CNS’ Jeffrey Keeps On Implicitly Blaming Dems For Deficit Spending

A partisan journalistic tradition at CNSNews.com is editor Terry Jeffrey implicitly blaming Democrats for deficit spending as he highlights tax collections, even though he refused to blame Republicans for deficit spending when they controlled the presidency and at least one chamber of Congress. Jeffrey made sure to keep up that tradition in the latter months of 2022. He wrote in a Sept. 14 article:

The federal government collected a record $4,408,452,000,000 in total taxes in the first eleven months of fiscal 2022 (October through August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

That was up $525,658,170,000—or 13.5 percent–from the then-record $3,882,793,830,000 (in constant August 2022 dollars) that the federal government collected in the first eleven months of fiscal 2021.

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The Department of Health and Human Services led the federal government in spending in the first eleven months of fiscal 2022 with outlays of $1,467,475,000,000. The Social Security Administration was second, spending $1,168,870,000,000 in the first eleven months of this fiscal year. The Department of the Treasury was third, spending a total of $1,139,305,000,000—including $677,612,000,000 to pay the interest on Treasury securities and $461,693,000,000 on other expenses.

The Department of Defense-Military Programs was fourth, spending $649,261,000,000.

Jeffrey did a fiscal year roundup for an Oct. 21 article:

The federal government collected a record $4,896,119,000,000 in total taxes in fiscal 2022 (October 2021 through September 2022), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

That was up $518,302,170,000—or 11.8 percent–from the previous record of $4,377,816,830,000 (in constant September 2022 dollars) that the federal government collected in fiscal 2021.

Fiscal 2015—when the federal government collected $4,052,366,920,000 in total taxes (in constant September 2022 dollars)—ranks as the third highest year for total federal tax collections.

Again, Jeffrey complained that HHS and Social Security received a lot of money.

Jeffrey updated his humbers for the first month of the fiscal year in a Nov. 10 article:

The federal government collected a record $318,576,000,000 in total taxes in October, the first month of fiscal 2023, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

The Treasury set the previous record for October tax collections last year, when it brought in $305,918,360,000 in total taxes in constant October 2022 dollars.

The implicit blame came with all three article featuring photos of President Biden, usually with Nancy Pelosi.

Interestingly, Jeffrey stopped doing monthly articles on tax collections, which he had done for years. Instead, he wrote a Feb. 15 article that summarized the first four months of the fiscal year (which included October despite having already devoted an article to it):

Total federal tax collections in October through January, the first four months of fiscal 2023, were down from total tax collections in the October-through-January period of fiscal 2022,according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

The federal fiscal year runs from October through September.

In the October-through-January period of fiscal 2022, the Treasury collected $1,614,169,570,000 in total taxes (in constant January 2023 dollars). In October-through-January of fiscal 2023, the Treasury collected only $1,472,842,000,000 in total taxes.

That was a decline of $141,327,570,000.

Again, Jeffrey included a file photo of Biden.