{"id":340809,"date":"2017-12-23T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-23T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/journalists-who-relayed-gops-deficit-moaning-owe-us-apologies\/"},"modified":"2017-12-23T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-23T14:00:57","slug":"journalists-who-relayed-gops-deficit-moaning-owe-us-apologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/journalists-who-relayed-gops-deficit-moaning-owe-us-apologies\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalists Who Relayed GOP\u2019s Deficit Moaning Owe Us Apologies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6233736\" style=\"max-width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6233736\" src=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-22-at-9.26.11-PM-1024x585.png\" alt=\"Hill: CBO: Senate Tax Bill Increases Deficit by $1.4 Trillion\" width=\"350\" height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>A 16-digit deficit increase doesn&#8217;t faze Republican senators (<strong>The Hill<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/floor-action\/senate\/362905-cbo-senate-tax-bill-increases-deficit-by-14-trillion\">12\/2\/17<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Now that the Republicans\u2019 brazen tax bill that the CBO predicts <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/floor-action\/senate\/362905-cbo-senate-tax-bill-increases-deficit-by-14-trillion\">will add $1.4 trillion<\/a> to the deficit has passed, yet again exposing \u201cdeficit concerns\u201d by congressional Republicans as an empty marketing ploy, will those in the media who pushed the Deficit Doom narrative during the early Obama years admit they were wrong?<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly deficits\u2014something Every Serious Person cared about\u2014are a total nonissue. The Beltway orthodoxy for decades\u2014especially in the years following the 2008 economic crash\u2014that deficits would crush our economy and render the United States insolvent is mysteriously absent from the Republicans\u2019 plan to increase the deficit by equivalent of the GDP of Russia. \u00a0(To say nothing of September&#8217;s budget-busting Defense bill<b>\u2014FAIR.org<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/outlets-that-scolded-sanders-over-deficits-uniformly-silent-on-700b-pentagon-handout\/\">9\/21\/17<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>During the early Obama years, nominally straight reporting frequently trafficked in deeply ideological assumptions about deficits and debt; echoing \u201cdeficit hawk\u201d Paul Ryan and the \u201cpopulist\u201d Tea Party movement, they painted an image of apocalyptic doom:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cOne urgent concern for lawmakers in both parties is the country&#8217;s bleak fiscal outlook, stemming from heavy government spending and ballooning retirement costs.\u201d (<b>Washington Post<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2011\/01\/04\/AR2011010405626_2.html?sid=ST2011010406003\">1\/5\/11<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cGold-plated retirement and healthcare packages\u201d (<b>60 Minutes<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/extra\/fiscally-responsible-republicans-are-media-articles-of-faith\/\">12\/19\/10<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThrough a combination of hard work, good timing and possibly suicidal guts, the Wisconsin Republican managed to harness his party to a dramatic plan for dealing with America\u2019s rapidly rising public debt.\u201d (<b>Time<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/content.time.com\/time\/specials\/packages\/article\/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102332,00.html\">12\/14\/11<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cRyan has proposed major cuts to spending and entitlement programs in an effort to curb the spiraling national debt.\u201d (<b>Washington Post<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/with-paul-ryan-as-romneys-vp-pick-democrats-pounce-on-gop-budget-plan\/2012\/08\/12\/40099538-e4b7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_story.html\">8\/12\/12<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf you want to send a message you\u2019re serious about the budget, you could do that with Paul Ryan.\u201d (<b>Meet the Press<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/take-action\/media-advisories\/the-medias-favorite-wonk\/\">4\/22\/11<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Carrying water for right-wing axioms about the ticking time-bomb nature of deficits and debts, <b>ABC<\/b> White House correspondent Jake Tapper (now at <b>CNN<\/b>) aired cartoonish reports on the federal budget in prime time, complete with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/money\/us-money-blog\/2013\/mar\/26\/federal-budget-household-finances-fed\">cheesy \u201cgovernment as family budget\u201d metaphors<\/a>, and used press conferences to shame President Obama\u2019s press secretary for not doing enough to stop this major problem (<a href=\"http:\/\/fair.org\/media_criticism\/abc-and-the-family-budget-fallacy\/\">2\/3\/12<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>It should be noted this isn\u2019t the first time the media has gotten collective amnesia when it comes to Republicans\u2019 \u201cfiscal hawkery.\u201d The Bush years <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/111th-congress-2009-2010\/reports\/11-9-09mbr.pdf\">increased the deficit $1.4 trillion<\/a> by cutting taxes, funding a bloated military expansion driven by wars of choice and setting up the cynical election-year giveaway Medicare Part D. All of this was washed away when the Tea Party \u201cinsurgency\u201d came to power in 2010\u2014a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/eric-zuesse\/final-proof-the-tea-party_b_4136722.html\">Koch-funded<\/a> rebranding effort the media also <a href=\"https:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/13\/us\/politics\/13tea.html\">credulously pushed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1H5yNsZyS4ZxKIlmxbFDTnTST0v3fXL3UBGX_kEZkH_M\/edit#gid=0\">Of the 30 congressmembers<\/a> who formed the initial \u201cfiscal responsibility\u201d\u2013driven Tea Party caucus in 2010, every one who was still in Congress in 2017 voted in support of Trump\u2019s deficit-bloating tax cut bill.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6229158\" style=\"max-width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6229158\" src=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-22-at-7.59.19-PM.png\" alt=\"Extra!: Fiscally Responsible Republicans Are Media Articles of Faith\" width=\"350\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>&#8220;Republican policies past and present that have played starring roles in generating federal red ink got a free pass,&#8221; <strong>Extra!<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/extra\/fiscally-responsible-republicans-are-media-articles-of-faith\/\">3\/11<\/a>) noted in 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s not as if this weren\u2019t predictable. Groups like FAIR (<a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/extra\/fiscally-responsible-republicans-are-media-articles-of-faith\/\">3\/15\/11<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/take-action\/media-advisories\/the-medias-favorite-wonk\/\">8\/14\/12<\/a>) and economists like Paul Krugman (<b>New York Times<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/04\/06\/paul-ryans-multiple-unicorns\/\">4\/6\/11<\/a>) and Dean Baker (<b>Truthout<\/b>, <a href=\"http:\/\/truth-out.org\/news\/item\/10860-rep-paul-ryans-far-right-agenda-the-media-cant-take-the-truth\">8\/13\/12<\/a>), among others, time and again during the early Obama years insisted the Republicans&#8217; \u201cdeficit hawk\u201d posture was little more than a marketing gimmick to justify cutting programs for the poor and transferring money to the wealthy. And now that these same \u201cdeficit hawks\u201d have a Republican president and control over both houses of Congress, their concern with \u201cbalancing the budgets\u201d vanishes into thin air. Because the concern never existed; it was one part racist dog whistle, one part transparent moral framework for greed.<\/p>\n<p>Shouldn\u2019t the many journalists who served as message-carriers for Republicans\u2019 claims that the deficit was an urgent issue that they cared about in earnest apologize for being taken in? And wouldn\u2019t a healthy media examine how much they helped push this line without question now that we know how bogus it was to begin with?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span><br \/>\nThis piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from <a href=\"https:\/\/fair.org\/home\/journalists-who-relayed-gops-deficit-moaning-owe-us-apologies\/\">FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 16-digit deficit increase doesn&#8217;t faze Republican senators (The Hill, 12\/2\/17). Now that the Republicans\u2019 brazen tax bill that the CBO predicts will add $1.4 trillion to the deficit has passed, yet again exposing \u201cdeficit concerns\u201d by congressional Republicans as an empty marketing ploy, will those in the media who pushed the Deficit Doom narrative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-340809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}