Counting tonight's episode, Charlie Rose has had five guests discussing the Simpson/Bowles deficit reduction plan, and all five have been right-leaning proponents of the plan's austerity measures. To call for a broader discussion, see FAIR's latest Action Alert. Please leave copies of your messages–or comments on the alert–in the comments thread here.
Nov
16
2010
Action Alert: Charlie Rose's One-Sided Deficit Discussion
By 70 Comments
About Jim NaureckasExtra! Magazine Editor Since 1990, Jim Naureckas has been the editor of Extra!, FAIR's bimonthly journal of media criticism. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the '90s. He is also the co-manager of FAIR's website. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the newspaper In These Times, where he covered the Iran-Contra scandal, and was managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere, a newsletter on Latin America. Jim was born in Libertyville, Illinois, in 1964, and graduated from Stanford University in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in political science. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR's program director. You can follow Jim on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
Dear Mr. Rose,
Please have a balanced discussion about the deficit. There are many viewpoints to consider in a public format, and if journalism does not inform and educate, then what good is it? You get balance, not by thinking right v. left, but by thinking about diversity of opinion. Personally, I feel that the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy transfers public monies from the public sector to the private sector. The rich do not provide the jobs that some claim they do; rather, they hoard it or spend it overseas. As for entitlements, well, if civilization is not people-centered, then what good is it as well? There is a school of thought in the U.S. that wants to eliminate Welfare, unemployment, Social Security, labor laws, and all regulations on business. This is the direction we are headed and balanced discussions will help people understand what that would mean.
Thank you,
James York
Dear Mr. Rose:
Wall St. is celebrating the fist public offering of new GM stock since the company's bailout. It is no secret that the Federal government itself — as primary shareholder during both the bailout as well as the re-structuring of GM — will be the primary recipient of any profit these stock sales bring in. The rest of the common stock being offered is owned, in turn, by the UAW, the Canadian government, and former creditors of GM. They stand to make money on the rest of the stock offered if they wish to sell their common shares.
Preferred stock offerings will, however, be offered only by GM itself. These sales are to further capitalize the company and will largely be out of the hands of government regulation. Moreover, preferred stock prices will first of all vary with the ups and downs of the Treasury's common stock offerings.
I'm not mentioning this scenario in order to confound or obfuscate the public's perception of sales of GM stock. Others will do that for me — particularly the pundits who pontificate on America's post-bailout financial re-structuring solely in terms that favor America's corporate culture.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are expected to live with the outcome of cuts in social programs. I.E., the "ends" of the actual benefits of the Great Bailout are nowhere near the economic and social cost of its "means."
One doesn't have to buy into any bias I may have on either the GM stock offering or the Simpson/Bowles Deficit Reduction Task Force. Still — I know a stacked deck when I see one on either count. If the GM stock offering is biased toward America's business culture — a culture that is permanently mired in political reaction — "Simpson/Bowles" will be just as disappointing. Paring down social programs — including public education — will reflect the further decline of America's position in the world economy and a larger acceptance of a "hacienda-style" relationship between the bourgeois and America's working class.
Therefore, Mr. Rose, you need a broader spectrum of financial experts than the "dog and pony show" you've so far paraded in front of your viewers.
I do not live merely to ensure that America's biggest investors make deals that are as "risk-free" as one can make. George Pullman proved the folly of such business practices at the turn of the last century. His company was paying investors a dividend no matter how Pullman's stock was doing. That left many of Pullman's employees with bi-weekly pay packets of mere pennies in order to make sure Pullman's investors got paid first. It took a Federal Court's intervention to rein in George Pullman before many of his employees starved to death.
Maybe this scenario can no longer happen in so dramatic a fashion. Yet people can still starve — or die in epidemics — just to satisfy fat cat speculators. We don't need Simpson/Bowles to "white paper" the beneficial effects of any long-term vs. short-term cuts in America's social programs. There aren't any. Even worse a scenario — after 30+ years of the "Chicago School of Economics" — is that we don't even have enough trained economists who can think in terms of economic models outside of "Friedmanism." This bollocks would seem even more pathetic if the end products weren't so tragic for America's rapidly growing underclass.
More needs to be revealed. You — Mr. Rose — can virtually make American TV history. I.E., invite socialists like David North, Fred Goldstein and/or Joe Kishore on your program. I guarantee you it won't be boring.
pelle lindbergh
st louis mo
Dear Mr. Rose:
I urge you to bring other voices into the deficit reduction discussion, not just the right-leaning â┚¬Ã…“deficit hawksâ┚¬Ã‚ whom you\'ve so far featured exclusively. The possibilities for alternative views are endless:
Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Kuttner, Robert Reich…to name only four, and there are dozens of others. We need to hear from more than those who crown themselves courageous heroes for cutting taxes on the prosperous and cutting services on the rest.
