Nothing like a little class-warfare to divide a nation. The Democrats have mastered this technique  to help get them into power and stay there. The Democrats will take it to a new level in 2012, and some voters will fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

In the end the truth is far simpler.  The greedy ones are our elected officials who seem incapable or unwilling to curve the their own insatiable hunger. We do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.

 

An Uncomfortable Fact About Taxes: The Rich Do Pay Their Fair Share

By Kevin Glass

 

There’s been a lot of consternation about the U.S. status as a “low-tax nation” in anticipation of serious debates about the debt and deficit. As far as taxes as a percentage of GDP go, the U.S. is relatively low-tax compared to developed European nations. However, the discrepancy doesn’t come from a lack of taxes on the rich – it’s that the U.S. taxes everyone else at pretty spectacularly low rates.

The primary driver of this is that the U.S. doesn’t have a VAT or some other form of consumption tax that generally raises a higher percentage of income from people who don’t have the luxury of being able to save and invest.

Clive Crook writes,

A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that in the middle of the last decade — i.e., after the Bush tax cuts were introduced — the U.S. income tax was about as strongly redistributive as income taxes in Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden. You might have noticed that the CBO report on top incomes was widely quoted, but one finding got less attention: Between 1979 and 2007, “the federal individual income tax became slightly more progressive.”

The awkward truth is that the U.S. income tax system is anomalous not because it taxes the rich lightly but because it taxes everybody else lightly… it’s wrong to say that the U.S. tax system has been rigged in favor of the rich.

This is a truth that Democrats who think that many problems could be solved simply by raising taxes on the rich need to grapple with. The way that other countries finance their large welfare states is not by gouging upper-income-earners, it’s by heavily taxing the middle class.

This is a point I’ve made before. Despite calls for higher taxes on the rich, the U.S. tax code is already remarkably progressive. To take the U.S. from its current tax state to a European place, they’ll need to raise a substantial amount of taxes from people no politician wants to touch.

The fact about taxes in the United States is that the rich do pay their “fair share,” unless “fair” is defined as a tax burden that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.

What is 53 millions dollars amongst friends? How many people could be put back to work if this money was still in the economy, and not rusting away in storage?

To quote Ben Franklin – ‘We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.’ That being said, some of the hardest workers call Washington, D.C. home.

 

DHS Spent $9.8M to Store $44M of Steel It Bought But Did Not Use to Build Mexico Border Fence

By Edwin Mora

(CNSNews.com) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has spent about $9.8 million to store $44 million in steel that it bought but did not use to build fence along the U.S,-Mexico border, according to a report from the DHS Inspector General.

CPB has in storage about 27,000 tons of “extra steel” that could be used to extend the estimated 650 miles of fencing mandated by Congress along the approximately 2,000-mile long southwest border, according to the IG.

An IG report released in November notes that in January 2008, the CBP — a DHS component — awarded an unnamed “prime contractor” a “Supply and Supply Chain Management (SSCM) task order” for storing and purchasing steel to support the construction of fence along hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border by Dec. 31, 2008 as part of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) that was mandated by Congress.

Although the report does not name the prime contractor who was awarded the SSCM task order, the CBP reported that it “teamed up with The Boeing Company” of Chicago, Ill. to “support and facilitate the successful execution” of all fence building operations under the SSCM project mentioned in the IG report.

The steel purchased under the task order was used to build about 299 miles of the estimated 651 miles of fence that have been erected so far along the U.S.-Mexico border as requested by Congress. Most of the fence is single-layered, including 352 miles of fence aimed at preventing people from crossing the border illegally, known as a primary pedestrian fence, and 299 miles of fence aimed at preventing vehicle crossings known as a vehicle fence.

After using about 117,000 tons of steel to build the 299 miles of fence from a total of 145,000 tons purchased under the task order, “27,557 tons of extra steel, with a value of about $44 million, remained in storage,” said the DHS IG report.

“CBP did not efficiently plan the purchase and storage of steel for the SSCM task order,” reported the DHS IG, later adding, “as a result, 27,557 tons of extra steel, with a value of about $44 million, remained in storage at the end of the task order. Further, CBP incurred $9.8 million in additional storage costs because it did not move the remaining steel to a government facility for more than 2 years after the original storage contract expired.”

According to the IG, “the original storage contract for the SSCM task order covered the period from April to December 2008” and “instead of moving the extra steel to a cost-efficient location, CBP extended the original contract and awarded a supplemental storage contract.”

CBP ended up spending $9,753,010 in storage fees between January 2009 and March 2011 after making revisions to the original contract.

The agency admitted to the DHS IG that the “extra steel” can be used to extend the fence along the southwest border.

“CBP also indicated that if required to build additional fence, it would use the extra steel for future construction projects,” stated the IG. While the steel to build more border fence is being stored, Congress has only required CBP to fence about 650 miles of the approximately 2,000-mile long U.S.-Mexico border “where fencing would be most practical and effective,” noted the IG.

