That is the only thing that readers can conclude from a classic he said/she said piece about the Ryan budget plan approved by House Republicans last month. The piece simply repeated assertions about his budget from Representative Ryan and responses from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats.

It did not, for example, point out that the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Ryan plan would increase the cost of buying Medicare equivalent policies by $34 trillion (5 times the projected Social Security shortfall) over the program’s 75-year planning period. Nor did it point out that the Republican proposal envisions that by 2050, most areas of government spending, including the military budget, will shrink to a size that is less than two-third the current size of the military budget.

The Post readers generally will not have time to look such things up for themselves. Post reporters should.