January 20, 2017
They said it couldn’t be done. It would be like the Pope converting to Islam, but the Washington Post did the impossible. It headlined an article on reports that Donald Trump wants to privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and eliminate altogether the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities:
“Trump reportedly wants to cut cultural programs that make up 0.02 percent of federal spending.”
This is an incredible breakthrough. The Post has religiously followed a policy of reporting on the budget by using really big numbers that are virtually meaningless to the vast majority of their readers. One result is that people, including well-educated and liberal people, tend to grossly over-estimate the portion of the budget that goes to things like TANF (@ 0.4 percent), foreign aid (@ 0.7 percent), and food stamps (@1.8 percent).
The fact that it uses really big numbers rather than express these items in some context feeds the claims of right-wingers that we are being overtaxed to support these programs. It also contributes to the absurd belief that large numbers of people are not working but rather surviving comfortably on relatively meager benefits.
It’s too bad it took getting Donald Trump in the White House to get the paper to do some serious budget reporting.
Comments