The agency also told the DHS IG that the extra steel will be used “to maintain and repair the existing fence and that it has already used some of it for this purpose. In January 2011, CBP transported approximately 500 tons of steel to two areas along the southwest border to replace damaged fencing.”  That brings down the total 27,557 tons of “extra steel” that remained in storage after the 299 miles of fence were built under the task order to about 27,000 tons.

During the course of the task order that resulted in 299 miles of fence built along the southwest border, the contractor “stored and distributed steel from three locations: El Paso, Texas; Houston, Texas; and Lynwood, California,” added the IG report. “CBP consolidated the remaining steel at the end of the project to the El Paso, Texas facility.”

According to the IG, overall, CBP spent $69 million more than it needed to manage the storage and purchase of steel in support of fence construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The agency “purchased steel based on an estimate before legally acquiring land or meeting international treaty obligations,” reads the IG report. “In addition, it did not provide effective contract oversight during the project: it paid invoices late, did not reconcile invoices to receiving documents, and did not perform a thorough review of the contractor’s selection of a higher-priced subcontractor or document the reasons for its approval of the subcontractor.”

“As a result, Customs and Border Protection purchased more steel than needed, incurred additional storage costs, paid interest on late payments, and approved a higher-priced subcontractor, resulting in additional expenditures of about $69 million that could have been put to better use,” said the IG report.

In responding to the DHS IG’s findings, CBP disputed the $69 million in overrun costs spent on storing and purchasing steel for the border fence saying the number is more like $282,000.

“While we agree that the program incurred unanticipated costs, we markedly disagree with the amount of these costs and the reasons why they were incurred,” said CBP in a response to the DHS IG audit that was included in the report. “In short, of the $69 million questioned in the report, we agree that approximately $282,000 in unanticipated costs were attributable to errors in using CBP’s accounting system to properly process invoices and track steel as an asset. CBP immediately responded to these early challenges, correcting them within 60 calendar days, resulting in no late payments thereafter. The balance of the costs discussed in the draft report were not program overruns or funds spent unwisely as we briefly discussed here.”

CBP “wholly” disagreed with the IG conclusion that “$44 million in excess steel was purchased as a result of poor management practices,” according to the agency’s response included in the report.

“Since 2008, Customs and Border Protection has spent approximately $1.2 billion to construct physical barriers along the southwest border as part of the Department’s Secure Border Initiative,” noted the DHS IG. “About $310 million of the cost was to purchase and store steel in support of fence construction.”

 

 

David Holden is one of those new New Hampshire traditions that helps to put the heart into the NH First in the Nation Primary. What started out to a fun jest directed at one of the candidates running for President in 2008, has turned into a worth while cause in support of autism awareness.

Buddy is a true gentleman and man with a big heart…and nice hair.

Buddy Roemer to pay $400 for haircut in New Hampshire

By Alex Pappas–The Daily Caller

Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Buddy Roemer will pay $400 to get his hair cut for charity in New Hampshire on Wednesday.

“Our goal is to be bring attention to the candidate and also to autism,” said David Holden, the owner of the Hair Biz Salon, who has invited all the Republican presidential candidates to drop by for a cut.

Roemer is the former governor of Lousisiana.

The money will fund research at the Autism Society of America, he said.

Holden, whose son has autism, invited several candidates to his Concord business for haircuts in 2008 after much was made of a $400 cut that appeared on the spending reports of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

A spokesman for Roemer’s campaign, Carlos Sierra, said in an email that Roemer has also “invited all the candidates… to help out as well, but no one has accepted.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/20/buddy-roemer-to-pay-400-for-haircut-in-new-hampshire/#ixzz1hB9KF5IW

For every dollar taken from the private sector to fund government necessities, that is a dollar that cannot be used by the private sector. Government inefficiencies mean that upwards of 40% of every dollar collect by government goes to cover the ‘overhead’   needed to ‘administer’ the transfer of wealth.

Hope as we might, the government is incapable of any true fiscal discipline. Sometimes all we can do is try to mitigate the damage.

 

Top ten: Government spending at its stupidest

By Taylor Bigler – The Daily Caller  

As the fight over how to fix America’s overspending habit ended in a stalemate this year, the federal government spent billions of dollars in 2011 on some unusual projects. And according to a new report from Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, $6.5 billion of it was wasted.

The list includes more than $100,000 on a video game “preservation” center, $120 million in salaries to dead employees and $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere — all in a year when the federal deficit rose by nearly $2 trillion.

Coburn’s “Wastebook 2011″ report lists 100 of the most egregious spending boondoggles.

Here are the top 10 most ridiculous things the federal government paid for this year:

10. $764,825 for a study on how college students use cell phones and social media

The National Science Foundation awarded the University of Notre Dame this grant to study the mobile and social media habits of college freshmen. We can tell you exactly how college freshmen use mobile phones and social media: for 3 a.m. texts and phone calls to that girl in American History. We could have saved the government a lot of money. Just ask us.

