Fox News' Van Susteren did not challenge Kyl's false stimulus math
SUMMARY: Fox News' Greta Van Susteren did not challenge Sen. Jon Kyl's false claim that the economic recovery plan is "going to be wasting an awful lot of money, putting permanent programs in place that over a 10-year period ... are going to spend $3.27 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office." Kyl's assertion echoed the false claim in a Washington Times editorial that CBO estimated that the full cost of the bill would reach $3.2 trillion by 2019. In fact, more than half of the $3.2 trillion figure comes from the cost of permanently extending more than 20 provisions in the recovery bill, which the bill does not do.
During the February 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record, host Greta Van Susteren did not challenge Sen. Jon Kyl's (R-AZ) false claim that the economic recovery plan, which President Obama just signed into law, is "going to be wasting an awful lot of money, putting permanent programs in place that over a 10-year period ... are going to spend $3.27 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office." Kyl added, "[S]o permanent programs, a lot of money." Kyl's assertion echoed the false claim in the February 17 Washington Times that CBO estimated that the full cost of the bill would reach $3.2 trillion by 2019. In fact, more than half of the $3.2 trillion figure comes from the cost of permanently extending more than 20 provisions in the recovery bill, which the bill does not do, contrary to Kyl's claim. CBO did not include those costs in its cost estimate of the bill; rather, in a letter to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who requested that CBO estimate the cost of permanently extending those provisions, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf noted: "As specified in H.R. 1 as passed, those provisions would either explicitly expire or would specify appropriations only for a limited number of years (usually 2009 and 2010)."
As Media Matters for America documented, the CBO has estimated that the recovery bill as passed by Congress will cost $787,242,000. In addition to including approximately $1.7 trillion to permanently extend programs that the recovery bill does not authorize to be extended, the $3.2 trillion figure cited by the Times also includes $745 billion in interest costs, which, according to Elmendorf's letter to Ryan, are not included in CBO scorekeeping.
From the February 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, there's so many things going on in terms of programs coming out of Washington right now that, you know, we Americans are just sort of, like -- it's, like, going over our heads. We just hear these incredible numbers, and we don't -- we know we don't have the money. We're all hoping that it's the right solution, but if nobody even bothered to read the bill that everybody voted on, that's rather terrifying because we can't even tell if it's a good idea or not. But we send people to Washington to make these decision for us, and we find out that they're just basically rolling dice. It's terrifying, Senator.
KYL: Well, and it's a -- in that case, it's a trillion-dollar gamble. Now, again, our staff was able to point out a lot of things in this legislation that were not good. And we talked about those things. But at the end of the day, spending a trillion dollars, you want to get it right. This was not targeted legislation. To the extent it stimulates anything, it's going to be luck, rather than careful, careful planning. And it's going to be wasting an awful lot of money, putting permanent programs in place that over a 10-year period, Greta, are going to spend $3.27 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office -- so, permanent programs, a lot of money.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, I'm just hoping that my fears are all completely off the mark and that -- you know, that this -- that this is going to work, but we'll have to see. Senator, thank you.
KYL: Thank you, Greta.
Judging from Rush's size, it must be way more than 2,000 calories.
FOX never lets the facts get in the way of a good Republican talking point. And how did Greta Van Susteren ever get her own show? Her only prior claim to fame was being part of a team that botched the prosecution of O.J. Simpson for murdering two people. Oh, I forgot...this is FOX News.
My bad...Greta Van Suteren was not part of the prosecution team in the O.J. trial. I was thinking of Marcia Clark. Apologies to Ms. V. for the mistake...although I still think she's better suited to Entertainment Tonight rather than covering legitimate news.
No, she's better suited to be Fox's version of Nancy DisGrace. Wait til the next young white college student goes missing. Then she won't have to put up with any "real" news analysis.
Off topic but... is it me or does Nancy Grace always look like she's smelling something really bad.
Nancy Grace at her finest
Greta became famous for her CNN coverage of OJ.
She is the only FOX News figure that Bill Clinton will do an interview with.
Ok, I wanna see the clip of a "terrified" Greta when so many congresspeople didn't read the Patriot acts and voted for them. Also, Greta, I'd rather have Obama's team "rolling the dice" than Bush's team shooting into the dark. I don't think anyone is naive enough to think that the Stimulus package is a sure hit answer to all the economy's woes... Obama said as much in his own statement, but doing nothing isn't the answer. Greta is terrified... that's a step in the right direction.
A trillion dollar gamble?
How are the odds Senator? As good as the several trillion dollar plus bet you made in Iraq?
What do you knuckle draggers have against investing in Americans?
Amazing, isn't it? Somehow Iraq has been a much better investment and worthy of little or no scrutiny. The moment someone starts talking about investing in America, out come the microscopes.
And we were assured that the Iraq war would pay for itself in the form of Iraq oil revenues.
How about GIVING $700B to banks without any preconditions, oversite or even a bare-bones outline of a plan?! The republicans always TALK about "giving people more of thier own moneyt back" well, it seems to me that this stimulus bill will give more of American Tex-Payer money back to Tax-payers then burying it in Iraq or giving it to privately owned banks will. Sheesh, what's wrong with these people? They've voted almost unanomously against jobs and economic recovery. Sure - it's succes will be a victory for the Dem's and show that their economic philospshy is a sham, but in the long run, EVEN THE RICH will benefit from this!!! (The rich always benefit from a healthy economy - THAT'S WHY THEIR RICH!!!) At this point I'm out of patience wit these nimrods. To not like this stimulus bull (which as totaly different from the bank bailouts and auto-loans as they are from each other) you'd have to either be EVIL (in the literary, comic-book sense) or completely and utterly ignorant of basic macro economics.
(And if you can't see the difference between the bank-bailout, the auto-loans and the stimulus, then apparently you can't even read.)
Ah, but the trillions for Iraq went to the plutocrats who were in league with Bush. This money doesn't go directly to them, so they want more.
All I can say to Senator Kyl is..with your share of the Stimulus money buy yourself a vowel for that last name. And then get reading lessons.
I still think that Republicans are affected with an eye/brain disease which causes them to "really" read between the lines thinking something is there. And they get to make it up as they go. I'm switching my registration next election to see if it really happens.
Kyl's forward looking statement may prove to be true or false. At this point, we don't know. It is almost certain that many of those 20 provisions noted in the recovery bill will either be extended or handed over to the states, so in 10 years the $3.2 may be very close to the truth (or woefully underestimated).
Nice spin, but Kyl doesn't say if the provisions are made permanent the cost could be 3.27 trillion, he says they are permanent and will cost that amount.
That's a lie in my book.
It will not be proven to be a lie until 2019. A lot of the programs in the stimulus package look pretty permanent, even though there is no funding in place right now. Unless there is a change in the makeup of Congress in the next 10 years, they will be there in 2019. Print this message, seal it in a safe place and if I am wrong in 2019 and still around, I'll buy you a round at a pub of my choice.
I will come and have a beer with you just to watch. I made a comment about the mayan calendar and that got scrubbed real fast. 2019 is a long ways away.
You're right and Kyl could be right. But Sustern should have noted that, contrary to Kyl's suggestion, that would be the result of future legislation, not this bill.
I'll drink one tonight to your health and hope you can do the same.