September 20, 2017
After screaming about budget deficits throughout the Obama administration, Republicans in Congress are apparently planning to pass tax cuts that will substantially increase the budget deficit from the baseline projections. The NYT decided to help them in this effort by printing without comment their absurd claims about growth.
According to the NYT, Senator Ron Johnson, a member of the Budget Committee, said:
“Just going from 2 to 3 percent growth adds about $14 trillion of economic activity over a decade, $2 to $3 trillion of revenue to the federal government.”
This would be like saying that we would have a great baseball team if we just brought Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jackie Robinson back to life. Presumably, the NYT would recognize that anyone who said that about baseball was either lying or seriously out of touch with reality and would point this fact out to their readers.
Similarly, the idea that we have a simple route to “just” raise the rate of annual growth from 2 to 3 percent, is equally absurd, but the NYT treated it as though it is a comment that a sane person could have honestly said. That’s great stenography, but truly awful reporting.
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