9. $136,555 for teachers to retrace Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in England

This grant, awarded to teachers from Kent State and Eastern Illinois Universities, allowed Middle English lit fanatics to take the trip outlined in Canterbury Tales. We’re betting £10 that the tour guides just make up half of the landmarks.

8. $55,660 on butter packaging

Kriemhild Dairy Farms received this chunk of change to package their grass-fed cow butter. The funding isn’t the only thing that’s too big: The butter itself is 85 percent fat.

7. $606,000 for a study about online dating

Columbia University researchers received over a half-million dollars to study online dating. Maybe the Ivy League nerds who conducted this study should put down the lab coats and go to a bar — or at least the library.

6. $484,000 for a pizza restaurant

Arlington, Texas has one more beer and pizza joint, thanks to this grant to a private developer. The groovy Mellow Mushroom, a national chain, is known for its hippie theme.

5. $48,700 towards the Second Annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival 

These funds were awarded to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry. The Aloha State is already full of sandy beaches, clear blue water, and sun. Why do they get all the good stuff? (That’s the mayor of Hershey, Pennsylvania on Line 1.)

4. $147,138 to build a magic museum 

Maybe the wizards at the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Mich., can make the federal deficit disappear. The grant was awarded to promote the “history of magic entertainment.”

3. $96,000 on iPads for kindergarteners

One school district in Maine was awarded this grant to buy every kindergarten student the latest Apple gadget. These kids can’t add yet, but thanks to Uncle Sam they’ll never need to.

2. $175,587 for a study on the link between cocaine and the mating habits of quail

The funding for this super-important scientific study is down from its 2010 level of $181,406. But we think the amount is ridiculous for research that proves what the film “Blow” already did: that cocaine is linked to high-risk sexual activity.

1. $130,987 for dragon robots

We think the phrase “dragon robots” sounds pretty cool. But when their purpose is to help develop preschoolers’ vocabulary, that’s when we get a little worried. The National Science Foundation will spend nearly $1 million over four years to determine if the dragon-shaped robot can enhance toddlers’ learning skills — because Elmo and Barney are just so 1990s.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/20/top-ten-government-spending-at-its-stupidest/#ixzz1hB3Mb1oh

This is what is has come down to………we can’t even sing Deck the Halls without it having to be political correct. What next, removing Christ from Christmas. Oh, what….that already happen!

Media Finally Outraged Over Christmas Censorship – When It Involves the Word ‘Gay’

By Rusty Weiss

The war on Christmas music has taken a strange turn, with the mainstream media finally up in arms at the overly PC handling of the holiday’s song lyrics.  But it isn’t the constant barrage from uber-sensitive atheists trying to eliminate every reference to Christmas from our schools and public places that has them fired up.

No, it’s an elementary teacher in Michigan that has raised their ire.

The flurry of controversy arose when the teacher, weary of hearing her students giggling every time they had to sing the words ‘gay apparel’ during their rendition of Deck The Halls, decided to replace the word ‘gay’ with ‘bright’.

The reception from the media, as you may have heard, was rather chilly.

What you may not have heard covered in the MSM was an essay penned by one Colin Curran, a 16-year-old high school junior from New Jersey.  Taking to the Huffington Post during this same time period, Colin told a story about a high school assignment which involved creating a music playlist for a young children’s holiday breakfast.  There was one catch – none of the songs could contain a certain set of offending words, such as Christmas, Hanukah, Jesus, God, or Santa Clause.  The reason, Colin explains, is that the “principal does not want to offend anyone with belief-specific music”.

Google Colin’s name under the news section and it reveals a single hit, having nothing to do with the student from New Jersey.  Google ‘bright apparel’ and it’s a whole different ballgame.

Here is a sampling of some of the coverage:

The Daily Mail

“Parents thought the Cherry Knoll teacher had been naughty and not so nice when the elementary instructor replaced ‘gay’ with ‘bright’ after her students wouldn’t stop laughing when they sang the word.”

MSNBC

“Use it as a teaching moment or just tell the kids to pipe down and sing the song as written.”

Dan Savage

“Someone had to straighten out that carol – can’t have children donning gay apparel.”

Huffington Post

“A Michigan music teacher’s decision to censor the word ‘gay’ from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response.”

Fox Nation

“A traditional Christmas carol is at the center of controversy at a TCAPS elementary school.”

Of course, the school’s principal, Chris Parker, didn’t miss an opportunity to crank the PC up a notch by calling this a ‘teachable moment’ for student and teacher alike.

In a report for ABC 57 News, Parker doubles down on his overreaction saying, “We have an anti-bullying and discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and so going forward, the teacher will be addressing ‘this is how we’re supposed to be reacting.  This is the way to be respectful about this.’”

