In a November 11 article reporting on a November 10 local campaign fundraising appearance by former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, the Greeley Tribune uncritically stated that “Giuliani spoke about reducing New York's budget by $9 million.” However, the Tribune did not report that spending increased more during Giuliani's second term, according to news accounts and an independent fiscal watchdog, than in the three previous terms, as Media Matters for America has noted.

Further, the Tribune article by Sherrie Peif used the term “death tax,” which, as Media Matters also noted, many conservatives use to refer to the estate tax and which Republican pollster Frank Luntz found polls better for conservatives.

From the article “Giuliani speaks at private event in Windsor,” published in the November 11 edition of the Greeley Tribune:

State Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, who organized the event, said everybody was amazed by Giuliani's presence and his speaking ability.

“More people showed up than what we had expected,” he said. “They saw it in the paper and came with $1,000 in hand.

Before opening it up to questions, Giuliani spoke about reducing New York's budget by $9 million, creating new tax cuts in New York and how important it is for the United States to work with other countries. He also shared his visions for what he would do as President, including lowering the corporate tax rate and getting rid of the death tax.

In articles published in their June 25, 2007, and June 27, 2003, issues, respectively, Time magazine and The New York Times referred to Giuliani's “second-term spending spree.” Going into greater detail, Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins wrote in 2002 that while Giuliani “made good” on a promise to reduce the size of government in his first term:

[T]he second term was a different story. City expense spending (not including state and federal contributions) rose by 6 percent in 1998, 4 percent in 1999, another 6 percent in 2000, and, finally, an added 9 percent in the Giuliani administration's last full year, according to the Independent Budget Office. In the last five years of the Giuliani administration, spending grew at twice the rate of inflation.

Similarly, Steven Malanga, senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote in 2002 that Giuliani “abandoned [his] abstemiousness during his second term”:

During the late nineties, as the economy boomed, the city went on an especially extravagant spending spree. In 1998, the part of the budget financed by city tax revenues rose 6 percent, more than double the inflation rate; in 2000, it increased 5.7 percent; and in 2001, it rocketed up 9 percent -- three times the inflation rate.

In December 2001, the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), an independent fiscal watchdog, reported that spending increased more in Giuliani's second term (through fiscal year 2001, which ended on June 30, 2001) than in the three previous terms -- Giuliani's first term, predecessor David Dinkins' (D) only term, and Dinkins' predecessor Ed Koch's (D) third term. The CBC also reported that “overall expenditures fell in real terms” during Giuliani's first term, but later stated that “Giuliani reversed expenditure policy” in his second term:

As the economic boom continued in his second term, Mayor Giuliani reversed expenditure policy and began to expand municipal government. Real expenditures increased an average of 3.5 percent annually from fiscal year 1998 to fiscal year 2001 -- a total increase of over $4 billion in constant (2000) dollars. In the fiscal year 2002 Adopted Budget, expenditures were projected to increase 1.4 percent in fiscal year 2002, while revenues declined 3.6 percent; the difference was filled by drawing down virtually the entire surplus accumulated in the late 1990s boom. The combination of spending increases and using the surplus in fiscal year 2002 set the stage for the unusually large fiscal year 2003 budget gap.