Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey loves to bemoan the federal deficit but won't place any blame on President Trump and Republicans for its current state, even though he was quick to blame Barack Obama for the deficit while he was president. Jeffrey does it again in a Nov. 14 article stating that "The federal government collected record total tax revenues of $252,692,000,000 in October" but "the government still ran a deficit of $100,491,000,000 for the month—because it spent $353,183,000,000." As before, the words "Trump" and "Republican" are absent, even though a Republican-controlled Congress passed, and President Trump signed, a tax cut bill earlier this year that blew up the deficit.
By contrast, Jeffrey implicitly blamed Obama for deficits that happened under his watch. A November 2016 article that, like the above article, focused on federal revenue in October did not mention Obama's name but did include a picture of Obama giving the 2016 State of the Union address. There was no similar picture of Trump in Jeffrey's Nov. 14 article.
Indeed, most Jeffrey articles referencing the federal deficit and debt in mid- to late 2016 pointedly invoked Obama, usually in the headline:
- Obama Has Collected $19,966,110,000,000 in Taxes; Incurred $8,795,689,333,049 in Debt
- Obama’s Tax Collections Surpass $20,000,000,000,000; Still Runs Up Debt by $8,878,290,996,028
- 44 Percent Hike in Taxes Covers Obama-Era Debt
- Debt Under Obama Up $9,000,000,000,000
Another Jeffrey article, from Ocober 2016, didn't blame Obama in the headline, but he did lament that Obama "signed the “Bipartisan Budget Act,” a spending deal he had cut with the Republican leaders in Congress," adding that "The day Obama signed the budget deal, the total federal debt jumped from $18,152,981,685,747.52 to $18,492,091,120,833.99—a one-day climb of $339,109,435,086.47."
Jeffrey wrote an equivalent of that article on Oct. 1, highlighting htat "The federal debt increased by $1,271,158,167,126.72 in fiscal 2018" and "The total federal debt started the fiscal year at $20,244,900,016,053.51 according to the Treasury, and finished the fiscal year at $21,516,058,183,180.23." Jeffrey added:
The $1,271,158,167,126.72 in debt accumulated in fiscal 2018 made fiscal 2018 the eighth fiscal year in the last eleven in which the debt increased by at least one trillion dollars.
The $1,271,158,167,126.72 increase in the federal debt was also the sixth largest fiscal-year debt increase in the history of the United States.
Again, Jeffrey refused to tell his readers that a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress presided over that large increase in debt.