The amount of attention being heaped upon the Deck the Halls non-troversy, and the lack of attention being paid to the omission of Christmas altogether from a music playlist in New Jersey are striking.

Why no outrage over the removal of basic, essential elements of many holiday songs?  Christmas songs eliminated?  References to God and Santa Clause?  Now that’s okay.  But gay?  That’s just going too far.

Instead, we get snarky reminders from the offended parties that ‘gay’ does actually mean ‘happy’ by definition, a lesson we all learned growing up when we looked at our parents, giggling with immature minds, as the theme song to The Flintstones played on the television.

We get it, oh-overly-offended-ones.

But why such a hostile reception for a teacher simply trying to make life easier on herself with a group of children? Especially when all one has to do is look up Deck the Halls on Wikipedia to see an original version of the lyrics, featuring the line, “Don we now our bright apparel.”

I find it fascinating that the same people that are outraged that a teacher would remove the word ‘gay’ from a Christmas song, are the same people who would voice zero opposition if the word ‘Christmas’ were removed from a Christmas song.

Follow Rusty on Twitter @rustyweiss74, or e-mail him at weiss.rusty@gmail.com
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2011/12/08/media-finally-outraged-over-christmas-censorship-when-it-involves-word-#ixzz1g01l7Zo4

The war on Christmas music has taken a strange turn, with the mainstream media finally up in arms at the overly PC handling of the holiday’s song lyrics.  But it isn’t the constant barrage from uber-sensitive atheists trying to eliminate every reference to Christmas from our schools and public places that has them fired up.

No, it’s an elementary teacher in Michigan that has raised their ire.

The flurry of controversy arose when the teacher, weary of hearing her students giggling every time they had to sing the words ‘gay apparel’ during their rendition of Deck The Halls, decided to replace the word ‘gay’ with ‘bright’.

The reception from the media, as you may have heard, was rather chilly.

What you may not have heard covered in the MSM was an essay penned by one Colin Curran, a 16-year-old high school junior from New Jersey.  Taking to the Huffington Post during this same time period, Colin told a story about a high school assignment which involved creating a music playlist for a young children’s holiday breakfast.  There was one catch – none of the songs could contain a certain set of offending words, such as Christmas, Hanukah, Jesus, God, or Santa Clause.  The reason, Colin explains, is that the “principal does not want to offend anyone with belief-specific music”.

Google Colin’s name under the news section and it reveals a single hit, having nothing to do with the student from New Jersey.  Google ‘bright apparel’ and it’s a whole different ballgame.

Here is a sampling of some of the coverage:

The Daily Mail

“Parents thought the Cherry Knoll teacher had been naughty and not so nice when the elementary instructor replaced ‘gay’ with ‘bright’ after her students wouldn’t stop laughing when they sang the word.”

MSNBC

“Use it as a teaching moment or just tell the kids to pipe down and sing the song as written.”

Dan Savage

“Someone had to straighten out that carol – can’t have children donning gay apparel.”

Huffington Post

“A Michigan music teacher’s decision to censor the word ‘gay’ from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response.”

Fox Nation

“A traditional Christmas carol is at the center of controversy at a TCAPS elementary school.”

Of course, the school’s principal, Chris Parker, didn’t miss an opportunity to crank the PC up a notch by calling this a ‘teachable moment’ for student and teacher alike.

In a report for ABC 57 News, Parker doubles down on his overreaction saying, “We have an anti-bullying and discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and so going forward, the teacher will be addressing ‘this is how we’re supposed to be reacting.  This is the way to be respectful about this.’”

The amount of attention being heaped upon the Deck the Halls non-troversy, and the lack of attention being paid to the omission of Christmas altogether from a music playlist in New Jersey are striking.

Why no outrage over the removal of basic, essential elements of many holiday songs?  Christmas songs eliminated?  References to God and Santa Clause?  Now that’s okay.  But gay?  That’s just going too far.

Instead, we get snarky reminders from the offended parties that ‘gay’ does actually mean ‘happy’ by definition, a lesson we all learned growing up when we looked at our parents, giggling with immature minds, as the theme song to The Flintstones played on the television.

We get it, oh-overly-offended-ones.

But why such a hostile reception for a teacher simply trying to make life easier on herself with a group of children? Especially when all one has to do is look up Deck the Halls on Wikipedia to see an original version of the lyrics, featuring the line, “Don we now our bright apparel.”

I find it fascinating that the same people that are outraged that a teacher would remove the word ‘gay’ from a Christmas song, are the same people who would voice zero opposition if the word ‘Christmas’ were removed from a Christmas song.

Follow Rusty on Twitter @rustyweiss74, or e-mail him at weiss.rusty@gmail.com
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2011/12/08/media-finally-outraged-over-christmas-censorship-when-it-involves-word-#ixzz1g01l7Zo4

 

Our Canada neighbors are offering us a gift too good to refuse…unless you are President Obama. Pissing off one ally at a time….nice.

