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The NYT adopted Washington insider standards today. In order to push a deficit reduction agenda, it told readers that the United States has: “an accumulated debt that is starting to weigh on the economy.”

The article presents absolutely no evidence (literally) to support this assertion. The way an economist would look for evidence that the debt is weighing on the economy is by examining interest rates. The current interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds is 3.44 percent. This is far lower in both nominal and real terms than it has been (except for the last two years) for most of the last three decades.

In other words, the standard way to measure whether the debt is imposing a burden on the economy is showing clearly that it is not. The NYT’s assertion is just a complete fabrication that has no place in a news article.