Financial Non-Accountability At CNS: The Inevitable Biden Flip-Flop

Now that a Democrat is president, CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey is all about being a deficit hawk again and blaming Biden for the increasing national debt.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 2/21/2022

Terry Jeffrey

But before he could fully activate that double standard as President Biden took office in early 2021, CNS editor Terry Jeffrey had a little housekeeping to do under the old blame-avoiding method, declaring in a Feb. 11 article:

The federal government spent a record $1,923,752,000,000 in the first four months of fiscal 2021 (October through January), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

At the same time, the government collected $1,188,021,000,000 in total tax revenues—resulting in a record October-through-January deficit of $735,732,000.

Since Trump was president for nearly all of this time, and Democrats did not assume and presidency or take control of the Senate until Jan. 20, Jeffrey is careful not to point out this debt was racked up under a Republican president and Senate -- as usual, the words "Trump" and "Republican" appear nowhere. The accompanying file photo is of Democrat Nancy Pelosi and Republican Mitch McConnell -- as if both parties shared equal blame -- while Trump was nowhere to be founded despite the fact that, again, he was president for all of 11 days of the time period Jeffrey was writing about.

For his next monthly summary on March 10, Jeffrey was starting to shift toward laying blame on Democrats. In complaining that "Federal taxes, federal spending and the federal deficit all set records in the first five months of fiscal 2021 (October through February)," Jeffrey didn't call out Democrats, but he didn't also tell his readers that the presidency and Senate were under Republican control until Jan. 20, or more than 3 1/2 months of that five-month period.

Nevertheless, the file photo Jeffrey used this time features only Democrats: Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Bashing COVID relief spending

At the same time Jeffrey was activating his coverage flip-flop, he and CNS also showed a double standard by being much more vocal in complaining about allegedly wasteful spending in a COVID relief bill debated and approved in early 2021 -- and in calling out Democrats while doing so.

Jeffrey declared in his Jan. 27 column that "The $1.9 trillion relief bill that President Joe Biden wants Congress to pass now as his response to the COVID-19 pandemic would cost Americans more than the entire federal government cost in fiscal 1981." Jeffrey did not make that comparison about the main relief bill passed in 2020 and signed by Trump, the CARES Act, even though it cost $2.2 trillion. Meanwhile, only now that Trump is safely out of office is Jeffrey criticizing him by name for running up the deficit:

Last March, President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion spending law to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In December, Trump signed another spending law that included $900 billion targeted toward COVID-19 relief.

Now Biden wants to spend another $1.9 trillion.

[...]

When Biden took office as President Barack Obama's vice president on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion. Eight years later, when Donald Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2017, it stood at $19.9 trillion. By Jan. 20, 2021, when Biden was sworn in as president, it had risen to $27.7 trillion.

In just the last two presidencies, the federal debt has risen by $17.1 trillion — or about 161%.

The COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a lethal virus this nation has sacrificed much to control. Our runaway federal government is caused by politicians we do not control enough.

As the relief bill was debated, CNS went on to blame Democrats for the supposedly wasteful spending in the bill, mostly by uncritically repeating Republican and conservative attacks on it:

• With Assist From Romney, Dems Push More Free Money -- $3,000/$3,600-Per-Child Benefit
• Cotton, Scalise: Dems Using Pandemic to Fund Pet Projects
• Rep. Jordan: ‘Is It Really a #COVID19 Relief Bill if Less Than 9% of the Bill Goes to Defeating COVID-19?’
• Scalise: Dems’ ‘COVID Relief’ Bill Gives California $40 Billion Bailout Despite State’s $10 Billion Surplus
• Barrasso: COVID Relief Bill ‘Gets an F Grade’
• McConnell: Democrats Feeling Pressure to Make Stimulus 'A Little Less Bad' (in which writer Susan Jones editorialized by declaring the bill to be "bloated")
• Sen. Blackburn: "They Slapped a 'COVID Relief' Label on the Largest Transfer of Wealth Ever Proposed"
• Sen. Graham: Stimulus Bill Is 'Out of Control Liberalism'; 'Reparations' for Black Farmers
• U.S. Catholic Bishops Oppose $1.9T 'Relief Bill' Because It Uses Tax Dollars to Pay for Abortion
• Democrats' Stimulus Bill Will Accustom Many Americans to Monthly Government Checks
• Dems Plan to Make Monthly Payments for Children Permanent (Jones editorialized again about the bill, "only a fraction of which is related to COVID relief")
• McConnell: 'We're Doing Damage to the Future of This Country'
• S.D. Gov. Noem: ‘I’ve Told the Federal Gov’t for Months Now: Don’t Give Us Any More Money’
• Biden’s COVID Law Spends $4 Million in 2023 for ‘Preservation and Maintenance of Native American Languages’

CNS' op-eds also raged against the bill:

• Unpopular and Unproductive: The $300 Unemployment Boost
• Biden COVID Plan Too Costly, Liberal and Conservative Economists Agree
• Is the $1,400-per-Person COVID Relief Worth a More Than $5,000-per-Person Debt Hike?

