The News & Observer ran a Tribune Newspapers wire story on their front page today that was ostensibly a fact-check Q&A meant to dispel rumors and myths about ObamaCare and the federal budget. Problem is, most of what the story ran as fact has been thoroughly debunked for weeks.
The crux is Democrats’ reliance of a Congressional Budget Office report that said ObamaCare would decrease the deficit. But even the CBO has confirmed that it was given a strict set of items by Democrats on which to measure the fiscal effect. Without those guidelines, the health care bill adds billions to the deficit.
The Tribune story quoted FactCheck.org, calling it “nonpartisan.” But the major fact-checking websites run by journalists have been shown to be anything but nonpartisan and unbiased. How could Tribune and N&O editors, weeks after the CBO report was shown to be smoke and mirrors, not know about it? Are desk editors really that insulated in the liberal echo chamber? If they want to know the truth about the effect ObamaCare will have on jobs and the deficit, they need to watch this:
UPDATE: Two former CBO officials and an OMB official say budgetary gimmicks hide the fact that ObamaCare will balloon the deficit. Will any of the journalistic “fact-check” organizations, or newspapers that presume to fact check Republicans, take note of this? Will Tribune and the N&O retract that absurd front-page story from today? I doubt it.
Here’s the bottom line, according to the CBO and OMB officials writing in The Wall Street Journal:
How, then, does the ACA magically convert $1 trillion in new spending into painless deficit reduction? It’s all about budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.
