Free Republic

The media’s harboring of a pro-government spending bias isn’t exactly news. But an article in Politico is notable because it illustrates the tendency for local newsrooms to push human interest stories that emphasize the pain of spending cuts. According to the article, it’s pervasive:  Journalists from Florida to Washington state told POLITICO that their editors are hungry for stories that turn bureaucratic doublespeak about automatic cuts into a human story of real-world pain—from layoffs to cutbacks in treasured hometown programs.  Ask Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, who got hit with a question about the Blue Angels during a Jacksonville TV station...

Gomer Pyle, USMC, in his 80s, just got married to some guy from Hawaii; some player from Notre Dame had a dead virtual girlfriend who really wasn't alive; and the media are reporting that we've been out of the recession since March of 2009. Well as Gomer would have said, "Golly!" I really don't give a flip who Jim Nabors, who played Gomer, marries and can't really find a reason to understand why Notre Dame's Manti Te'o's private online non-love-life matters, either. But then again, as we enter 2013, let's consider all of the crazy things we never thought...

Are tax hikes on the way? Some federal lawmakers hope so. “It’s a great opportunity to get us some more revenue,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently said of the upcoming debate over the federal budget. You know what that means: calls to raise taxes on the rich. Lawmakers can’t seem to refrain from eyeing the golden goose. It seems fair to most Americans that those who earn more should pay more taxes. But how much more? In a report that drew on 2006 tax data, Heritage Foundation scholar Curtis Dubay showed that a family in the top 20 percent...

Amid all the accusations and counteraccusations over Medicare, the Ryan budget and whether Mitt Romney is a felon, a tax cheat or a killer, it sometimes seems the political world has forgotten that the unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. If you add in all the people who want to work but have given up looking, plus those who are forced to take a part-time job when they need full-time work, the figure is 15 percent. It's an awful, slow-motion tragedy touching tens of millions of Americans, especially when you add all the family members and dependents who are also affected....