Newspapers Continue to
Call Slowed-Down Spending ‘Cuts’
Social programs are still expanding
rapidly under new Bush budget, but writers hear only liberal
criticisms of reduced growth.
By Ken Shepherd
Free Market Project
Feb. 9, 2006
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In New Hampshire on February 8, President Bush gave a simple lesson
journalists could use. He compared slowing spending growth to
driving the speed limit, rather than cutting spending, which would
be like “putting your car in reverse.” The media, however, chose to
steer readers wrong with an insistence on calling spending increases
“cuts” and amplifying liberal outrage for not spending enough money.
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Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are getting funding
increases, not cuts, in the 2007 budget, as The Heritage
Foundation’s Brian Riedl explained in a
February 6 analysis of the federal Fiscal Year 2007 budget, but
the February 9 editions of the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and
The Washington Post told readers that social programs were on
the chopping block.
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“Entitlement spending is projected to nearly double over the next
decade. Medicare is expanding by 9% annually,” while Medicaid would
expand by 8 percent and Social Security spending by 6 percent,
explained Riedl. All three entitlement programs would still grow,
with Medicare and Medicaid expanding at slightly slower rates than
the average from the last five years, while Social Security would
grow almost 18 percent faster.
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Despite those facts, the print media allowed liberal politicians to
portray the spending slowdown as a reduction, while largely ignoring
conservative voices. The Post’s Peter Baker and the Times’s
James
Gerstenzang
turned to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) for comment, while USA
Today’s Paul Leavitt quoted liberal Pennsylvania Republican Sen.
Arlen Specter calling spending plans “scandalous.” Only The
Washington Post cited conservative critics who say not enough is
being done to curb the growth of government spending. Staff writer
Peter Baker quoted an editorial from the Manchester Union Leader,
which called on the President to “give us a budget that brings
federal spending down to a sustainable level.”
    The conservative New Hampshire broadsheet
was hardly a lone voice of criticism about the bloated budget. The
Times and USA Today could have cited any number of conservatives
dissatisfied with the 2007 budget plan. President Bush’s budget has
received negative reviews from organizations such as the
National Taxpayers Union, the
Cato Institute, and the
American Enterprise Institute.
    The Free Market Project has
previously documented how the news media have
misreported
federal spending.
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