On yesterday’s Your World, a Fox News alert announced that the budget deficit is shrinking. But their banner on the screen, “US Budget Deficit shrinks amid higher taxes, lower government spending,” was only half true. Guess which part?
In fact, according to sister company Wall Street Journal, the deficit will be the smallest in five years because of higher taxes and more revenue from an improving economy. Receipts are up 15%, and government spending is almost the same. Remember that as you read the quotes.
Neil Cavuto reitarated the spin, saying the deficit shrank “amid higher taxes and lower government spending.” He then presented the subject as a debate.
Conservative guest Scottie Nell Hughes said, “The sequestration came and it went, and guess what? We still have puppy dogs, and we still have rainbows and lollipops. …This just shows we need more cuts, and maybe we need some more sequestration to have a better economy.”
Predictably, Cavuto never brought up some of the real, practical consequences of the sequester that are hurting real Americans.
Liberal guest Rick Ungar did say, “Look at the percentage of cuts, they’re huge. This is a major reduction.” He credited the deficit shrinkage to, “The economy is returning, so you see higher tax revenues coming in when the economy returns. Higher taxes on exceedingly wealthy people, yes, it’s playing a role.”
However, Ungar also said, “We’re not disagreeing with cutting. …The cuts should be a little smarter than the sequester thing, which was ridiculous.” He said they should look into entitlements “coupled with continuing some little bit higher taxes for the 1%.”
Funny how Cavuto asked well-paid pundits to talk about the need for cutting and never examined the effects on everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet as it is. So the range of debate in the discussion was about how to cut, not whether to cut, even when the economy improved without cuts.