The AP & MSM Do Not Understand Basic Budgets
I deal with capital project budgets all day long, every day. So I find this particularly fascinating ... Ever since BO became POTUS, economics and budgets have moved to center stage in press stories.
And it has shown a glaring weakness in our incredibly uneducated mainstream media: they do not understand economics and budgets.
Take a look at this. This is a video from today's WH press conference that the AP, Tapper and Drudge are flogging today. Also be sure to take note of the AP reporter's snark: she asks a question about $100M in across the board dept cost savings as miniscule compared to the $1.3T deficit. Of course, Gibbs was laughing at her ridiculous question, not the deficit. But, hey, that was AWESOME gotcha "journalism" at its best!
They are very, very proud of it. Tapper is holding up on his blog as another example of how he is looking out for the people with his own brand of micro-level statement-parsing GOTCHA journalism.
The problem here is that budgets and basic economics are outside of the realm of understanding of Jake and the AP reporter. Teleprompters, handshakes, POTUS dog and bowing? No problem. The MSM has that covered.
So what is the big problem here? What Obama has done has across each dept for across the board cuts in COSTS. He's asking for short-term 90 day $100M in savings to be identified. These are operational and expense savings, not long-term capital INVESTMENTS that have return on those investments.
When you write a budget, you do not enforce limits in expense by cutting capital investments!! This is budgeting 101. You would think the press would have to have this sort of basic comprehension before even being allowed into the press room and to be allowed to ask a question of the WH.
Now, have a look here. This kind of drive-by shooting journalism earns you a headline link from Matt Drudge. Congrats, AP! But while you demean yourself by snarking at $100M in cost savings you have forgotten, once again, basics of budgets: there is no valid or comprehensible comparison of operational costs vs. a 5 or 10 year budget PLAN. Fox News picked up on this story and all flogged that $100M is 1/35,000 of the overall budget plan. Way to go, Einsteins!
This is embarrasing. But when you get noticed by Fox News & Drudge, then you will become the company you keep.
Pardon me, but is the $100M a one time thing, or an annual savings of $100M (all else being equal)?
"The president gave his Cabinet 90 days to find $100 million in savings to achieve over time."
It looks like a cheap stunt to me, and not sold at all well.
April 21, 2009 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama said in several statements that it is the first of many more cost-savings iniatives that he will announce
April 22, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but it still looks like a stunt and one which is not explained well.
$100M over what period of time? They have 90 days to propose cuts, but it looks like the savings will be spread over many years. If so, that makes the savings miniscule, not even a drop in the bucket of the budget.
It's not that I'm against reasonable savings. But if government spending is stimulative, is this the right time to start cutting back on government spending when you just authorized $787B in new spending??
April 22, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink