"Deficit" Delusions
 

     Although Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan talked extensively about the necessity of curbing entitlement spending before the House yesterday, the headline of the Times' lead story took up a more anti-Bush (and misleading) angle: "Greenspan Says Budget Deficits Can't Continue."

     The underlying story, by economics reporter Edmund Andrews, makes an even blunter assertion: "Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned on Wednesday that the federal budget deficits were 'unsustainable,' and he urged Congress to scrutinize both spending and taxes to solve the problem. Mr. Greenspan also warned that the deficits could be driven sharply higher by costs connected to the aging of the baby boom generation, particularly entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. While reiterating his support for President Bush's plan to offer private accounts as part of overhauling Social Security, Mr. Greenspan urged lawmakers to tackle the program's problems now, rather than later."

     But as Slate's "Today's Papers" columnist Eric Umansky notes, Greenspan didn't call the deficit "unsustainable." Terming the story's lead a "creative interpretation of Greenspan's comments," Umansky points out "Greenspan wasn't really bemoaning the current deficit…he was talking about entitlements."

     Umansky then highlights Greenspan's actual use of the word "unsustainable" in his testimony, showing the chairman was indeed using the word to refer to entitlement programs, not the deficit: "So long as health-care costs continue to grow faster than the economy as a whole, the additional resources needed for such programs will exert pressure on the federal budget that seems increasingly likely to make current fiscal policy unsustainable."

     Andrews devotes the middle of his story to the cost of Bush's tax cuts, twice pointing out how Congressional Budget Office figures state that making the cuts permanent would add $1.8 trillion to the federal debt over 10 years. But Greenspan's prepared testimony reveals that while Greenspan mentioned taxes six times (always within a context of scrutinizing "both spending and taxes") he mentioned the problems of entitlement spending 17 times: Social Security nine times, Medicare seven, and Medicaid once.

     The Washington Post delivers a more accurate summary of Greenspan's testimony: "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday urged Congress to act soon to reduce future Social Security and Medicare benefits, warning that growing federal budget deficits threaten to cause economic 'stagnation' in coming decades."

For the rest of Andrews on Greenspan's testimony, click here:

More "Independent Analysts" Who Agree With Demos
 

     Thursday's poll story from Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder, "Bush Doesn't Share Public's Priorities, New Poll Indicates" lingers on the bad news for Bush in the most recent NYT/CBS poll, the first taken since Bush's inauguration.

     They begin: "Americans say President Bush does not share the priorities of most of the country on either domestic or foreign issues, are increasingly resistant to his proposal to revamp Social Security and say they are uneasy with Mr. Bush's ability to make the right decisions about the retirement program, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll underscores just how little headway Mr. Bush has made in his effort to build popular support as his proposal for overhauling Social Security struggles to gain footing in Congress. At the same time, there has been an increase in respondents who say that efforts to restore order in Iraq are going well, even as an overwhelming number of Americans say Mr. Bush has no clear plan for getting out of Iraq."

     Deep into the story the Times sees a glimmer of good news for Bush on Social Security reform, yet couches it in a negative formulation: "Still, Mr. Bush's argument that the system is approaching bankruptcy -- a contention disputed by Democrats and independent analysts -- seems to be taking hold."

     Nagourney and Toner employed that exact same "Democrats and independent analysts" phrase (without caveats, as if all responsible analysts agree with Democrats) in their last poll story, written on Inauguration Day. White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller is fond of a similar formulation when discussing Social Security ("Many Democrats and economists").

To read the rest of the poll story, click here:

Back to Beirut for U.S. Troops?
 

     Diplomatic Correspondent Steven Weisman continues to see nothing but downside  in recent hints of democracy coming out of the Middle East.
On "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" Tuesday night, Weisman seemed to warn that events in Lebanon (including street protests against the authoritarian influence of Syria) could lead to more American troops dying just as they did in Beirut in 1983: "I think Syria and Lebanon needs to be watched very carefully because it wasn‘t even on anyone's radar screen a month or two ago as a source of potential instability. But for two decades, Syrian troops in there have been -- and Syrian dominance of Lebanon and dependence on Lebanon, economically, has been a big factor in the Middle East. And Syria's unlikely to let its grip go easily. The assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon a couple of weeks ago is a measure of the extent  to which people will go to keep Syrian control there. At least that's the way it's analyzed here."

     Then Weisman warned: "And Lebanon, you remember, lots of your viewers remember what a chaotic situation it was 20 years ago at the height of civil war when they were hostages and American troops were introduced and then killed in great numbers. More than 20 years ago. That can happen again."