Dan Eggen had an article on Common Cause’s recent embrace confrontational activism in February 10ths Washington Post beginning:

Common cause has long been something of a nerd among the jocks. While other activists staged loud demonstrations and nervy stunts, the 40-year-old good-government group was more likely to hold a forum on filibuster reform or the vagaries of redistricting.

Amazingly, after specifically mentioning the filibuster in his lead, Eggen fails to report that Common Cause recently flip-flopped their position on the filibuster for purely transparent politically partisan reasons. A 2005 Common Cause press release reads:

Common Cause strongly opposes any effort

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This is how a front-page story by Lori Montgomery in January 27th’s Washington Post portrayed the cause of this year’s $1.5 trillion deficit:

Record U.S. Deficit Projected This Year
CBO forecasts tax cuts will push budget gap to $1.5 trillion

The still-fragile economy and fresh tax cuts approved by Congress last month will drive the federal deficit to nearly $1.5 trillion this year, the biggest budget gap in U.S. history, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.

Federal spending and federal tax revenue play equally important roles in creating the federal budget deficit. In fact, the federal government, despite the recession and tax … Continue Reading

Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post does a lot of editorializing in his January 14th Fact Checker report, especially when critiquing The Heritage Foundation’s recent report on the cost of regulations under the Obama Administration. Kessler accuses the Heritage Foundation study of not counting the benefits of regulation, of double-counting (citing an unnamed Obama administration official) and contrasts the study with the way the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reports costs, which is over a ten-year period. James Gattuso, a research fellow and author of the Heritage report, debunks Kessler’s claims saying,

The approach we used

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In the January 16th Washington Post, the day before the 50th anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” speech to Congress, his granddaughter, and chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute, Susan Eisenhower wrote:

Looking back, it is easy to see the parallels to our era, especially how the complex has expanded since Sept. 11, 2001. In less than 10 years, our military and security expenditures have increased by 119 percent. Even after subtracting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget has grown by 68 percent since 2001. In 2010, the United States is projected to spend

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One wouldn’t think a report on slavery and the South’s secession from the Union would mention the tax cut debate but somehow The Washington Post was able to make it happen. James W. Loewen’s piece “Five myths about why the South seceded,” is a very interesting read, but he makes and absurd and wrong statement when he compares non-slave owners’ support for slavery with low-income Americans’ support for an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy. Loewen writes:

Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in

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Reporting on the January 5th release of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services report on national health spending, The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein leads with:

The nation’s expenditures on health care in 2009 grew by 4 percent, the smallest increase in at least a half-century…

Which is true, but hides the explosion of federal spending that the report documents. Goldstein does mention that, “On the other hand, spending on Medicaid soared - by 9 percent, compared with less than 5 percent in 2008.” But that number lumps state spending on Medicaid in with federal spending on Medicaid and federal Medicaid … Continue Reading

Reporting on the failure of the fifth version of the DREAM Act, The Washington Post’s Shankar Vedantam reported on December 19th:

Whenever Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and other immigrant-rights advocates asked President Obama how a Democratic administration could preside over the greatest number of deportations in any two-year period in the nation’s history, Obama’s answer was always the same.

Vedantam needs to read his own paper. On December 6th, The Washington Post’s Andrew Becker reported:

For much of this year, the Obama administration touted its tougher-than-ever approach to immigration enforcement, culminating in a record number of deportations.

But in reaching 392,862

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Looking forward to the future of health care policy, The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein wrote on November 23rd:

These days, most health reformers can agree about two things.

They believe, based on pretty good evidence, that growing concentration among insurers, hospitals, pharmacy benefit managers and drug companies helps explain why health-care costs are rising faster than the cost of everything else.

Insurance companies merge to gain greater clout in negotiating with hospitals and other providers, then the providers merge to gain leverage over the insurers. At any one time, in any one market, one side or the other might have the

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Reporting on President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia, The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson and Howard Schneider reported on November 12th:

Administration officials say the nearly complete South Korea deal, which Obama inherited from the George W. Bush administration, would increase exports of U.S. goods by $10 billion annually and support 70,000 jobs in the United States.

