On Wednesday night’s broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (9/23/10), Gwen Ifill announced: “Now to the first of several conversations on whether or not to extend tax cuts that expire at the end of the year.”
The first guest was Republican Glenn Hubbard, who Ifill told viewers “was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and he helped to design those cuts.” Not surprisingly, he is a big supporter of extending the tax cuts, and gave the usual laundry list of reasons why, and criticized Obama for creating uncertainty in the markets and so on.
So who else will they feature in this series? One clue came at the end of the show:
JUDY WOODRUFF: In our next conversation, we will hear from Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, who once testified in favor of the Bush tax cuts. He now argues, it’s time to let them lapse.
Greenspan, it should be noted, is a conservative Republican, elevated to the Fed by Ronald Reagan, and a lifelong devotee of Ayn Rand. If the point of the series is to explore the tax debate among conservatives,the NewsHour is off to a great start.
Ifill has previously despaired at the partisanship of this debate–Republicans say one thing, Democrats say something else, which led her to wonder: “Is there any real way to sort that out, or is it in both parties’ interest to keep that uncertain?”
Sorting it out is the job of journalists. NewsHour can’t do that without finding some independent experts to talk about the issue.
Please whatever you do….Dont listen to anything any head of the FED says.Until we are able to audit their books we have no idea that what they are saying- has any truth value at all.
Surprisingly, Greenspan, the conservative Republican, former head of the Federal Reserve, originally against the Bush tax cuts until he decided to support them. He also said that Social Security was an excellent way to save money, something that consumers were not doing. I often disagreed with Greenspan and wrote to the Fed to complain of some of the right-wing ideas that had often espoused. The Federal Reserve should not be the sole way to control inflation, because their only answer is to slam the breaks on the economy and to throw millions of workers on the unemployment line. Fiscal policies would be far less damaging. By that I mean, do the opposite of a stimulus plan, instead of government spending during an inflationary period, cut spending on projects that can be postponed. At this time, an economic stimulus is necessary to put people back to work and it should be paid for by reversing the tax cuts for the 2% of Americans with the highest incomes. Those families that will spend their tax cuts to stimulate the economy should keep their tax cuts.
Greenspan, the liberal opinonator? OMG!
…not to mention greenspan’s record of being wrong about all sorts of stuff….
Many truthseekers–this writer included–are increasingly viewing the PBS News Hour as the Snooze Hour!
this is why i have abandoned PBS. they are all just tools and have no interest in either informing the public or in seeking diverse opinions from their prepared scripts.
Seeing the corporate sponsorships on PBS these days, it should come as no surprise that it has tilted to the right. The P in PBS used to mean Public. The decades of attack by conservatives are increasingly having effect.
Sadly, NPR is providing similar discussions on economic issues when it comes to who is represented on on their airways particularly during many of Diane Rehm’s recent programs. Usually, there is a rightwing think tank blowhard (i.e.Cato Institute), a reporter from the WSJ or some other corporate right wing news outlet, and a news reporter from NPR itself, who generally is so wishywashy as to provide no adequate context to the discussion. They’ve done much of the same on environmental issues lately. It used to be the only place to get a fair accounting of the media in general on the radio, especially with all other radio outlets occupied by right wing pundits. It’s where you used to be able to go to demystify the media propaganda or expose it. That’s not true anymore. The last several Friday morning roundups have featured MSM figures with a right of center perspective, if not an outright right wing approach to evaluating the president and the politics of the day, almost remarkably similar to cable TV.
What a surprise, that what used to be a reasonably honest and perceptive and pretty mainstream organ has, after years of “embedding” of Bush-League and Reaganaut LooneyRight executives, and purging and intimidating of staff, turned subtly and not so subtly into yet another orifice to excrete the Corporate Message. Anyone on liberalgenerosity autopilot who keeps on giving money to the “public radio and television” on the notion that it’s still the Great White Hope of traditional media is just tightening the noose around their own starving necks.
Yes- NPR-what a disappointment to have them twisted into a corporate mouthpiece. I can hardly stand to listen to them for more than a few minutes now. And now the corporate money is unleashed on politics by a supreme court of stupendous ignoramuses (demonstrating how anyone-in any position can be willfully ignorant). How can we have been taken so far down this road? False winners of presidential elections, military invasions for corporate profit, false flag terror attacks starting with 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. This country is living a nightmare and we still haven’t woken up. I think we only had one of those false awakenings where you dream you’ve woken up (elected Obama)but then you discover you’re still asleep!
BBBaker.
Wow sorry you believe all that bunk. Corporate mouthpiece?What does that even mean?As i have said over and over in these blogs -look into what a corporation is before you auto pilot hatred in that direction.It is YOU!Of course you hate NPR.It is not dancing a strict liberal tune anymore.And you libs see any cross talk as heracy.I am a conservative.They may be a wee bit more centrist than in the past but that is about all.
The supreme court is trying to follow the constitution and by inference keep the donations on a more even keel.It will do nothing more than allow other bodies (aside from the Dems) to have avenues to raise money.It will in effect even the playing field.And if i were you i would scream too.Last thing a lib needs is a corporate entity free to do with their money as they wish.They have heard the Obama class warfare too long now to believe his call to arms that he is a pro business prez.
November we will start sweeping this Obama insanity out into the street.On huge rip down of everything he has passed.We are gonna defund ,demolish ,debunk all these roadblocks to freedom and prosperity in America.I agree with your first premise that America “woke up”with obama.They woke up to what he is.A socialist/progressive who believes in being an architect to social and economic change .NOT HIS FRIGGIN JOB bake.He didnt know that,so we are give him a class in” beat downs for over reaching neo libs”. Come November next to next- your gonna wish more folks were staying in…asleep