Best,
Frank Couvares
Dear Mr. Rose,
I write to ask that you broaden the discussion of the deficit commission. Your guests so far have had a center right/conservative viewpoint. It would serve your viewers well if you were to invite guests such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, James Galbraith, and Robert Kuttner to bring balance. As you know, presenting different points of view is important to the citizenry and our democracy.
Thank you for your consideration.
Dear Charlie Rose,
Do you really think its fair to run a piece on the deficit commission and just bring right-wing guests on the show to talk about it. Are you a right-winger yourself? You must be because you are unfair and unbalanced like most right-wing television personalities and pundits. Have some back bone and tell your audience the truth Charlie. Where do you stand and who tells you what to do on your show. Are they right-winger? We want to know. This Davis Walker you featured on this piece works for the Peter G Peterson Foundation which is a extreme rightwing organization set up in part to abolish Social Security. Oh! You mean you didn\'t know that? Of course you did. Now we will expose your political affiliations and connections and those of your program managers to the public. If you are going to run another right-wing propaganda show then we will slap that label on you for everyone to see. Hey look! it\'s the Charlie Rose show doesn't he also work at Fox News?
Dear Mr. Rose:
I watch your show and often find interesting content and discussion on it. However it troubles me that many important voices and views rarely make it to seats at your round table.
I looked at the NYT "do the deficit" exercise in last Sunday's issue, and found it profoundly easy to balance the budget. First I thought "We need a market for what we produce…and that's us". The more our people are out there buying stuff, the better- but unemployed folks can't buy stuff, nor can they pay tax. So, the tax structure should balance the budget with that in mind: Put money in lots of pockets. What that means is that revenue needs to be raised from those who have money. Then we can fund jobs for those who are unemployed. Soon the working class will be working again, and enriching those at the top once more.
Until the job problem is solved by tweaking trade treaties, currencies and taxation to benefit the vast majority of Americans, our deficicit will increase and our economy will go south. We have a debt fueled monetary system where banks are making it all up. That needs to change as it is simply not sustainable. Where are the voices on your show describing this aspect of the discussion?
I hope you will bring some other voices to the discussion of the deficit. Why is war never a debated point? We need to put the military on the chopping block and fund our senior citizens normally.
Thanks.
And to get further into the "why only . . ." discussion, why only the Simpson/Bowles report when Schakowsky (also on the Commission) has a plan that addresses a set of issues more inclusive of the general public?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/17-3
Wake UP Media !! Wake UP Charlie !!
PBS is not worth watching anymore and certainly not worth my contribution $$$. I will not donate.
So suck up more and more corporate foundation money and see if that will provide a future for the coming generations Charlie.
Charlie Rose is a media name, a conservative patriot without a sound political conscience.
I read FAIR and heard about your White House deficit commission spin, Most Disappointed
Dear Mr. Rose:
I am writing to you as one who holds a Master's in Economics, and who has long been employed as an economist within the Federal government.
I have recently read about your guests who were invited onto your program to speak on the work of the presidential commission charged with exploring ways to cut the Federal deficit.
My question is simple: Why have you invited only "authorities" from the [far] right of the economics spectrum? I know of several well-known and highly regarded economists from the mainstream of the profession — Dean Baker or Mark Weisbrot (Center for Economic & Policy Research), Professor Jamie Galbraith (Univ. of Texas), Professor Michael Hudson (University of Missouri @ Kansas City), Nomi Prins or Robert Kuttner (Demos) , et. al. — whom you could have also invited.
Please start bringing balance onto your program for this topic; it's Crucial.
Sincerely,
Kevin M. McCarron
Washington, DC
Mr. Rose,
You are a gifted interviewer. However, the "Charlie Rose Show" has exclusively featured right-leaning supporters of the Simpson/Bowles plan and the deficit commission. I call on you to bring diversity to this discussion. It is a disservice to your viewers (and indeed, the country) to present such a one-sided perspective. As you undoubtedly know, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (11/12/10), noted that the deficit commission is a "compromise between the center-right and the hard-right," critiqued the plan's arbitrary cap on federal revenue and called its tax suggestions "a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases–tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class." To exclude those who could present alternative expert opinions turns the Charlie Rose show into a mouthpiece for conservative politicians.
