February 17, 2011
The introduction to Morning Edition promised us a discussion with a Republican who is open to tax increases and a Democrat who is open spending cuts. The top of the hour news segment then included a sound bite from a Republican member of Congress who said that she didn’t see why the American people should be financing news that is biased.
Although this member was complaining that the news was biased from the left, she has a very good point. After all, this segment was outrageously biased since it implied that there was no question that there was a serious budget problem.
All budget experts know that the current deficits are overwhelmingly attributable to the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble. The longer term shortfall is entirely attributable to the broken health care system. If the United States paid the same amount per person for its health care as any other wealthy country we would be looking at large budget surpluses, not deficits.
These basic facts were never mentioned in the discussion with the two senators. It was an entirely one-sided push for deficit reduction without any discussion of the real issues at stake. It is hard not to agree with the Republican member of Congress. Why should taxpayers be paying for such biased reporting, isn’t this what Peter Peterson is paying for with his foundation?
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