June 27, 2011
In a segment of Morning Edition where Scott Horsley discussed the budget negotiations, he told listeners that we face a large debt because Congress likes to spend money. This is like saying that firefighters spray water on buildings because they like to spray water from hoses.
The proximate cause of the large budget deficit, as every budget analyst knows, is the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. If Congress opted not to spend money, then the economy would have sunk further and the unemployment rate would be considerably higher today.
There are many people who make up stories about out of control government spending. This is not true and NPR’s reporters should know this fact.
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