DEFICIT POLITICS
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James Joyner | Friday, June 27, 2003 |
David Hogberg notes that tax cuts and spending programs are not treated equally:
An editorial in the Washington Post titled “Debt and Taxes” prompted me to write, “Do you suppose we’ll ever see a liberal-newspaper editorial titled ‘Debt and Prescription Drug Coverage’?” I might as well have asked, “Will Robert Byrd ever learn humility?”As the prescription-drug benefit to Medicare heated up last week, the words “debt” and “deficit” were, quite literally, exceptionally difficult to find. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times ran seven news articles related to the prescription-drug benefit. Not one contained any mention of what the $400 billion program would add to the deficit or the national debt. Some suggested that it didn’t go far enough: An article in the Times with the lamenting headline “Seniors May Find Drug Benefit Lacking” began, “Seniors expecting a generous Medicare prescription drug benefit from Congress are likely to be disappointed.” The one exception appeared in an editorial in the Times (!). After complaining that the benefit was not enough, the editorialists conceded, “But given the current state of the federal deficit, Congress has picked the right priorities.”
(Hat tip: Reductio Ad Absurdum)
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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