May 09, 2011
The NYT reported on the effort by congressional Democrats to take back $20 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry over the next decade. The article tells readers that this is an effort to reduce the budget deficit. It would have been helpful to point out that this amount comes to less than 0.3 percent of the deficit projected over this period.
These tax breaks are arguably an unwarranted subsidy to hugely profitable oil companies, however it is not plausible that they will have a notable effect on the deficit over the next decade. This fact should have been pointed out to readers, just as reporters should point out that Republican efforts to increase drilling cannot plausibly be expected to have a noticeable impact on gas prices.
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