Fix this, I implore you, in order for your show (and you) to regain credibility.
Thank you,
Julie E. Kaufman, PhD
Chicago, Illinois
Mr Rose, you're role of AMerican Patrician requires that you support policies that are detrimental to us plebes. We're constantly asking ourselves, "Why does this man have a show?" You'd best thank the Sun King for PBS and your celebrity; try finding work at FOX.
Comrades, is Charlie's greatest crime a lack of objectivity (still a myth, right?), or is it his being the most boring man in America. Is watching Charlie Rose forgivable? On your knees and pray!
Mr. Rose,
Your coverage of consideration of the deficit reduction commission has ranged from the right to the far right. Could you not speak with folks like Robert Kuttner, Dean Baker or James Galbraith for some balance?
Over 17% of the budget consists of health care spending, which, for the moderate good that the health reform bill did do, it did nothing to control inflationary costs of a system built around private for-profit insurances, which will be taxpayer subsidized upwards of $400 billion. A single risk pool public insurance with full choice of private providers (which can never be achieved with limitations of private insurance networks) could cover all and save upwards of $600 billion annually. This is an issue that Robert Kuttner could very ably address.
Please stop giving so much air time to the disaster capitalists who want to privatize everything for profit, and the Wall St. apologists. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest added almost $2 trillion to the deficit during his term. It is hypocritical to address the deficits on the backs of the working class, while preserving huge wealth shift to the elite class. Did anyone even mention extending the Social Security taxes above $106,000? Could we hear more progressive views to balance the hard right views that you have been favoring?
subject header: There is no debate if everybody is taking the same position.
Please, Charlie Rose show – bring some diversity to your discussion of the deficit commission, which so far has exclusively featured right-leaning supporters of the Simpson/Bowles plan. Bring on Jan Schakowsky, Robert Kuttner, Paul Krugman, for example. There are plenty of voices to support the common good and public interest against this deficit commission which appears to be declaring war on the general public in favor of the superwealthy. Please – put the public interest back into Public TV. The super-rich already have all the media outlets they need!
thank you
Margaret Copi
Oakland, CA
I am mightily disappointed with the coverage that Charlie Rose has given of the whole deficit issue so far. Every single one of the recent guests was on the right. There are plenty of people who are critical of the product that Erskine Bowles (not a centrist and clearly not on the left) and Alan Simpson have come out with. And Paul Ryan? And Marty Feldstein and some guy from the right-wing Pete Peterson Foundation? Please!
If we are going to have a debate, let's have a debate that features all sides. How about Paul Krugman, for example? How about Jon Chait, who has shown that Bowles-Simpson, contrary to advertisement, actually redistributes income from the middle class up to the wealthy, who on balance make off like bandits, while the poor and middle class have their taxes raised proportionately much more and lose benefits to boot? How about my senator, Bernie Sanders, who will point out (correctly) that the Social Security System has not added one penny to the national debt (and who will point out, also correctly, that Social Security was NOT in the charter of the Bowles-Simpson commission). How about Jaime Galbraith? There are plenty of people who can cite chapter and verse about the deficiencies and disingenuous nature of the Bowles-Simpson proposals.
Charlie Rose can and must do better than this.
William H. Jefferys
Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor of Astronomy (Emeritus)
The University of Texas at Austin
Adjunct Professor of Statistics
The University of Vermont
From: Mary
Date: 11/19/2010 2:58:48 PM
To: charlierose@pbs.org
Subject: Tonight's show – with Baker and Schakowsky.
Thank you for Tonight's broadcast of the Charlie Rose Show. I'm glad to see that you will feature a discussion of the budget deficit with progressive economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).
——-Original Message——-
From: Mary McKeon
Date: 11/16/2010 5:17:25 PM
To: charlierose@pbs.org
Subject: Diversity on your programs need to be reviewed.
I am asking you, Mr. Charlie Rose, to give your show some diversity to its discussion of the deficit commission. You have in the last month been featuring only exclusively right-leaning supporters of the Simpson/Bowles plan. As a viewer of your program, from time to time I find it very strange that you don't present both sides of an issue.
Follow-up:
I'm delighted to see that you've got Representative Schakowsky scheduled for tonight's show. Her alternative plan for dealing with the deficit deserves air time, and I'm very interested to hear her elaborations. This is exactly the sort of balance to the austerity-line guests that I had in mind when I originally wrote in (text below). Many thanks for beginning to explore the full picture. I hope you'll expand further in this direction with a panel of economists and economic historians, including both pro and con. This particular topic is a turning point moment for our nation, similar to the decisions facing Hoover and FDR. I would love to see your team at the top of your game, winning awards and approbation for your work in stimulating the important discussion and in educating the general public — and our elected officials — on the options and ramifications.
