MediaWatch: October 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: October 1994
- Newsweek Removes Noted Clinton Sycophant from the White House Beat
- NewsBites: Sticking to the Issues
- Revolving Door: Matalin's Matchmaker
- Reporters Club Contract with America with False History of the 1980's
- Who lost Socialized Medicine?
- Health Risk Hype
- Relentless Russert
- Janet Cooke Award: ABC Environmental Reporter Loads Cairo Story with White House-Favored Spokesmen
Reporters Club Contract with America with False History of the 1980's
Architects of Gridlock Gone Bad?
Throughout the first half of Bill Clinton's term, the GOP minority in Congress has routinely been portrayed as "architects of gridlock" and "obstructionists." How did the media react when the Republicans put forward a positive agenda? Over 300 House candidates signed the Contract with America on September 27, promising to vote on tax cuts, term limits, a balanced budget amendment, a revised crime bill, and legal reform if put in the majority, but were attacked for recycling Reagan policies.
U.S. News & World Report's Gloria Borger set the tone in the October 3 issue: "Republicans do not actually promise to pass anything; that would smack of governing, which they eschew." She continued: "[GOP leader Newt] Gingrich's list is just a collection of GOP golden oldies that pander to the public's desire to get something for nothing" and concluded: "House Republicans may come to regret it. The voters might actually make them honor their contract."
NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw introduced the contract that night as "long on promises but short on sound premises." Reporter Lisa Myers asserted: "An independent budget expert called it standard political bunk." Myers also poked at term limits, noting Newt Gingrich "already has served 16 years...Gingrich said any term limit bill will apply only to future members of Congress." While no state has passed retroactive term limits, Myers mused: "And politicians wonder why voters are cynical."
In an October 2 Washington Post news analysis, reporter Clay Chandler wrote Republicans were "hoping to bribe the electorate." Chandler accused them of "betting that voters have short memories. They may assume that few will recall -- let alone care -- that the Reagan experiment with supply-side economics quadrupled the federal deficit and left average Americans saddled with higher taxes."
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter proclaimed in an October 10 news story that the contract has "already been tried and discredited. House Republicans are now pledged to tax cuts, increased defense spending, and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Sound familiar?"
Yet economist Ed Rubenstein noted in The Right Data: "Since 1980, aggregate federal tax revenues have grown 111 percent. Had revenues grown at the rate of inflation, the government would have collected 225 billion fewer dollars in 1992. Congress spent the additional money, and then some." The 1992 Joint Economic Report stated: "During the expansion [1982-1989], real median family income increased 12.6 percent," while the income tax payments of all but the top 5 percent of earners fell during the 1980s.