While it is true that the free trade agreement would be great for the U.S. economy, any assertion that the agreement is not “complete” (in this case “nearly complete”) is just plain false. President George Bush signed a full agreement with South Korea three years … Continue Reading

Andrew Freedman wrote in the Washington Post on October 18th that Americans are confused about global warming. He cites one poll that shows fewer Americans believe that humans are the primary cause of global warming, and nearly half the respondents to another poll say they have thought about global warming “a little” or “not at all.” Where Freedman is wrong is where he says humans being the primary cause of global warming is a “view held by the vast majority of climate scientists.” Freedman goes on to say, “In fact, there is very little disagreement … Continue Reading

The Washington Post’s Jia Lynn Yang and Ariana Eunjung Cha wrote a story October 7th on President Obama vetoing a bill that addresses the flaws in foreclosure proceedings. The authors write:

The vetoed bill, which is two pages, would have required local courts to accept notarizations, including those made electronically, from across state lines. Its sponsors said it was intended to promote interstate commerce. Lawmakers saw no problems when the House approved it in April by a voice vote, which leaves no record of votes. The Senate passed the bill unanimously last week.

But as the lack of a

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Kudos to The Washington Post for even asking a question about whether federal workers are over compensated. On October 18th, Lisa Rein and Ed O’Keefe reported on a recent study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University on Americans’ views of the role of government. The poll found that 52% of American found that “most employees of the federal government are overpaid.”

The only problem with the article is that Rein and O’Keefe don’t seem to have made any effort to see if Americans beliefs about this issue are correct. In fact, they are. … Continue Reading

N.C. Aizenman covered Judge Roger Vinson’s rejection of the Obama administration’s motion to dismiss the 20 state legal challenge to Obamacare’s individual mandate for the October 15th Washington Post. Providing some background in the decision, Aizenman writes:

Last week, in a suit brought by private parties, a federal judge in Michigan unequivocally upheld Congress’s authority on that point. However, Vinson described the question as far from settled, because the relevant clauses of the Constitution “have never been applied in such a manner before.”

But the Michigan judges’s decision was not as unequivocally different from Judge Vinson’s opinion as Aizenman lets on, … Continue Reading

On October 1st, Juliet Eilperin reported on new Interior Department regulations for offshore drilling operators writing:

Energy industry officials said that they would review the regulations but that federal officials can now lift the ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico without fearing the consequences.

This sentence is not in quotes so it is hard to tell if the error is Eilperin’s or “energy industry officials,” but wither way it is just false to characterize President Barack Obama’s current oil drilling ban as a “deep-eater” ban. It is true that the first ban issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar … Continue Reading

Staff writer Lori Montgomery wrote an article in the September 20th Washington Post that says because of Congress’s recent spending streak and our skyrocketing national debt, letting the Bush tax cuts expire will bring in more tax revenue to the government and consequently lower the deficit. She writes:

Today, the economy is sluggish and the national debt is soaring to worrisome levels. As lawmakers bicker over whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, not just for the middle class but also for the wealthy, many economists and budget analysts say there’s a simple way to curb borrowing: Let the

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A September 14th Washington Post article by N.C. Aizenman covering the oral arguments in the states suit against Obamacare, reports that “the public remains profoundly ambivalent about the president’s signature legislative achievement.” But is the American public really “ambivalent” about Obamacare? According to Merriam-Webster, ambivalence means holding “simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings,” “continual fluctuation,” or “uncertainty as to which approach to follow.”

Now compare that definition with the Pollster.com aggregated data on Obamacare’s poll numbers. It reveals that a plurality or majority of the public has consistently opposed the law since before the angry town-hall meetings of … Continue Reading

Covering the similarities between Obamacare and Romneycare The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wrote on July 26th:

[E]ven a cursory read of the evidence would show that whatever the drawbacks of central planning, it covers people at an extremely low cost. Romney Care’s cost problem is a result of pasting a coverage-oriented quick fix atop our insane health-care system. Compare its costs to the British system, the French system, the German system, or any other system, and whatever your conclusions, you won’t walk away unimpressed by the ability of cen

First, this reasoning violates Cannon’s First Rule of Economic Literacy: when … Continue Reading

China makes inroads on emissions the headline over Juliet Eilperin’s September 13th Washington Post article reads. Eilperin goes on to report:

In the United States, many politicians are reluctant to impose mandatory curbs on heat-trapping gases, fearing a political backlash. But the Chinese government has begun to make some inroads into its greenhouse gas emissions by holding accountable local and provincial officials - as well as the nation’s top 1,000 emitters.