Jeffrey returned in a March 10 column in which he declared that it is axiomatic that the relief bill "will use tax dollars to pay for abortions" because it contains no Hyde Amendment-style clause prohibiting it. He identified no federal program or funding mechanism receiving relief bill money through which that might actually happen.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey had his usual culture-war attacks on it, as summarized in the headlines of the articles he wrote on it:

• $1.9 Trillion 'COVID-19' Bill Would Pay for Abortions and NEA-Defined 'Art'
• Biden’s $1.9T ‘COVID’ Bill Funds Abortion, NEA, NEH, EPA, Public Housing and Food Stamps

In the former, Jeffrey groused that the National Endowment for the Arts gave $25,000 to a theater group to put on a production calling itself "a groundbreaking trans and queer examination of American masculinity's deep roots in Trouble." Because he clearly has not seen the production and cannot attack it beyond its non-heteronormative subject matter, Jeffrey ranted about whether the NEA should get any money at all: "Did federally funded artists produce any great masterpieces in this period? Did American taxpayers get their money's worth? Should we now use a bill allegedly designed to fight COVID-19 to pay the NEA an additional $135 million?" He went on to suggest the production was "bad 'art'" even though, again, he has never seen it.

In the latter, Jeffrey bashed the NEA again, as well as complaining that "The bill also funds rental assistance and housing vouchers." He didn't explain why helping people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic pay their rent is such a terrible thing.

Yet for all that rage, CNS couldn't be bothered to produce an article on Biden signing the bill into law.

Back to hypocritical business

Meanwhile, Jeffrey returned to his old trick of airbrushing Republicans out of his complaints about spending. He wrote in a March 31 article:

The federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion in the first six months of fiscal 2021, according to the official figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

On Sept. 30, 2020, the last day of fiscal 2020, the federal debt closed at $26,945,391,194,615.15. At the close of business on March 29, it was $27,990,843,257,187.65.

Thus, the federal debt has risen $1,045,452,062,572.50 so far in fiscal 2021.

Jeffrey failed to mention the fact that for the first 3 1/2 months of fiscal 2021, there was a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate, thus making Republicans responsible for a good part of that debt. But the article is illustrated with a file photo of Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

Jeffrey followed up with an April 26 article:

Federal taxes, spending and the federal deficit all set records in the first six months of fiscal 2021 (October through March), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Federal taxes climbed to a record $1,703,949,000,000 in the October-through-March period, while federal spending climbed to $3,410,194,000,000.

Again, Jeffrey failed to tell readers that there was a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate for the first 3 1/2 months of the fiscal year. Again, he illustrated his article with only Democrats -- this time Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

On May 12, Jeffrey lazily recycled that article but with updated numbers, ominously adding: "This is the first time that federal spending has exceeded $4 trillion in the first seven months of a fiscal year." Once more, he censored the fact that there was a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate for the first 3 1/2 months of the fiscal year, and he again illustrated his article with only Democrats -- this time Biden, Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Jeffrey's bias was mirrored by his anti-Biden reporter Jones, who complained in an April 28 article about spending under Biden headlined "In His First Hundred Days, Biden Calls for $6.2 Trillion in Taxpayer Spending." She also baselessly implied a quid pro quo to the Obama by claiming that a program to improve nutrition standards in school meals was "a billion-dollar nod to former First Lady Michelle Obama." Jones did not explain why nutritional meals for children are a bad thing.

On May 28, Jeffrey used all the zeroes he could find (in violation of AP Stylebook rules on writing out numbers) to attack Biden's budget proposal:

The budget proposal that President Joe Biden released today calls for the federal government to run a cumulative deficit of $14.53 trillion ($14,531,000,000,000) over the next ten years.

Under Biden’s proposal, the lowest the deficit would ever go in the next decade is in 2027, when it would hit $1,303,000,000,000.

The proposal says that it aims to reduce deficits starting a decade from now—rather than in the next ten years.

Biden, who is 78 years old, could serve as long as eight years as president--if he is elected to a second term.

Jeffrey recycled his attack on Biden's budget in his June 2 column, right down to irrelevantly emphasizing Biden's age:

Americans, President Joe Biden's budget proposal suggests, should not worry that he plans to significantly increase federal deficits over the next eight years.

