CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey has been doing what he does — complaining about federal deficits while refusing to explicitly assign blame where it lies: on the Republican president and Republican-controlled Senate. Jeffrey complained in a Sept. 11 article:
Federal spending has topped $6 trillion for the first time in any fiscal year in the nation’s history and the federal deficit has topped $3 trillion for the first time, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for August that was released today.
There is still another month left in fiscal 2020, which runs through the end of September.
As per usual, the words “Trump” and “Republican” do not appear, and it’s illustrated with one of his favorite stock photos of Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — falsely implying that Democrats share equal blame for the size of the deficit when it controls only one-half of one relevant branch of government while Republicans control one and a half branches.
Jeffrey followed up on Oct. 2 with a similar complaint: “The debt of the federal government topped $27 trillion for the first time on Thursday, October 1, when it climbed from an opening balance of $26,945,391,194,615.15 to a closing balance of $27,026,921,935,432.41, according to data published by the U.S. Treasury Department.” Again, Jeffrey avoids mention of who’s actually in charge of the government, and he uses another stock photo suggesting that Democrats share equal blame.
Both articles note: “The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.” Would Wold actually be happy with Jeffrey’s biased, incomplete reporting here? We suspect not.
Ironically, an opinion column published by CNS was (somewhat) more balanced than Jeffrey’s supposedly objective reporting. A Sept. 24 column by Hans Bader actually told the truth that Jeffrey won’t, but unfortunately went into speculation whataboutism: “Trump let budget deficits rise. Joe Biden will likely increase budget deficits far more.”