 

Obama Refused to Make Decision on Pipeline, But Insists He’s ‘All In’ for Domestic Energy Production

By Susan Jones

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, listens as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks following a meeting at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson)

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, who punted a decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline until after the presidential election, nevertheless insists that his administration has gone “all in” when it comes to domestic energy production.

He also flatly refused any give-and-take with Republicans to speed up the pipeline project.

The president’s “all in” comment on Wednesday — made with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper standing at his side — prompted a retort from House Speaker John Boehner:

“All in?” Boehner asked. “To date, the president hasn’t urged Senate Democrats to approve any of the House-passed bills that would create new jobs by expanding American energy production. Instead, he’s actively blocked job-creating energy production and imposed a moratorium that closes off some of the most promising energy resources in the world.”

Boehner listed four specific energy bills that have been passed by the House and remain stuck in the Democrat-led Senate: “The Obama administration is ‘all in’ alright – all in on blocking American energy production that would help create new jobs and lower prices.”

Boehner also criticized Obama for delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, which — if completed — would bring crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, creating some 20,000 American jobs in the process.

Environmentalists, a key Obama constituency, strenuously oppose the pipeline, but labor unions — another Obama constituency — strongly support it. Obama delayed a politically sensitive decision on the pipeline until after the election – and he opposes recent Congressional action to speed up the project.

Asked on Wednesday if he would consider moving up the pipeline project if Republicans agree to extend the payroll tax cut, Obama flatly rejected such a deal:

“First of all, any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject. So everybody should be on notice. And the reason is because the payroll tax cut is something that House Republicans, as well as Senate Republicans, should want to do regardless of any other issues.”

Obama said the warning applies to issues beyond Keystone: “Efforts to tie a whole bunch of other issues to something that they should be doing anyway will be rejected by me,” he declared.

In his prepared remarks, Obama noted that the Keystone XL pipeline “is very important to Canada.” But, he added, “It’s important for us to make sure that all the questions regarding the project are properly understood, especially its impact on our environment and the health and safety of the American people.”

For three years, the State Department has been conducting a thorough environmental assessment of the pipeline, and it was supposed to make a final decision on the project by the end of 2011. (Because a foreign country is involved, the State Department must decide if the project is in the national interest.)

On Nov. 10, following anti-Keystone protests in Washington, the State Department announced it would look at alternative routes for the pipeline that would take it around the “environmentally sensitive” Nebraska Sand Hills.

Obama, on the same day, issued a statement supporting the State Department’s decision to delay the politically difficult decision until 2013.

On Wednesday, in response to a reporter’s question about the Keystone XL pipeline, Obama described it as “a big project with big consequences. We’ve seen Democrats and Republicans express concerns about it.  And it is my job as President of the United States to make sure that a process is followed that examines all the options, looks at all the consequences before a decision is made.

 

 

“Now, that process is moving forward.  The State Department is making sure that it crosses all its t’s and dots all its i’s before making a final determination.  And I think it’s worth noting, for those who want to try to politicize this issue, that when it comes to domestic energy production, we have gone all in, because our belief is, is that we’re going to have to do a whole range of things to make sure that U.S. energy independence exists for a long time to come.”

Prime Minister Harper said his position on the Keystone XL issue “is very well known.” (After the Nov. 10 announcement that the pipeline would be delayed, Harper told Obama he would look to Asian markets – China — for Canadian oil.)

On Wednesday, Harper said President Obama has indicated to him that he’s following a proper path and has “an open mind in regards to what the final decision may or may not be.”

Harper diplomatically added, “And you can appreciate that I would not comment on the domestic politics of this issue or any other issue here in the United States.”

 

Hey, it is that time of the year when you see the endless parade of ‘Top Ten’ countdowns.I will post the good, the bad, and the ugly…first up…the economy!

 

BMI’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2011

By Julia A. Seymour

Each year the Business & Media Institute looks back on the year’s news and selects the top 10 worst economic myths. This year the media’s myths were wide-ranging: from conspiracy theories about economic sabotage, to overpopulation panic and Occupy Wall Street’s mantra “We are the 99 percent.”

Here is our 2011 list:

10. Congress took a “machete” to the budget in August.
9. In order to win, the GOP wants to sabotage the economy.
8. Who cares about a Soros’ sponsored effort to remake global economy?
7. With 7 billion on the planet, it’s time to panic.
6. Apocalypse Al is a “genius,” and climate change is a real threat.
5. The jobs are right around the corner.
4. Occupy Wall Street is the new Tea Party.
3. Green jobs are the future.
2. $52 million from Soros doesn’t mean we’re biased.
1. “We are the 99 percent.”

10. Congress took a “machete” to the budget in August.
Media Myth: Spending cuts actually cut spending.

One of the most illusory things in Washington, D.C. is a spending cut. After all, once taxpayer money is being doled out it can be very difficult to stop the flow.

