Dishonest and Deceptive Budget Analysis from the Washington Post

I try not to get too agitated about media bias, but I sometimes get “triggered” when the deliberate inaccuracies involve economic issues. And I get really irked when reporters write about non-existent spending cuts.

I’ve previously mocked the New York Times on this topic, so today let’s go after the Washington Post, based on this story which was republished by the Boston Globe.

House Republicans released a budget proposal Tuesday that would balance in nine years — but only by making large cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security… Along with other changes, the budget proposes to squeeze $537 billion out of Medicare over the next decade. …Changes to Medicaid and other health programs would account for $1.5 trillion in savings.

As a libertarian, this sounds like good news.

I want “large cuts” in government. I would like to go back to what America’s Founders envisioned, with a very tiny central government.

But it turns out that the reporter is peddling garbage. There are no cuts. And the story’s headline is especially inaccurate.

If you look at the 10-year details, you find that Social Security spending will climb by more than $700 billion, Medicare spending will increase by $500 billion, and spending on other health programs such as Medicaid will rise by $115 billion. Here are the numbers from the House GOP’s proposed budget.

 

Now let’s look at total spending. That’s the grey row at the bottom of the aforementioned table.

And let’s put those numbers into a 10-year chart.

As you can see, we still can’t find any “large cuts” for the simple reasons that none exist. Total spending is projected to climb by almost $1.5 trillion. Indeed, the House Republican budget would let spending grow much faster than projected inflation.

When confronted by this data, budget wonks on the left will quickly say that there are “budget cuts” when comparing the GOP numbers to what would happen if government policy was left on autopilot.

But if a budget doesn’t grow as fast as previously planned, that’s still not a cut.

I tell my leftist friends that it’s perfectly legitimate for them to argue that spending should increase rapidly because politicians in the past made promises to various interest groups. But it’s wrong for them to say that an increase is a cut simply because outlays don’t grow as fast as they would prefer.

Which is the point I made in interviews with Judge Napolitano and John Stossel.

P.S. The House GOP budget certainly is better than the status quo, especially since it assumes genuine reform of Medicaid and Medicare. But I prefer Rand Paul’s budget, which actually cuts spending in the first year (gasp!) and then limits spending in subsequent years so it grows by 1 percent annually.

P.P.S. For those who think modest spending restraint is impossible, don’t forget that we actually had a de facto five-year nominal spending freeze during the Obama years.

P.P.P.S. Here’s a previous example of budget inaccuracy in the Washington Post.

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Senator Ron Johnson Exposes Obama’s “Frugal Budget”

I mentioned yesterday that Senator Johnson of Wisconsin did a good job at the Senate Budget Committee’s hearing on tax reform. Today, I want to elaborate on two of his points.

First, he asked all three of the witnesses what the maximum marginal tax rate on any American should be. The two leftists on the panel, Len Berman and Diane Lim Rogers, hemmed and hawed because they (correctly) smelled a trap. But the Senator persisted and Len said something in the range of 45 percent and Diane said 70 percent-80 percent. This matters because recent polling data shows that the vast majority of Americans don’t want any of their fellow citizens to ever pay more than 30 percent.

Most Republicans aren’t smart enough to focus on arguments that are simultaneously economically sound and politically effective, so kudos to Senator Johnson.

The Wisconsin lawmaker also hit hard on the notion of phony spending cuts, a point near and dear to my heart (as you can see by these interviews with Judge Napolitano and John Stossel).

I touched on this yesterday, but I want to share a chart that Senator Johnson used during the testimony. As you can see, Obama’s budget doesn’t call for any budget cuts.

When Obama released his budget, I did a post showing how annual spending was going to be $2 trillion higher in 10 years than it is today. But I think I’ll steal Senator Johnson’s chart since it makes the same point more dramatically.

I’ve already confessed to having man crushes (in the philosophical sense) on Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. If Senator Johnson continues this good work, I may have to become really promiscuous.

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