Why? Because he intends to begin reducing them — but not eliminating them — nine years from now.

Of course, even if the now 78-year-old Biden were to run for reelection in 2024 and win the presidency again, he would be out of office in nine years.

Neither Jeffrey piece mentioned Trump, who ran up trillions of dollars in deficits during his presidency.

On June 10, Jeffrey served up his monthly lament about federal spending:

The federal government set new records in the taxes it collected, the spending it engaged in and the deficit it ran through the first eight months of fiscal 2021 (October through May), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Federal taxes hit a record $2,606,879,000,000 while federal spending climbed to $4,670,668,000,000, resulting in a federal deficit of $2,063,789,000,000.

Remember that those monthly laments during the Trump administration sought to lay equal blame on Democrats and Republicans alike by including Democrats in the stock photo accompanying the article, even though Republicans controlled the presidency and Senate and Democrats controlled only the House. This time, the photo is of Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Jeffrey complained in a July 13 article:

The federal government set new records for taxing and spending through the first nine months of fiscal 2021 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Federal taxes hit a record $3,056,078,000,000 while federal spending climbed to a record $5,294,027,000,000.

The resulting deficit of $2,237,949,000,000 was the second highest ever for the first nine months of the year, falling below the $2,892,260,760,000 deficit (in constant June 2021 dollars) that the federal government ran in the first nine months of fiscal 2020.

Jeffrey used his July 15 column to complain about how much money the federal government has been spending per capita over the past century, serving up snapshots of each decade. For the 2000 budget, Jeffrey was loath to credit Bill Clinton, who was president at the time, for a reduction in per capita spending, so he made sure to also that "Republicans controlled both houses of Congress." For his summary of spending in 2020, Jeffrey acknowledged Trump but refused to explicitly

blame him, instead making the pandemic the villain -- and then, of course, explicitly blame Biden and Pelosi for additional deficit spending:

In 2020, when Donald Trump was president and the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the federal government, according to the OMB, spent $6,550,396,000,000 (or $6,837,699,370,000 in June 2021 dollars). That equaled $19,762.89 in unadjusted dollars and $20,629.70 in constant June 2021 dollars for each of the 331,449,281 in the United States, according to the Census Bureau.

It can be argued that the particularly large increase in per capita federal spending from 2010 to 2020 is a one-time anomaly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, in fiscal 2019, federal spending was $4,446,956,000,000 (or $4,705,658,450,000 in constant June 2021 dollars), which worked out to $14,336.05 for each of the 328,239,523 people the Census Bureau estimated were in the United States that year.

But the $14,336.05 in real per capita federal spending in fiscal 2019 is still more than 18 times larger than the $779.58 per capita spending of 1920.

The latest Congressional Budget Office analysis of the economic outlook estimated that, "if current laws governing taxes and spending remained unchanged," federal spending would hit $7,415,000,000,000 in fiscal 2030.

Given that the Census Bureau estimates the national population will be 355,101,000 in that year, per capita federal spending would then hit $20,881.38 — without COVID-19 or any new spending programs from President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Jeffrey's Aug. 11 article on the latest federal spending numbers followed July's pattern:

The federal government set a new record for the amount of taxes it collected through the first ten months of fiscal 2021 (October through July), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Total federal tax receipts were $3,318,078,000,000 for the period.

[...]

Federal spending in the first ten months of this fiscal year was the second highest it has ever been (in constant July 2021 dollars).

However, this year’s October-through-July spending of $5,858,078,000,000 was not only the second highest in the nation’s history, it was $1,892,368,690,000 higher—or 47.7 percent higher—than the then-record $3,965,709,310,000 (in constant July 2021 dollars) that the federal government spent in the first ten months of fiscal 2019, which was the last full fiscal year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Again, as usual, no mention of Trump or Republicans, and Jeffrey as found a different file photo of Biden and Pelosi to illustrate it.

Jeffrey's pattern did not change in the final months of 2021. Jeffrey declared in a Sept. 13 article:

The federal government collected a record $3,586,456,000,000 in total taxes through first eleven months of fiscal 2021 (September through August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

The federal government also collected a record $1,829,589,000,000 in individual income taxes in the September-through-August period.

Jeffrey made no mention of how the spending continued a pattern of higher pandemic-related deficit spending established by the Trump administration in 2020. He did, however, include a stock photo of Nancy Pelosi and the back of (maybe) President Biden's head, and he also bizarrely suggested that the country wasn't spending enough money on defense and too much money on helping American citizens:

On the spending side, the federal government spent the most money through the Department of Health and Human Services, which has $1,340,131,000,000 in expenditures in September through August.

The Social Security Administration placed second, spending $1,092,771,000,000.