So in August 2011, when the news media reported on the debt ceiling talks they anticipated major cuts to the federal budget, but ordinary taxpayers weren’t given the whole picture. ABC’s Diane Sawyer spoke of “expected” “machete” cuts and NBC’s Ann Curry worried those cuts would hurt the economy.

Media outlets called the cuts “sharp” and “severe,” but rarely admitted that federal spending will keep on growing. BMI looked at the transcripts for 43 stories, interviews and news briefs about the debt ceiling deal on morning and evening news programs and found that only 2 admitted the debt will rise anyway. That means 95 percent of stories ignored the fact that the federal debt would still rise by $12 trillion (from $14.29 trillion to $28.8 trillion).

As Cato’s Chris Edwards explained, “The ‘cuts’ in the deal are only cuts from the CBO ‘baseline,’ which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending. And even these ‘cuts’ from the baseline include $165 billion of interest savings, which are imaginary because the underlying cuts are imaginary.”

So next time the news media claim Washington is cutting spending, remember that real spending cuts by the government are nearly as fantastical as finding a leprechaun and his pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

9. In order to win, the GOP wants to sabotage the economy.
Media Myth: “Republicans want the cconomy to get worse”

Economics editor Dan Gross of Yahoo! Finance made a bold assertion in June 2011 that every Republican running for the White House, if they were “being honest” would want the economy to be worse off in 2012.

But Gross, who used to write a financial column for the left-wing Slate.com, took the accusation even further saying: “[I]t stands to reason that if you have the ability to have a role in policy that you would engineer policy to get that outcome. That’s what political parties do …”

He cited conservatives who were opposed to TARP and the stimulus, labeling them “a element” “that just wants to blow stuff up.” Apparently in Gross’ mind, a philosophical belief that bailouts and government spending do not improve the economy was illegitimate.

The insulting charge from Gross was reminiscent of the economic conspiracy theories entertained by the news media in 2006 and 2008. CNN’s Jack Cafferty cynically wondered in 2006 if oil companies were lowering gas prices to help the GOP. Left-wing radio host Ed Shultz said essentially the same thing two years later, predicting that “Gasoline’s gonna be a buck-47 ($1.47) when Bush gets out of office. This has just been all so pre-arranged.”

If the economy remains in trouble, this myth is likely to become even more widespread during the 2012 election cycle.

8. Who cares about a Soros’ sponsored efforts to remake global economy?
Media Myth: Soros meeting to rearrange “the entire financial order” is unimportant.

If the volume of news coverage an event earns reveals its significance, then the Bretton Woods conference on April 8 was no more important than a spelling bee.

The media obviously considered it trifling since they did almost no reporting on the left-wing billionaire’s conference of cronies, despite the fact that Soros said in 2009 he wanted “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”

Soros has also said that “the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.” The Bretton Woods conference made it clear he had been pursuing that goal. The global gathering got almost no press attention, despite at least four journalists on the speakers list. But at the conference, Soros set in motion a major move against the dollar. The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 1, 2011, that Soros now thinks the world financial system is “on the brink of collapse.” Soros said the system is in a “self-reinforcing process of disintegration.”

The April conference was orchestrated by Soros who founded the New York City-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) (the group that hosted the conference). Many of the attendees were supporters of Soros, on the board of INET, grantees of INET or contributors to some other Soros-funded operation like Project Syndicate.

7. With 7 billion on the planet, it’s time to panic.
Media Myth: In 2011, Earth’s population crossed the 7 billion mark and that was reason to freak out.

The media have embraced overpopulation myths for years, fitting in nicely with climate alarmism and left-wing environmentalism. So it was no surprise that in 2011, when the world population neared the 7 billion milestone, the media began repeating those concerns again.

The Washington Post cautioned that “ecological distortions are becoming more pronounced and widespread.” The fear-mongering of radical environmentalists like Paul Watson, James Lovelock and Paul Ehrlich has been echoed by willing partners in the mainstream media. Ehrlich famously predicted England would not exist in 2000.

(As of 2011, England still exists.) But as recently as 2010, the New York Times quoted Ehrlich as a “population expert.” And the Los Angeles Times favorably interviewed Ehrlich in February 2011.

Overpopulation fears resurfaced in 2011. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman titled his July 7 column “The Earth is Full.” The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board titled a May 15 op-ed “Defusing the Population Bomb.” The Los Angeles Times also published a July 21 op-ed coauthored by Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich (wife of Paul Ehrlich), which argued that “Perpetual [human population] growth is the creed of a cancer cell, not a sustainable human society.”

Many predictions about overpopulation simply haven’t happened, because mankind finds ways to adapt and innovate. Colin Mason, director of media for the Population Research Institute, told BMI that fears of overpopulation are unfounded because: “Historically, as human population has grown and developed technology, the manner in which we use resources has changed. For instance, as human population has grown, we have needed to produce enough food to feed our burgeoning numbers. But as our civilizations have developed, we have also developed ways of increasing crop yield, and of growing crops on previously infertile land.”

