MediaWatch: April 1993
Table of Contents:
Gumbel Wants it Both Ways
Too Much, But Not Enough
Today co-host Bryant Gumbel tries to have it both ways: blaming Reagan for underfunded programs while criticizing Reagan for deficit spending. On March 17, he discussed presidential budget deficit performance with the author of Bankruptcy 1995. Gumbel asserted: "I'm not sure there's a grade low enough for...Ronald Reagan. He spoke regularly of balancing the budget, but he broke the bank. In return for his own personal popularity, he spent eight years in office, and ran up $1.34 trillion in deficits."
The day after, Gumbel declared: "Faced with declining levels of assistance from Washington over the last twelve years, long- standing urban problems have been aggravated, leading to increases in decay, business failures, and crime, and shortages of housing, school funds, and self-help programs." Just which way is it?
In "The Myth of America's Underfunded Cities," Stephen Moore and Dean Stansel of the Cato Institute pointed out "Cities have a multitude of problems, but too little money is not one of them." Moore and Stansel stated: "While direct federal aid to cities was cut in the Reagan years, aid to poor people living in cities increased. Federal social welfare spending -- on education, training, social services, employment, low-income assistance, community development, and transportation -- rose from $255 billion to $285 billion in real dollars from 1980 to 1992. These figures exclude Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- programs that have exploded in cost and significantly benefitted inner-city residents as well."
