You got a sense from some of the coverage of the Simpson/Bowles deficit commission report that their right-leaning prescription was exactly the kind of solution the corporatemedia could get behind. Charlie Rose could apparently only find two panelists who wished the commissionhad gone further with its spending cuts. On NBC's Meet the Press (11/14/10), the panel discussion featured former Fed chair (and Ayn Rand devotee) Alan Greenspan and far right former Republican politician Newt Gingrich. On the "other" side was Harold Ford, currently thechair of theright-leaning Democratic Leadership Council. A debate from thenear-right to the far-right, inother words.Vanity Fair journalist [...]
Home > Archives for Alan Greenspan
Nov
15
2010
NBC's Sunday Morning Austerity Program
Filed Under: Economy, Media Criticism, NBC, Social Security Tagged With: Alan Greenspan, David Gregory, deficit commission, Harold Ford, Meet the Press
Sep
24
2010
NewsHour's Tax Cuts Series Off to a Bad Start
On Wednesday night's broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (9/23/10), Gwen Ifill announced: "Now to the first of several conversations on whether or not to extend tax cuts that expire at the end of the year." The first guest was Republican Glenn Hubbard, who Ifill told viewers "was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and he helped to design those cuts." Not surprisingly, he is a big supporter of extending the tax cuts, and gave the usual laundry list of reasons why, and criticized Obama for creating uncertainty in the markets and so on. [...]
Filed Under: PBS, Taxes Tagged With: Alan Greenspan, Glenn Hubbard, Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff, NewsHour
May
13
2009
Social Security Scaremongering, Washington Post Style
Yesterday the Social Security and Medicare trustees' reports were released. This annual ritual oftengives reporters a chance to exaggerate the long-term problems of the Social Security system. This year, the news wasmoreor lesswhat folks were expecting: By the trustees' forecasting, Social Security's trust fund will be depleted in 2037, while Medicare's hospital fund will run out of money in 2017. Somehow, the Washington Post decided that Social Security was the real concern–its page-one story is headlined "Alarm Sounded on Social Security." The lead rings the same bells: The financial health of the Social Security system has eroded more sharply in [...]
Filed Under: Media Criticism Tagged With: Alan Greenspan, Dean Baker, Social Security, Washington Post