As Mason explained, a declining population (as is happening in many countries) will actually result in many negative economic and social consequences. For example, entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare depend upon having enough workers to pay into the system, but if too few children are born to replace retirees, the programs collapse.

6. Apocalypse Al is a “genius,” and climate change is a real threat.
Media Myth: Almost-president Al said the climate change “debate’s over” so it must be true.

As Al Gore’s error-filled propaganda film turned 5 in May 2011, BMI looked back at broadcast news coverage of “movie star” Gore about climate change as well as mentions of “An Inconvenient Truth” throughout that time. They found that nearly 98 percent of those stories failed to challenge the supposedly scientific claims of the movie, including its dramatic predictions of sea level rise and links between climate change and extreme weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes, fires and droughts.

Many of those claims have been challenged, but scientific criticism was rarely included by ABC, CBS or NBC. There was also little opposition to the “environmental evangelist” found in the reports; more than 80 percent excluded any criticism of Gore or his film.

Rather than examining some of the dubious claims of the former vice president’s movie, all three networks used it to push him to run for president (again) or accept some position within the Obama administration. In one CBS “Early Show” interview, Harry Smith literally tried to pin a “Gore ’08″ campaign button on him.

In one of Gore’s morning show interviews promoting his film in 2006, NBC’s Katie Couric mentioned that there were people on the other side of the debate. But once Gore replied, “There’s really not a debate. The debate’s over,” and blamed oil and coal companies for “pretending there is a debate,” Couric fell in line as if she’d been hypnotized. Shortly thereafter Couric declared, “Where there is disagreement among scientists is not IF, but WHEN we may see drastic environmental changes across the globe. Al Gore says the clock is ticking.”

Yet, Christopher Booker, a journalist and commentator with The Telegraph (UK), quoted sea level scientist Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner calling Gore’s predicted 20-foot sea level rise “the greatest lie ever told.” Mörner is the former chairman of the International Commission on Sea Level Change and studied sea levels across the globe for 35 years. He said “the sea is not rising” and that any rise this century would “not be more than 10 cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10 cm.”

5. The jobs are right around the corner.
Media Myth: Obama is creating jobs and more are on the way.

Yes, Virginia. There is a jobs crisis. No matter which way you spin 8.6 percent unemployment there is a jobs crisis underway in the U.S, but that hasn’t stopped the news media from trying to downplay the unemployment rate or look for good news in the bad. Look around many communities and you’ll find businesses that have had to shut down and people struggling to find work.

President Obama’s record on jobs is that his promises have fallen flat. His economic policies were supposed to create 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. The results have been dismal with a net loss of 1,623,00 jobs lost since Feb. 2009. But the news media have continued to look for “silver linings” and “bright spots,” only to be disappointed by “unexpected” jobs data.

CBS “Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley spoke of “a little bit of good news on jobs” Sept. 7, 2011. He optimistically reported that there were 3.2 million job openings posted in July. “That’s the most in nearly three years,” Pelley said without noting the huge shortfall between available jobs and the roughly 14 million who were unemployed in August or the loss of more than 4 million jobs between Feb. 2009 and Sept. 2010.

As of November 2011, the broader measure of unemployment was a very high 15.6 percent and the labor force participation rate had fallen to 64 percent. That was a “red flag,” according to James Pethokoukis who wrote for The Enterprise Blog “in a strong jobs recovery that number should be rising as more people look for work.”

4. Occupy Wall Street is the New Tea Party.
Media Myth: “Occupy Wall Street: A Tea Party for the Left?”

Beginning in September, protesters took over a private park in New York City to demand free education, bailouts for main street instead of Wall Street and to condemn the rich. It didn’t take long for some in the media and the public to try to draw a comparison between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

Time magazine asked, “Occupy Wall Street: A Tea Party for the Left?”

In reality, the two couldn’t be more different. The Tea Party protesters were peaceful, promoted small government and worked to elect candidates with their values, all while the media did its best to portray them as “terrorists” and “racists.” On the other hand, OWS lacked a unified message – but the protesters’ big government, anti-free market and at times anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments have been on display. The volume and tone of news coverage was also dramatically different.

Violence (including rape and sexual assault), crime and disrespect of authority has also been evident at many of the OWS rallies. The twitter feed @OccupyArrests claimed 5,248 arrests as of the morning of Dec. 7. According to The New York Times, OWS troublemakers are merely a fringe minority of the protesters. Yet, the Tea Party was “responsible for the behavior of people” at its rallies. The broadcast networks chose to ignore violence at the “peaceful” rallies such as Occupy L.A.

3. Green jobs are the future.
Media Myth: Alternative energy will be the “road map” to a better future for the planet and workers.

