Coston's Complaint: The Charlotte Observer is the MSNBC of Print Journalism

Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Charlotte Observer is the MSNBC of Print Journalism

Is the Charlotte Observer the MSNBC of print journalism? Their outlandish cartoon lampooning Paul Ryan as Pinocchio is the kind of bias we’ve come to expect from this dinosaur. What is even more cartoonish, is Taylor Batten – the editor of the Disturber – twisting his panties trying to cover up the failures of his god: Barack Obama.

Here is the first I’ve got your back, Barack spin by Mr. Batten:

The stretch: Ryan said Obama promised to keep a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin open, but that plant is now closed. The truth: GM decided to close the plant in December 2008, when George W. Bush was president. And Ryan opposed Obama's GM bailout, which is now widely credited with saving the company and the industry.

The truth is Barack Obama promised those workers the plant would stay open under his presidency. Paul Ryan didn’t make that promise; nor did any other politician. And as for saving GM, that company owes the taxpayers $25 billion; money we will never see again. And who’s to say that another bailout might be needed down the road.

The stretch: Ryan said the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction commission sent Obama "an urgent report" that he then ignored. The truth: Obama certainly ignored Simpson-Bowles. But Ryan himself was on the commission and voted against the Simpson-Bowles plan. The lack of support by Ryan and others on the commission relieved Congress of having to act on it.

The last I checked, Barack Obama is president. It was his commission. Paul Ryan is a lowly congressman. Here is the real reason why Simpson-Bowles wasn’t backed by the president, outlined by Forbes:

The reason Obama didn’t back Simpson-Bowles is much simpler: it’s a big tax hike on the middle class. The President made a campaign promise not to raise taxes on families making $250,000 or less—98 percent of all American families. Though he has signed a couple of bills that violate that promise at the edges (raising the cigarette tax and, arguably, imposing an individual health care mandate) he has made a clear decision that it would be against his political interest to endorse any broad-based income or payroll tax increase on middle-income families. He could not endorse Simpson-Bowles because Simpson-Bowles is unpopular.

Instead, the President has focused on campaigning for tax increases on the wealthy. This is a policy that has the twin advantages of being red meat for his base and popular with a large majority of Americans. Liberals, focused on defending the interests of 99 percent, are not showing any particular appetite for a middle class tax increase, even if it goes to fund programs they value. But they love the idea of taxing rich people more.

Mr. Batten continues on:

The stretch: Ryan referred to "$716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama," saying it came "at the expense of the elderly." The truth: Obama's cuts to Medicare do not reduce benefits to seniors. They reduce future reimbursement rates to hospitals and insurance plans. And they haven't happened; they take place over 10 years. Ryan included the same cuts in his budget plan. In fact, Ryan's Medicare plan reduces spending on the program more than Obama did.

I’ll let Paul Ryan speak for himself:

The stretch: Ryan blamed Obama for the S&P downgrade of America's credit rating. The truth: The downgrade happened because Republicans in Congress took the nation to the brink over raising the debt ceiling. In its downgrade after that showdown, S&P blamed Republicans in Congress, like Ryan, who "continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues."

Of course, Taylor Batten and the Obamabots at the Charlotte Observer believe the only means of raising revenue is thru taxation. There is not enough money in the world to pay off our debt. But somehow, this paper believes the rich are hoarding all the wealth! And by the way, we raised the debt ceiling. Did it help our credit rating? NO! As a matter of fact, if we don’t do something about the outrageous spending, the U.S. could be downgraded again. Here is the S&P’s reasoning for the 2011 downgrade:

We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the 'A-1+' short-term rating.

We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative.

The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.

More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

Since then, we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the Administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics any time soon.

The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to 'AA' within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

Hey Obama, don’t worry about Charlotte. The Disturber has your back.