Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com managing editor Terry Jeffrey is continuing his dishonest pattern of bemoaning the size of the federal debt while refusing to lay blame at the feet of President Trump and Republicans for its growth.
Jeffrey complained in a Dec. 24 article:
The federal government has added another $1,370,760,684,441.54 to the debt since last December 25, according to numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.
On Dec. 25, 2017, the federal debt was 20,492,874,492,282.58, according to the Treasury.
According to the latest numbers published by the Treasury, which show where the debt stood on Dec. 20, 2018, the federal debt was $21,863,635,176,724.12.
Neddless to say, the word "Trump" does not appear in Jeffrey's article, even though the key reason why the government has added so much debt in the past year is a tax cut endorsed by congressional Republicans and signed by Trump. Instead, Jeffrey suggested that blame for the increase is bipartisan by including a group of both Republican and Democratic congresspeople with his article.
By contrast, a January 2017 article by Jeffrey on the increasing federal debt made sure to assign blame by detailing how much had had gone up "during President Barack Obama’s time in office." This time around, Jeffrey featured a picture of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (though, weirdly, no caption identifying them). Going back even further, a December 2011 article by Jeffrey on the federal debt featured a picture of Obama.
Jeffrey has also not been above blaming individual (Democratic) congresmen for the debt under their watch. He used a March 2015 article to claim that "The debt of the federal government has grown $16,955,289,814,977.42 during the 32 years that current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has served in the United States Congress. That equals an increase of about $145,131 for every household in the country." Jeffrey did actually invoke a little fairness on this count, though; a December 2017 article stated that "Since Mitch McConnell became the Senate majority leader in January 2015, the Congress has overseen $10,904,736,000,000 in federal spending" while "the total federal debt ... has climbed by $2,466,352,412,626,57."