For years the mainstream news media have been promoting green jobs, even encouraging government to subsidize them. Obama promised to create 5 million of them through tax credits and other government subsidies. But in 2011, bankruptcies of green companies, failures of green programs and then a huge scandal at Solyndra (a solar company) came to light (thanks to an ABC News investigation) and should have shifted the news coverage.

Shortly before that scandal broke, BMI looked at coverage of green jobs by the three broadcast network news. They found that 49 stories out of 53 (92 percent) had no criticism in their green jobs stories from Jan. 17, 2009 to Aug. 17, 2011.

Not one of the three networks reported during that time that United Solar Ovonic (Uni-Solar) plants in Michigan were “running at a fraction of their full capacity and employment is well below projections,” despite $37 million in tax incentives. Uni-Solar had been touted by NBC “Nightly News” in 2009 for having 380 jobs and “500 more coming.”

NBC’s Anne Thompson had praised such green efforts by the Obama administration saying, “New industries [are] providing a green road map to give workers and the planet a better, more secure future.” Uni-Solar wasn’t the only company not to meet expectations. Fisher Coachworks, Green Vehicles, Evergreen Solar inc. and Solyndra all went bankrupt. Seattle found that their city’s green jobs program was a “bust.”

Once ABC exposed the failure of Solyndra, all the networks had to cover the scandal, since the company declared bankruptcy after getting a $535 million loan guarantee from the government in 2009. All three networks mentioned it, and even acknowledged it was an “embarrassment” for the White House. But none of the reports BMI analyzed at that time explicitly used Solyndra’s failure to argue that green “investment” programs were flawed.

But the amount of coverage of Solyndra, a solar energy firm connected to the Obama administration, paled in comparison to Enron, an energy company with Republican ties. The Media Research center found a 24-to-1 disparity in the volume of scandal coverage of Enron vs. Solyndra.

2. Millions from Soros doesn’t mean we’re biased.
Media Myth: George Soros is just another left-wing philanthropist.

Billionaire George Soros is arguably the most influential liberal financier in the United States, donating more than $8 billion just to his Open Society Foundations. In 2004, he spent more than $27 million to defeat President George W. Bush and has given away millions more since to promote the left-wing agenda. But what has gone almost unnoticed is Soros’ extensive influence on and involvement with the media.

Since 2003, Soros has donated more than $52 million to all kinds of media outlets – liberal news organizations, investigative reporting and even smaller blogs. He has also been involved in funding the infrastructure of supposedly “neutral” news, from education to even the industry ombudsman association. Many other operations Soros supports also have a media component to what they do.

All that money has created a liberal “echo chamber,” that in the words of one group he backs, “in which a message pushes the larger public or the mainstream media to acknowledge, respond, and give airtime to progressive ideas because it is repeated many times.”

Of course Soros has denied his influence, blaming Fox News: “Another trick is to accuse your opponent of the behavior of which you are guilty, like Fox News accusing me of being the puppet master of a media empire.” But as BMI exposed in multiple reports, Soros’ dollars reach far and wide into the media industry.

That echo chamber is often used to further Soros’ view, including his view that the “capitalist threat” is a bigger problem than communism these days. He has also stated that he wants to see the global financial order rearranged.

1. “We are the 99.”
Media Myth: Occupy Wall Street claims to be the “99 percent,” pushes class warfare rhetoric that captures attention and favorable coverage from media.

When the Occupy Wall Street movement launched in September, it quickly garnered positive media coverage as the “protest of this current era.” One of the few coherent and common messages of the movement was “We are the 99 percent.”

That intentional separation from the 1 percent of the rich they were protesting was the basis of the class warfare fight the OWS crowd wanted. Hollywood celebrities from Mark Ruffalo to Michael Moore who are likely part of the 1 percent sang the praises of the OWS movement while touring Zuccotti Park. Ironically, most of those protesters are in the top 1 percent of earners if you compare the entire world (instead of the just the U.S.).

But the extreme anti-capitalists, anarchists, communists and socialists protesting in NYC and other cities across the country did not speak for 99 percent of people. In fact according to the Seattle P-I, as of Nov. 13, only 33 percent of people supported OWS based on a poll from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling firm. This despite overwhelmingly positive media coverage.

The media’s promotion of OWS did not come as a surprise because it was the natural outcome of the mainstream media’s reporting on wealth and inequality and the liberal economists they interview. The phrase “We are the 99 percent” shouted by protesters in Zuccotti Park and Occupy Wall Street encampments may be new, but the class warfare foundation for it has “roots in a decade’s worth of reporting,” The New York Times admitted in a front page homage to OWS on Dec. 1. It was an entire article by Brian Stelter on the influence of “99 Percent” in the “lexicon.”

A month before the protests began, PBS NewsHour wanted to find out if “the growing gap between rich and poor contributed to the 2008 financial collapse.” With four economists on the same side, the story was heavily weighted to argue yes. Similar arguments were made by Soros-funded (and Soros friend) liberal economist Joseph E. Stiglitz in Vanity Fair in May 2011.