The rest of Eilperin’s article makes it seem like China has fully embraced the climate alarmist agenda. She reports: “[China] has set a more ambitious target for the next decade, … Continue Reading

In The Washington Post August 29th, David A. Fahrenthold had a good report on the environmental movement and its inability to pass comprehensive climate change legislation - even with a left-leaning Congress, a Democratic President and a record oil spill. The article nicely demonstrates how the public does not have an appetite for cap and trade or any other bill that will increase the cost of energy. Fahrenthold misleads readers when he says it was industry and the oil groups that stopped cap and trade in its tracks. Writing about the environmentalists, he says, “A … Continue Reading

The amount of oil remaining in the Gulf has been subject to debate with conflicting reports suggesting that either much of the oil is gone or much of it remains. The two major studies came from the federal government’s The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and from researchers at the University of Georgia. NOAA reported that only about a quarter the oil was left in the Gulf while UGA found that seventy to eighty percent remained. In a recent Washington Post article, David A. Fahrenthold and Kimberly Kindy reported that a study from the … Continue Reading

Covering the General Motors bailout for the August 19th Washington Post, Peter Whoriskey writes, “While the government rescue of GM began under the George W. Bush administration, it was the Obama administration that pumped the larger share of federal money into the automaker in exchange for a majority stake. The Obama administration also forced the company to restructure and pushed out then-chief executive G. Richard “Rick” Wagoner Jr., who is now a board member of The Washington Post Co.”

The message is not that the bailout worked but restructuring worked, which would have been done under bankruptcy regardless. … Continue Reading

Covering the release of the annual Medicare and Social Security trustees report for The Washington Post, Amy Goldstein wrote on August 6th:

Specifically, the new report says Medicare’s hospital trust fund will be able to pay all its bills until 2029, compared with last year’s forecast of 2017.
…
The report predicts that the Social Security trust fund will have enough money until 2037, the same date as in last year’s forecast.

The Post’s economic reporters need to convey to readers that the Medicare and Social Security “trust funds” contain zero funds. This is not up for dispute. When those programs’ revenues … Continue Reading

The headline over Amy Goldstein’s August 5th article on the Medicare Trustees Report reads “Health-care law strengthens Medicare outlook, report finds” but the facts contradict this conclusion. The Washington Post reports:

The federal law intended to spur broad changes to the nation’s health-care system has strengthened Medicare’s financial condition, with the fund that pays for older Americans’ hospital care predicted to last a dozen years longer than expected a year ago, according to a new government forecast.

But here is what the Medicare Chief Actuary actually writes about Obamacare:

Further, while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, makes

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Reporting on the Obama administration’s failure to convince voters the stimulus worked, The Washington Post’s Michael Shear reported on July 14th:

On that Friday, Gibbs was upbeat, expressing confidence in Obama’s ability to make his case for what eventually became an $850 billion stimulus plan.

Shear’s $850 billion number is an improvement over the $787 billion number the Post used to use but it is still not correct.

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 … Continue Reading

Krissah Thompson reported on the controversy surrounding the Obama Justice Department’s handling of the New Black Panther Party case for the July 15th Washington Post. Thompson writes:

The suit was focused on the party and two of its members, who stood out front of a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008 wearing military gear. They were captured on video and were accused of trying to discourage some people from voting. One carried a nightstick.

Conservatives complained last year when Justice officials narrowed the case, dropping the party and one of the men and focusing only the bearer of the

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Surprised by the fact that unions, not corporations, have spent the most money since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United free speech decision, The Washington Post’s T.W. Farnam reported on July 7th:

“We would be very pleasantly surprised if there’s not a gusher of special interest money,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview. “Very few people play in the primaries — most of this money is almost always spent in the general election.”

Van Hollen is pushing a bill the House recently passed that would require funding sources for advertising to be disclosed.

This is just plain false. Van Hollen’s … Continue Reading

In his July 9th column praising the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), David Ignatius reports:

The CMS post has been unfilled since 2006 and Obama finally decided enough, already. The White House said Republicans “were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points.”

The White House can say whatever it wants but even columnists should check and see if they are telling the truth. And as ABC’s Jake Tapper reported, the GOP had no interest in stalling Dr. Berwick’s hearing:

Sen. John Kerry,

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The Washington Post’s Michael Fletcher had a report July 1st on state budgets that reads more like an opinion editorial than a staff report. Fletcher wrote,

Nothing less than the nation’s nascent economic recovery hangs in the balance. States say that if they do not find financial rescue they will have to cut services and workers. That would deliver a potentially crippling blow to the economy, which needs higher employment levels to fatten wallets, promote spending, bolster tax revenue and reduce dependence on expensive social services.

States face a combined deficit of $89 billion in the fiscal year that

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The Washington Post reported on July 5th that FedEx and UPS are “engaged in one of the fiercest lobbying battles in recent memory, with millions of dollars spent on advertising, Web sites, grass-roots organizing and other tactics.” And what are they fighting over? Dan Eggan explains:

An obscure, 230-word provision that would require FedEx Express to comply with the same labor laws as UPS, making it easier for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other unions to organize.

Fair enough. But why would FedEx care if federal law changed to make it easier for big labor to unionize their workforce? Eggan … 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.
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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

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