The Department of Defense—Military Programs spent $653,852,000,000 or less than half of the $1,340,131,000,000 spent by HHS.

Jeffrey repeated much of that, with updated numbers, in an Oct. 25 fiscal-year-end article:

The federal government collected a record $4,045,979,000,000 in taxes in fiscal 2021, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for September, which is the final month of the federal fiscal year.

Federal spending also hit a nominal high of $6,818,158,000,000 in fiscal 2021, up from the $6,551,872,000,000 that the federal government spent in fiscal 2020. However, when the $6,551,872,000,000 the federal government spent last year is adjusted for inflation from September 2020 dollars into September 2021 dollars it equals $6,905,040,760,000—thus, exceeding this fiscal year’s total of $6,818,158,000,000.

[...]

The Department of Health and Human Services spent $1,466,673,000,000 in fiscal 2021. The Social Security Administration spent $1,192,453,000,000. The Department of Defense spent $717,585,000,000.

Jeffrey didn't mention that Trump was president for the first 3 1/2 months of fiscal 2021. Nevertheless, he included a stock photo of Biden, Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The complaint was regurgitated in Jeffrey's Nov. 10 article:

The federal government, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, collected a record $283,927,000,000 in total taxes in October, which was the first month of fiscal 2022.

Federal spending hit $448,983,000,000 in October, which was the second highest ever for the first month of a fiscal year. The federal government set its record spending in the first month of the fiscal year last October, when the it spent $554,232,780,000 (in constant October 2021 dollars).

[...]

The biggest expenditure by the Treasury in October was for the Department of Health and Human Services, which accounted for $120,507,000,000 in spending.

The second biggest expenditure was for the Social Security Administration, which accounted for $101,055,000,000 in spending.

The third biggest expenditure was for the Department of Defense-Military Programs, which accounted for $65,482,000,000 in spending.

This time, the stock photo was of Biden, Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

It was lather, rinse, repeat for Jeffrey's Dec. 10 article:

The federal government collected a record $565,135,000,000 in total taxes through the first two months of fiscal 2022 (October and November), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

The federal government also collected a record $282,094,000,000 in individual income taxes in the first two months of this fiscal year.

While collecting its record $565,135,000,000 in total taxes in the first two months of this fiscal year, the federal government spent $921,526,000,000—resulting in a deficit of $356,390,000,000 in the first two months of the fiscal year.

[...]

The Department of Health and Human Services spent more money--$254,706,000,000—in the first two months of fiscal 2022 than any other federal department or agency. It was followed by the Social Security Administration, which spent $201,487,000,000. The Defense Department-Military Programs placed third with $126,299,000,000 in spending in the October-through-November period.

This month's stock photo featured Biden and Pelosi.

If you divide the $28,908,004,857,445 in debt that the federal government owed before the debt limit was lifted by the 100,424,240 American households that paid net income taxes in 2018, it works out to approximately $287,859 per income-tax-paying household.

[...]

President Joe Biden's fiscal 2022 budget proposal called for running a cumulative deficit of $14.531 trillion over just the next 10 fiscal years. Balancing the budget — let alone slowing the increase in the debt — plays no part in his fiscal plan.

Adding another $14.531 trillion to the federal debt would increase the burden on the 100,424,240 income-tax-paying households of 2018 by approximately $144,696.

Jeffrey further complained that one can buy a decent house in many parts of the country with their share of the debt, adding: "Which would you rather have over your head? A roof that you will someday own? Or a federal government that is steadily increasing its control over your finances and your life?" We don't recall Jeffrey writing any similar complaints about how much one could buy with their share of the debt when Trump was president.

Jeffrey served up his usual monthly statement in a Jan. 12 article: "At the same time that it was collecting a record $1,051,873,000,000 in total taxes in the October-through-December period, the federal government was spending $1,429,567,000,000. Thus, it ran a deficit of $377,694,000,000." The stock photo accompanying the article, as usual, featured all Democrats.

Jeffrey complained again in a Jan. 20 article:

The federal debt climbed $20,353.58 for every income-tax-paying household in the United States during Biden’s first year in office, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Department.

When Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021, the federal debt stood at $27,751,896,236,414.77, according to the Treasury’s “Debt to the Penny” webpage.

As of Jan. 18, 2022, the latest day for which the federal debt has been reported, it stood at $29,868,786,972,155.16—an increase of $2,116,890,735,740.39 from Jan. 20, 2021.

By contrast, Jeffrey wrote no similar article on how Trump added $8 trillion to the federal debt during his presidency.

As usual, there's a tag at the end of most of these articles stating, "The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold." Is Jeffrey really serving Wold's memory with his journalistic deception and dishonesty?