They're lying and distorting another CBO report.
Drudge is currently pushing a Washington Times article (I know, right?) claiming that the CBO thinks the recovery bill will hurt economic growth over the long run.
Of course as we've pointed out here, the CBO also claims that, in the near term, the bill will create significant economic growth and millions of new jobs. But the Washington Times has picked out a couple of lines about how the debt will "reduce output slightly in the long run" and therefore EPIC FAIL!
Ezra Klein points out two things that rip the shit out of Drudge and the Washington Times. First, the CBO writes that the reduction in GDP would only be .3 percent (that's point-three percent) by 2019 (growth this year alone would be 4.1 percent with the recovery bill). Second, this reduction in GDP would only happen if we do absolutely nothing about reducing the debt. If we haven't done anything about reducing the debt by 2019, we probably don't deserve to have economic growth -- or an economy. Or anything.
Hmm. Help me out on this one. Was the Washington Times for or against the Bush Republican policies that succeeded in increasing the national debt from $5.7 trillion to $9.8 trillion in eight years?
What am I thinking!? Drudge and the Washington Times were totally opposed to the Bush wars, tax cuts and budget deficits.
Right?
No?