On December 2nd the USA Today reported that “Obama bans offshore oil drilling in Atlantic waters” with Wendy Koch writing:

In a policy reversal, President Obama’s administration announced Wednesday that it will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic coast for at least seven more years. …
Environmental groups generally welcomed the news. “This decision is a wise and sensible step to protect Florida, the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast from an inevitable disaster from expanded drilling,” said Oceana’s Andrew Sharpless said. …
The oil industry, business groups and congressional Republicans

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A November 22nd USA Today article by Mimi Hall and David Jackson titled START ratification becomes major test for Obama reports:

Opposition in the Senate has intensified since Republicans narrowed the Democrats’ majority in the Nov. 2 elections. Now, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a GOP leader key to rounding up or quashing votes, says consideration of the treaty should wait until next year because the Senate has too much other work on its plate between now and Christmas break.

Kyl says the nation needs to focus on “complex and unresolved issues” related to maintaining and modernizing its aging arsenal before

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A USA Today item posted September 21st and titled “How the tax cut debate affects you” reports on the imminent tax hikes threatening American families. Author Richard Wolf does report that: “During his presidential campaign, Obama vowed not to raise income taxes on families with annual income below $250,000. His pledge was coupled with his plan to raise taxes on wealthier Americans who benefited the most from the Bush tax cuts. That plan is at the center of today’s debate.” But then Wolf never tells us if his proposals honor that promise.

They don’t.

First of as The Heritage Foundation’s … Continue Reading

An August 25th USA Today read, Cutbacks force police to curtail calls for some crimes, and author Kevin Johnson reported:

Budget cuts are forcing police around the country to stop responding to fraud, burglary and theft calls as officers focus limited resources on violent crime.
…
Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, said cutbacks are preventing many police agencies from responding to property crimes.

But, as many including National Review’s Daniel Foster have reported, law enforcement spending cuts do not have to lead to layoffs. In Oakland, California, for example, Foster reported … Continue Reading

The August 30th USA Today carried a story by David Lynch headed: “Economists agree: Stimulus created nearly 3 million jobs.” In paragraph two we learn that: “A recent study by two prominent economists generally agrees, crediting the pump-priming with averting ‘what could have been called Great Depression 2.0.’” It is not immediately obvious which two economist’s Lynch is referring to, but two paragraphs later Lynch reports: “‘We have played our policy hand. Now we’ve got to hope it’s good enough,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics and co-author of the recent study.”

The study Lynch is referring to, … Continue Reading

The April 2nd USA Today called subsidies for renewable energy, nuclear energy and new efficiency mandates for automobiles “good, good and good” because “the nation doesn’t have the luxury of instantly wishing away its dependence on oil.” But why is energy independence a policy goal? Economics 101 teaches us that there’s a huge opportunity cost with attempting to become energy independent. The Independent Institute’s Robert Higgs explains:

Suppose a serious policy of “energy independence” were actually implemented, rather than being merely spewed out along with the rest of the political hot air. Would we be better off? Absolutely

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“Small-business owners unclear on health care impact” reads the March 23rd USA Today headline over a story by Bruce Horovitz and Laura Petrecca. Horovitz and Petrecca do a decent job of talking to small business owners for and against President Barack Obama’s health care law and the even include “A look at some of the provisions and their effects” including:

By 2014, employers who have more than 50 employees must offer health insurance benefits or pay penalties. Companies with 25 or fewer employees who meet certain wage requirements will also be able to get credits toward health insurance purchases.

This is true, … Continue Reading

The headline over Brian Winter’s April 1st USA Today story reads “Obama to allow off-shore oil drilling in new areas” but the first paragraph reads:

Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Obama announced an expansive new policy on Wednesday that could put new oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.

That “could” is key. All President Obama actually promised in his speech was “an expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration.” Exploration does not mean any oil extraction will ever occur, … Continue Reading

The March 22nd USA Today article by Richard Wolf and Alison Young titled “Health Care: What You Could See” reports:

The law extracts about $500 billion over 10 years from the future growth rate of Medicare, bringing it down from 6.6% to about 6%, says John Rother of AARP. In doing so, it extends the life of the program for nine years, which relieves some pressure to cut benefits or increase premiums.

This is just false. You can’t take $500 billion from Medicare, use that to fund a brand new entitlement, and then also use that money to say you have … Continue Reading

A December 18th USA Today headline read: “House narrowly OKs year-end, $100B jobs bill.” But then reading Associated Press report we learn:

According to documents released by Democrats, the measure would cost $154 billion. But there’s also another $20 billion from the federal treasury to keep the highway trust fund afloat.

Similarly, under the headline: “U.S. House Approves $154 Billion Jobs Bill, Debt Limit Increase”, Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. House approved a $154 billion economic-aid package and a $290 billion increase in the legal limit on government borrowing as the chamber wrapped up its legislative business for the year.

So where did … Continue Reading

Covering the Medicare ‘buy in’ addition to Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) health care bill in December 14ths USA Today, Richard Wolf reports:

Still, Medicare has lower administrative costs than most private plans and pays less to doctors and hospitals.

This is technically true, but only if you look at Medicare v. private plan spending on a total spending basis. Heritage fellow Robert Book explains why this is a terrible metric:

Imagine, for a moment, that Fred and Jane each have a credit card from a different bank. Fred charges $5,000 a month, and Jane charges $1,000 a month. Suppose it

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USA Today’s Mimi Hall published a Q&A: Abortion issue and health care bill on November 11th that does a very fair job of addressing the controversy. She could have done a little more though. The piece includes:

Q: What is the history behind the abortion-coverage ban?