Again, thank you for scheduling Shakowsky.
FOLLOW-UP: Email to Bloomberg, sponsor of Charlie Rose
Dear Bloomberg representative,
I see FAIR says: â┚¬Ã‚¨"Tonight's broadcast [11/19/10] of the Charlie Rose Show will feature a discussion of the budget deficit with progressive economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)".
Please let Charlie Rose know that I am gladdened that he has featured these voices in his show.
I would like to know if the call from FAIR was influential in producing the counter discussion. ??
My concerns about PBS remain. And I will take the time to outline that. Please pass forward my comments to the PBS directors.
It is worrying to me because I see the high standard of production and attention to detail that makes PBS important and set apart from slick/quick stultifying money-making networks and cable television. We need a new improved PBS more than ever!
Yet PBS has always been a USA national patriot propaganda network and is therefore embedded in one national agenda, as that is manipulated, cultivated and perpetuated through media/advertising, school curriculum, universities and the state.
I am concerned about the way of collapse of the USA imperial superpower. A collapse of imperialism is welcome, and yet, such collapse seamlessly replaced with regenerative economy, ecology and equality enhancing common life, not destroying it, would be desirable and as it is possible since the wealthiest and greediest have as much to loose in not supporting a common revolution of trust and placidity.
But PBS is getting more restrictive not less. Journalists and producers edit terribly to meet unspoken PBS national broadcast content rules. They know what will fly on PBS and what will not. They tailor their storyboard to suit the station and cult audience. Like Presidents who ignore torture, PBS shows ignore facts and even misrepresent history seemingly "in the national interest".
PBS and all broadcasters using the public domain have a responsibility for truth and inclusion. As distasteful as that sometimes is in facing the enemy within it has merit in strength of character and forming holistic longtivity in the national entity. USA residents need media that projects beyond nationalism as they live with global connectivity and global threats of extinction.
Evolving humans are tired of the consecutive turnover of cave-man empires… And so, as the next superpower falls another will rise up in the face of a more powerful and angered environment. It is time to review history fully and face the pains of scrutiny for better ways of survival, indeed perhaps idealistic cultures.
At this far gone point, only a "centre" fixed in truth, transparency and sustainability can avoid wanton destruction and usher regard for planet and life. We have nothing to loose by identifying the centre and using it as our compass.
PBS must lead, support real change, and fix it's center, or it will certainly be outFOXed in following the commercial broadcast narrative.
Michael Daly
The show last Friday (11-12-10) was mind-blowing. It had the former director of national intelligence. Evidently the CIA, FBI, NSA and 14 other agencies he oversaw still ain't sharing info.
Obama fired Dennis Blair (former Director) back in May.
When Charlie asked him "when will this end?" (the war). The dude replied "when Islam decides to reject terrorism".
I have been looking around this cyber world and haven't found any body talking about it but I got it on a video tape.
Charlie:
I don\'t appreciate Simpson and Bowles\' view supporting the corporations at the expense of the poor on MediCal; though I am on Medicare, I can take a hit but not too much, I hope. Instead of reducing MediCal, why not let them negotiate a deal with the pharmaceutical and medical device companies. I didn\'t appreciate the free pass to pharm or supporting pharm with Medicare D. In fact, it made me literally sick the night that passed congress.
I am faithful Charlie Rose watcher and even tell others to watch, but I am disappointed you don\'t have people on who think outside the box on this subject. What about single-payer, what about population reduction through purposeful humane actions, rather than war, as it has always been? People don\'t want to be consumers and producers right now; there are too many of us already rapidly destroying the earth. It is time to stop and find our way. Maybe our democracy experiment didn\'t work. Too much money is needed to be elected and then politicians are bought and paid for; they can\'t be public servants or representatives. There has to be a new order.
Jeanne Amato
Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."
â┚¬”ÂVernon Law
Charlie, thank you for the show, but the deficit commission is made up of 18 people, 14 of which are considered to be fiscal conservatives, read that as Republican viewpoint. The thing Simpson/Bowles wants to do sounds like a Republican wishlist. Where is the shared sacrifice? The roughly lower 90% carries the burden. Please invite others who are not so enthusiastic about these two people's recommendations. Thank you.