Ignoring its own reporting, LA Times didn't note McCain's shifting time frame for balancing budget
SUMMARY: The Los Angeles Times reported that Sen. John McCain "advocated for his tax cuts and his plan to balance the budget by 'the end of my term in office.' " But the Times did not note, as it has previously reported, that McCain has repeatedly shifted on his time frame for balancing the budget, originally claiming he would balance the budget in four years, then pledging to do so in eight years, before reversing himself again to return to the four-year pledge.
In an October 12 Los Angeles Times article, staff writers Robin Abcarian and Maeve Reston reported that at an October 11 rally in Davenport, Iowa "[Sen. John] McCain advocated for his tax cuts and his plan to balance the budget by 'the end of my term in office.' " However, Abcarian and Reston did not mention that McCain has repeatedly shifted on his time frame for balancing the budget, originally claiming he would balance the budget in four years, then pledging to do so in eight years, before reversing himself again to return to the four-year pledge. By contrast, in a July 8 Times article, Reston and Louise Roug reported: "Three months after he discarded his pledge to balance the federal budget in four years, John McCain on Monday renewed his vow to do so." In addition, in an April 16 article on McCain's economic agenda, LA Times staff writer Michael Finnegan documented McCain's first shift when he noted that McCain's April 15 pledge to "balance the budget within eight years" was "a retreat from his previous vow to do so within four."
As Media Matters for America has documented, both McCain and his economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin reportedly said on April 15 that, in the words of Reuters, "McCain believes he can balance the budget in eight years." This represented a shift from McCain's reported pledge in February to balance the budget by the end of his first term, as Media Matters noted. On April 16, New York Times reporter Michael Cooper wrote that McCain said that "economic conditions are reversed," requiring him to reconsider his four-year pledge. However, on July 7, Holtz-Eakin stated during a conference call with reporters that McCain was again promising a balanced budget by the end of his first term.
Furthermore, Abcarian and Reston did not note, as Reston and Roug reported in their July 8 article, that many economists and nonpartisan analysts have expressed skepticism about McCain's plan to balance the budget in four years, stating that his proposal for numerous tax cuts would bloat the deficit or require huge spending cuts, as Media Matters has repeatedly noted. Indeed, Media Matters documented that, in the July 8 article, Reston and Roug reported that McCain's pledge to balance the budget in four years "defied skepticism among fiscal analysts over whether he could balance the budget even within eight years. ... Many say his proposed expansion of President Bush's tax cuts would put that goal out of reach."
In fact, Holtz-Eakin reportedly acknowledged that McCain's healthcare plan would require massive budget cuts to stay "budget-neutral."
From Abcarian and Reston's October 12 Los Angeles Times article:
Meanwhile in Iowa, McCain advocated for his tax cuts and his plan to balance the budget by "the end of my term in office." He offered a scathing critique of the price tag of Obama's spending proposals and accused him of being vague.
"We've all heard what he's said, but it's less clear what he's done or what he will do," McCain told a crowd of more than 1,000 in Davenport. "Rather than answer his critics, Sen. Obama will try to distract. . . . He has even questioned my truthfulness -- and let me reply in the plainest terms I know: I don't need lessons about telling the truth to the American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician," McCain said as the crowd responded with a roar.
Wow! McCain used a brilliant one-liner to accuse all Chicago's politicians as lying. What are they doing? Trying to become a senator in Arizona?
neither will balance the budget with the tax cuts they have proposed, although mccain will make it harder to achieve with his policy of give even more to those that already have. the problem is that we are going to get to the point where we cannot deficit spend our way out of economic trouble, such as now, because we will be so deeply in debt it will do no good, and foreigners are not going to lend us the money. we're a nation of adults, supposedly, and yet we cannot manage to operate on a budget, with income more or less equaling spending. we all want, want, want, but don't want to pay for it. we're borrowing money to subsidize tax cuts.
matt lauer trying to push the idea this morning on the today show that wall street tanked because of obama's rise in the polls. apparently all those bank and business failures had nothing to do with it. of course, when clinton raised taxes on the wealthy early in his administration that brought predictions of disaster from all the republicans, and the reverse happened.
Is Robin Abcarian now writing news articles? So that's what happened to her.
In the past, Abcarian was nothing more than a very mediocre, light weight human interest columnist in the now defunct 'Family' section.
What a shameful demise, that L.A. Times.
To be honest, who knows for sure when the budget can be truly balanced. The only way to really start cutting the deficit to end this highly privatized Iraq War and end the no-bid and cost-plus contracts. If we have to keep a few troops there so be it but get those profit-seeking companies out. Just let the army do what it has always done in reconstruction/nation building.
Also, just a note to future presidents: during war time, you're supposed to RAISE TAXES so that the debt doesn't get passed on to our grandkids! And the longer we wait to pay it off, the more expensive it will be for them.
McCain, who was responsible for two plane crashes prior to the one that landed him at the Hanoi Hilton, probably didn't need any more flying lessons. Nor did he need any more lessons in ethics after being repremanded for his lapses by the House Ethics Committee. Now, despite his admitted ignorance of the economy, he prides himself in needing no lessons from anyone in Chicago, home of Milton Friedman's free market economic theories which he supported. McCain, who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class will continue to pride himself by making sure that he learns nothing from anyone because he knows everything! Coupled with Palin who can't remember the names of any newspapers she reads we have a winning team to continue in the literary tradition of George W. Bush!
Actually I beleive the crash that got him into the Hanoi Hilton was his fifth plane.
GRAMPS McCAIN: I don't need lessons about telling the truth to the American people.
Because you can't teach an old dog new tricks. :-)
This is "conservative m isinformation"?
Yet again - MM takes an article that is largely unflattering of McCain, finds something to take issue with, and presents a false perception that the LA Times is somehow against Obama.
Meanwhile, nothing can be further from the truth. The LA Times is viruently pro-Obama. They're not even hiding it anymore! The paper's pro-Obama position has been very well documented.
"The LA Times is virulently pro-Obama" -- take out "virulently" and I'll agree with you. Unfortunately, reality is pro-Obama too. What's a newspaper to do?