A: In 1976, Congress passed a law banning the use of federal funds for abortions. The idea was that taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn’t have to see their tax dollars used for the procedure. That ban only applies to funds distributed through the annual appropriations for the Health and Human Services Department. Money for new

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The November 6th USA Today has an article by Dan Vergano titled, Gore’s book a toolbox for fixing climate crises, on former Vice President Al Gore’s new book, Our Choice, A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. Included in the article is the following paragraph:

The book resulted from two years of ‘Solutions Summits’ with scientists, economists and engineers, and lists four pages worth of contributors as well as 25 independent reviewers. The fact checking follows jibes over small errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary that turned Gore into an icon of climate change.

In fact, that film’s errors were … Continue Reading

USA Today’s Richard Wolf has a very fair and educational piece in October 19ths USA Today on how Medicaid, S-CHIP expansion plan could hurt states’ budgets. Wolf does an admirable job not only detailing how White House sponsored health reform would bankrupt states, but he also reports on how patients in the Medicaid program still find it hard to access health care. Wolf reports:

Many parts of the country already face an acute shortage of general practitioners, 35% of whom did not accept new Medicaid patients last year, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. House legislation would

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Reporting on President Barack Obama’s September 22nd address to the United Nations Climate Summit, USA Today’s Traci Watson writes:

The Earth isn’t waiting, scientists say.

If emissions keep increasing as they have, the planet’s average temperature will rise 3 to 7 degrees by 2100, according to the U.N. climate panel’s 2007 report.

But what Watson completely fails to tell her readers, is that the “3 to 7 degrees by 2100″ temperature increase is nothing but a estimate based on computer modeling. It does not reflect an actual observed rise in temperatures. Science is based on the collection observable evidence. And the … Continue Reading

John Fritze and Mimi Hall have an article in September 10th’s USA Today taking “a closer look” at what President barack Obama said in his Joint Session of Congress health care speech.They do a great job of noting how Congress has ignored spending triggers in the past, but on illegal immigration they write:

The statement: “There are those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false.”

The context: Some Republicans, including Rep. Steve King of Iowa, have charged that Obama’s plan would offer insurance to millions of illegal immigrants. The issue was raised repeatedly during

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Under the header, “Holder begins review of detainee-abuse allegations,” the USA Today’s Peter Eisler reports:

Amid revelations that U.S. interrogators threatened terror suspects with handguns and an electric drill, Attorney General Eric Holder opened a preliminary review Monday to determine whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in some detainee abuse cases.

The threats against the detainees, who were hooded, shackled and, in some cases, naked, were among new details included in a series of documents released by the Justice Department.

This is sloppy reporting at best. It leaves the impression that Holder has just now discovered new information that justifies a new investigation … Continue Reading

A July 29th article by USA Today’s Lindsay Perna attempts to pass off a minimum wage campaign as an effort by “churches” when in reality it is a leftist push sponsored by ACORN, unions and the Center for American Progress.

The headline, “Churches push for $10 minimum wage by 2010,” pins the campaign squarely on churches even as the first paragraph walks that claim back in an artful vague way.

Religious leaders and advocates, not satisfied with the 70-cent rise in the federal minimum wage that went into effect on Friday, are calling on congressional leaders to hike it up to

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The USA Today’s Susan Page worked on a tight deadline to get her July 15th story How much health care for $1 trillion? published, and it shows. First she gets the price tag of the House bill wrong. She cites it as $1.042 trillion. But that is only the current net impact on the deficit, which includes some early “pay-fors” in the bill including an employer “pay-or-play” employer mandate. The CBO has not done a complete scoring on the net impact to the deficit since they have not scored the surtax and other Medicare payment reduction in the bill. … Continue Reading

Under the headline Economy Limiting Services of Local Police, The USA Today’s Kevin Johnson reported May 18th:

The recession is altering local law enforcement in the U.S. by forcing some agencies to close precincts, merge with other departments or even shut down.

…

“For the first time, because of the economy, police departments … may have to change how they do business,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank.

But Johnson fails to report that it is the federal government that first changed how police departments “do business” and the feds did it long … Continue Reading

In an otherwise fine article on how the Obama administration’s stimulus package has made the federal government the largest source of revenue for state and local governments, the USA Today’s Dennis Cauchon writes:

Federal stimulus money aimed at reviving the economy and a sharp drop in tax collections have altered, at least temporarily, the traditional balance of how states, cities, counties and schools pay for their operations.

But there is nothing temporary about the growth of state dependence on federal revenues. Since the beginning of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the percentage of state revenues from the federal government has … Continue Reading

For the second-straight year the media are trumpeting a “record-warm” March. This year the April 16th USA Today touts its version with the headline “Earth’s temperature 8th-warmest on record so far in 2009” – on the basis of just three months’ data. Doyle Rice’s accompanying article is textbook hype.

We are in a slow recovery since the little ice age with 60 year cyclical ups and downs. We peaked around 1940 and 2000 and reached bottoms near 1910 and 1970. We have been cooling for the last 7 plus years. Claims of warming are increasingly tenuous.

When turning to surface station … Continue Reading

The March 16, 2009 USA Today headline, “Reports question U.S. shield of Europe” by Ken Dilanian fueled an already on going controversy about the future of ground-based missile defense sites that are to be emplaced in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter a potential Iranian long-range ballistic missile threat against Europe and the United States. The headline refers to a report by the Government Accountability that was released later that day and a Congressional Budget Office study released earlier that month. The article, however, actually drew from a wide variety of sources to question … Continue Reading