Is The Mainstream Media Truly Biased Toward Democrats? Headlines You'll Never Se

Here is my list of headlines you will never see in the Mainstream Media. At best, you may find the information buried deep within a news article. Only two are fanciful. I’ll let you guess which ones.

“Democratic Senate Defies Constitution:  Fails to Pass Budget Third Year in a Row”

“’Fact Checkers’ Disclosed to be Democrat Front Groups”

“Justice Investigation Finds No Minority Voter Suppression in 2012 Election”

“Another Obama Advisor Admits Middle–Class  Taxes Must Go Up to Pay for Entitlements”

go to forbes.com

Yes, There Is No Mainstream or Consensus on Stimulus Spending

In its Sunday edition, the New York Times informed its readers that “a wide range of economists say the administration should call for a new round of stimulus spending, as prescribed by mainstream economic theory, to create jobs and promote growth.”

In my post of August 11 Paul Gregory Forbes I rejected the notion of a  consensus and pointed out that  the seven Nobel Prizes  went to economists who cast doubt on the Keynesian model and zero to  economists for advancing the Keynesian agenda. The Nobel prize committee itself has cast serious doubt on the characterization of Keynesian economics as “mainstream.”

In his “No Near-Consensus Among Economists for Another Stimulus Package” John Taylorwrites “there are plenty of economists who think that gradually reducing spending and not increasing taxes is better for job creation.  In June, for example, 150 economists (including me) wrote that a debt deal ‘that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms would harm private-sector job growth.’”

Disagreement among economists on Keynesian stabilization policy is not new. Two researchers  analyzed a randomized survey of one thousand members of the American Economic Association from 2003. AEA members were asked their views on a wide range of issues, including a set of questions on the economic role of government. The results of this study were published in 2006.

The key question for our purpose is the degree of support for “tuning the economy by fiscal policy.”  Some fifty percent supported strongly or mildly and thirty percent opposed as of 2003. The rest had mixed feelings. Of the eight questions on the role of government, the Keynesian fiscal policy question had the greatest variance – that is the greatest amount of disagreement. Note that this question is not ideal. It was asked at a time of rapid economic growth and low unemployment and did not address the question of a stimulus as huge as we have recently seen.

Note that AEA members were last surveyed in 2003. If there is a consensus about the last three years, I would imagine it would be that the massive Obama stimulus failed. For this reason, the same survey today should yield even larger percentages of Keynesian skeptics

The professional competence of the average economist to answer questions on macroeconomic stabilization has diminished over the past two decades. The high growth and low unemployment starting in the early 1980s diverted attention of economists from the business cycle. Accordingly, relatively few economists know the modern stabilization literature. We do not have a survey of economists who specialize in the business cycle. The results of such a survey would be informative.

A final note: As of 2003, democratic-voting economists outnumbered republican-voting economists by almost three-to-one. The vast majority of those answering the fiscal tuning  question voted democratic..

Personally, I do not see the mainstream consensus that the New York Times does. Perhaps I am too dense.

The authors of the survey report an interesting fact about the answers of the surveyed economists:  “Economists have something of a reputation for favoring free-market principles, yet we see that economists on average are supportive of most economic interventions, mixed on a few interventions, and opposed only on immigration (weakly opposed to tighter restrictions), government ownership of industry, and tariffs. It seems that most economists in fact stand in the  middle of the road or even on the interventionist side. Why, then, do they have a reputation for being free-market supporters?”

Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern, Economists’ Policy Views and Voting,” Public Choice (2006) 126: 331–342, 2006

At Last, Peggy Noonan Says Something Interesting: “We Don’t Accept That Card Anymore.”

I rarely make it through a Peggy Noonan article. Her WSJ column soars into the stratosphere, high above the political fray. She muses in rhetorical flourishes about the human condition. She offers little advice or analysis that I consider of practical use.

Enter the mainstream media and their newfound consensus: The Republican Ryan plan to change Medicare from a card guaranteeing senior citizens medical care to a voucher to buy private insurance will hand the 2012 election to the Democrats.

I suggest that the Republicans offer a prize for the shortest and clearest explanation of why senior citizens are better off with the Ryan voucher. This task is not easy. It requires that voters understand that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” (I offered a parable in my posting of yesterday).

Noonan, so far, is my nominee for the prize. She notes the great political appeal of Medicare as it is currently constituted:

“Here's the great thing about Medicare: You turn 65 and it's there. They give you a card and the nurse takes it. Supporters of Mr. Ryan's Medicare plan must talk very specifically about how this would all work, and why it would make your life better, not worse.”

And here is the nugget buried in her column:

“They also have to make two things clearer. One is that if nothing is done to change Medicare, the system will collapse. You'll give the card to the nurse and she'll laugh: ‘We don't take that anymore.’ This already happens in doctors offices. Without reform it will happen more often.”

“Sorry, we do not take that card anymore” should be the Republican rallying cry.

I can imagine the 20-second commercial: A timid elderly couple walks into the doctor’s office to be told by a frosty receptionist: “Oh, you want to see the doctor. We haven’t taken that card for years. I’d tell you to go at the cash clinic at Walmart but they have been on strike every since they unionized.”

In confusion and tears, the elderly couple stumbles out of the office.