on MSNBC, anchor Contessa Brewer proclaimed that President Obama was "driving Republicans in a corner" by calling their "budget bluff with his big proposal to slash spending." In reality, Obama's budget is projected to increase the national debt by $7.2 trillion over the next decade. [Audio available here] Brewer argued that the President's supposed "slash"…