Fred Lucas writes in a Dec. 3 CNSNews.com article that “The White House stressed that the offer made to congressional Republicans last week is similar to the proposals that President Barack Obama made in his fiscal year 2013 plan – a proposal that was defeated unanimously in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House last year.” Lucas added that “The Democratic Senate voted 0-99 against Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal.”
But that’s a misleading claim. As Media Matters points out, the version of the Obama budget voted on by the Senate was not introduced by a Democrat — it was a brief summary of the budget introduced by a Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions, that included Obama’s numbers but none of his specific policy proposals. Senate Republicans then forced a vote on it as a stunt, knowing that it was not a real budget.
It did, however, provide a bogus talking point for right-wing reporters like Fred Lucas.
UPDATE: CNS repeats the dishonest claim in a Dec. 5 article by Elizabeth Harrington.