The New York Times is Really Out to Get Biden for Some Reason

Filed in National by on October 22, 2022

My own father continues to think that the New York Times is a “liberal” newspaper.  It is maddening.

The New York Times continued in its trashing of the economy under President Biden, implying that the 40-year cost of his student loan forgiveness plan will be incurred over a single year.  An article reporting on the sharp drop in the deficit in fiscal year 2022, which just ended at the start of the month, included a quote from a statement by Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

“In fact, the deficit would have been almost $400 billion lower had the Biden administration not decided to enact an inflationary, costly and regressive student debt cancellation plan in August, ….”

This is not true, as every budget expert knows. The $400 billion figure refers to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the cost of debt forgiveness over the next forty years, not its cost in fiscal year 2022, which was in fact zero.

Since most people probably do not have a good idea of how much $400 billion over forty years is, if the NYT was interested in informing its readers, it could have expressed the sum as a share of GDP. According to the CBO projections, the cost of forgiveness peaks at a bit more than 0.09 percent of GDP in the years 2023-25. That is less than one-thirtieth of the military budget. It falls to around 0.07 percent of GDP by 2032 and then drops further to 0.02 percent of GDP by 2042.

The piece also includes the bizarre complaint that, “Treasury Department figures released earlier this month revealed that America’s gross national debt exceeded $31 trillion for the first time, a milestone that the Biden administration did not observe with any fanfare.”

First, since debt has almost always risen in the eighty years since the start of World War II, every debt number we hit will be “for the first time.” It’s not clear why the NYT felt the need to include these words.

 

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Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (6)

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  1. puck says:

    Republican playbook: When Democrats reduce the deficit, attack Democrats for the debt. It’s not like most people know the difference between the Federal debt and the Federal deficit and the trade deficit anyway.

    • DJT Toadstool says:

      Or which party has historically contributed to the largest deficits and increases in debt.

  2. bamboozer says:

    Gee, it’s almost like the problem always comes back to an ignorant and rather stupid electorate that will buy the lies of the far right, formerly known as the Republican party.

  3. john kowalko says:

    The New York Times is the “print” pseudo-liberal (as in FAKE) equivalent of the CNN “television” pseudo-liberal (FAKE) media conglomerate that feeds its own corporate appetite for election year profits by creating controversy, constructing falsehoods and deliberately taking every statement and analysis OUT OF CONTEXT.
    Every advertising dollar pocketed by these corporate shills when they allow commercials to air that are blatantly false or spliced, (out of context), creations, is money in the pockets of their investors and managers. F**k the truth, F**k the facts, F**k morality, F**k any semblance of conscience. God bless every dollar we can extract from the gullible masses who still think we are purveyors of truth, (aren’t those mindless masses so cute and cuddly “and naive”?).
    Representative John Kowalko

  4. puck says:

    Gas prices are not supposed to be low. Gas prices should be high to remind us we’re not supposed to be burning the stuff anymore. And there should be a windfall profits tax.

    Inflation is a normal sign of economic growth. Zero inflation means the economy has stalled and is about to crash. We have high inflation now because we have a high rate of growth.

    The current increase in prices is going directly into corporate profits. Corporations are not struggling. Corporations responded to higher labor costs by refusing to accept lower profits. Because it has e been fed sugar water by Republicans for so long, capital no longer accepts a regular profit and insists on making an obscene killing every time.

    Debt that funds infrastructure is good, because there is a return on investment. Debt that funds tax cuts and wars of choice is bad.