Jeannine Aversa of The Associated Press wrote a June 29th article detailing some of the economic damage from the Deepwater Horizon spill including:

Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner estimates that up to 250,000 Gulf jobs in fishing, tourism and energy will be lost in the second half of the year.

But what Aversa fails to report is that almost half of this jobless is the direct result of President Barack Obama’s oil drilling moratorium. The American Petroleum Institute forecasts that if the drilling ban continues, more than 120,000 jobs could be lost in the Gulf Coast and key … Continue Reading

The Associated Press’s Matthew Daly reported June 15th on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new analysis of the Senate cap and trade bill introduced by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). The analysis says cap and trade would cost American households cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year. But the AP fails to report on the faulty assumptions that come with the EPA analysis.

To get there, the EPA includes generous assumptions, specifically on the use of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the use of offsets and the increase in nuclear power. With CCS, … Continue Reading

David Hilzenrath and N.C. Aizenman reported in the June 15th Washington Post:

If you like your health plan, you can keep it. That’s what President Obama promised during the long months of debate over health-care reform.
…
On Monday, the administration issued new rules to fulfill that promise. But your plan might not be quite the same — it could offer more benefits, and it could cost more.

Or if you have a health savings account or flexible savings account then you can’t keep your current health plan at all. The Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn Nix explains:

Obamacare law limits these consumer-controlled accounts in

… Continue Reading

Associated Press reporter David Espo wrote about the DISCLOSE Act on June 15th:

The measure requires the listing of the names of the top five donors to an organization running political ads, including unions, businesses and non-profit organizations. … In a concession negotiated over the weekend, House Democrats agreed to an exemption from the disclosure requirements for organizations that have been in existence for a decade, have at least 1 million dues-paying members and do not use any corporate or labor union money to finance their campaign-related expenditures.

This language makes it seem that the DISCLOSE Act treats union and corporation … Continue Reading

Reporting on BP’s agreement to establishing a $20 billion trust fund for oil spill related claims, Scott Wilson and Joel Achenbach reported on page A1 of the June 17th Washington Post:

Both sides got what they wanted out of the encounter. The administration, under fire for how it has responded to the environmental calamity, can boast of creating a huge pot of money for easing the pain of Gulf Coast residents. BP, though poorer on paper in the short run, got some much-needed clarity on its long-term liability.

But then just two paragraphs later Achenbach and Wilson reported:

The figure is not

… Continue Reading

On June 16, Michelle Price writes for the Associated Press in “Ariz. lawmaker takes aim at automatic citizenship” about a proposal by local law makers to prohibit issuing birth certificates unless at least one parent can prove US citizenship. Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, the article states, is considering legislation because he, “contends that the practice of granting citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. encourages illegal immigrants to come to this country to give birth and secure full rights for their children.”

Price goes on to write that “Legal scholars laugh out loud at Republican state … Continue Reading

The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin and Glenn Kessler report that it took over a month from the time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded before the Obama administration began accepting offers of assistance from foreign nations. On May 19th State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters:

We are keeping an eye on what supplies we do need. And as we see that our supplies are running low, it may be at that point in time to accept offers from particular governments.

But some time in late May the Obama administration changed course and began accepting help from Mexico and the … Continue Reading

Reporting on President Barack Obama’s desire for billions more of deficit stimulus spending, The New York Times‘ David Sanger and Sewell Chan report:

Lawrence H. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council and the economic adviser at Mr. Obama’s elbow, argued that the effects of last year’s $787 billion spending program had not fully kicked in.

President Obama’s stimulus may have only totaled $787 billion when Congressional critics first voted against it, but its costs have increased since then. According to revised accounting by the Congressional Budget Office released this January, because the … Continue Reading

Politico’s Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman published an informative, if late, article on the growing political liability government unions are becoming for their political patrons June 6th. But their otherwise find narrative could have benefited from some facts. Smith and Haberman reported:

[A]nother consultant to major unions pointed to a different, more structural shift: Public sector unions are increasingly the face of American labor, and they have prospered as private sector unions disappeared and workers’ wages stagnated.

“The face of labor today is now public employee unions whose wages and benefits largely outstrip those of average Americans,” said the

… Continue Reading

In an otherwise fine piece of reporting on the continued flight of wordlwide investment into the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds, The Washington Post’s Neil Irwin reports:

Perceptions inside the Beltway rest on this idea: Although the current large budget deficit is caused mainly by the weak economy and a short-term economic stimulus that will soon expire, in the longer run the government faces a vast unfunded burden, particularly tied to Medicare and Medicaid.

It is true that Medicare’s $37.9 trillion unfunded liability is a driver of long term U.S. deficit concerns, but one cannot ignore Social Security’s problems either.

In … Continue Reading

A June 3rd Associated Press report, “Impact: US-Mexico border isn’t so dangerous,” by Martha Mendoza carries a misleading title and omits key facts about the state of border security. The article claims “government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn’t so dangerous after all.” The article notes that crime rates in four major border cities San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin is down. In addition, it cites an internal Department of Homeland Security report that concludes the levels of violence against US Border Patrol agents is declining as well.

What the report omits, however, is … Continue Reading

One can understand why facts might be hard to come by while reporting on Vice President Joe Biden’s economic stimulus claims, but The Hill’s Michael O’Brien makes two easy errors in his June 2nd article. First he calls it the “$787 billion” stimulus bill. That was once true … nut not anyomore. According to revised accounting by the Congressional Budget Office released this January, because the stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8% as promised, it will end up costing $862 billion thanks to increased food stamp and unemployment payments.

O’Brien’s second factual error comes three paragraphs later when … Continue Reading

Senate Democrats want both a $200 billion deficit spending jobs bill, but they also want to appear as though they care about the growing national debt. Covering this dilemma for The New York Times, David Leonhardt wrote on June 1st:

Of course, even if the bill is not very expensive, it is worth passing only if it will make a difference. And economists say it will.

Last year’s big stimulus program certainly did. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 1.4 million to 3.4 million people now working would be unemployed were it not for the stimulus.

But the CBO estimates are not … Continue Reading

Glenn Kessler’s “analysis” of the implications of the Israeli conflict with the flotilla headed for the Gaza strip (entitled “Condemnation of Israeli Assault Complicates Relations with U.S.”) leaves out so many critical facts and background that readers are left with a skewed and inaccurate sense of the event. Kessler writes:

The worldwide condemnation of the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla will complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to improve its tense relations with Jerusalem and will probably distract from the push to sanction Iran over its nuclear program.

Kessler highlights numerous criticisms of Israel from world leaders, … Continue Reading