What does and doesn’t “drive the deficit?” Don’t ask the press corps.
by digby
Read this quote from a CNN journalist. I’m sure you can spot the error, right?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: … today, this morning, President Obama in the Rose Garden as his budget is officially unveiled and he’ll be talking about how deficit reduction is important, but he’ll say it’s not the only thing that needs to be done. The deficit reduction can’t be done at the expense of investing in things like education and job training and infrastructure, which are some new areas of spending we are expected to see in the budget because we have seen the outline in recent days.
One of the big talking – one of the big headlines that folks will be talking about today will be what the carrot to Republicans. It is — you may have heard referred to as chained CPI. Well, what the heck is that, you may say? That is an adjustment to how Social Security benefits are doled out. This is something that Republicans are happy that is in his proposal and many liberals are very upset about, because it would reduce the spending to Social Security recipients, which is obviously a huge driver of the deficit. But it would reduce the spending by decreasing the cost of living adjustments, those increases that seniors see. And this would have a very real impact for a lot of seniors who rely on Social Security for their income; they’re on a fixed income and this is where they get their money just to do their household expenses.
Yes that’s right:
This is something that Republicans are happy that is in his proposal and many liberals are very upset about, because it would reduce the spending to Social Security recipients, which is obviously a huge driver of the deficit.
You know that it has no effect on the deficit. And journalists should know this too. But they are using the same logic that most Americans will use by assuming that the Democratic President would never suggest cutting their benefits in a deficit reduction package if it had no effect on the deficit. It is rather hard to believe that a Democrat would use seniors as bait, I’ll grant that.
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