On Limiting Spending

Mark Tapscott has a column today in the Washington Examiner online edition about the Constitutional Amendment introduced by three members of the US House of Representatives - Mike Pence (R, IN), John Campbell (R, CA) and Jeb Hensarling (R, TX). His money quote is,

Put another way, the SLA would cap Uncle Sam's take from our wallets at one of every five dollars we earn. Is it too much to ask our elected representatives in Washington that they not spend more than one of every five of our dollars?

Yes, is it really too much that Congress restrict themselves to taking only one fifth of our money, instead of trying to seize it all? Is it too much to ask that they live within the same kinds of spending restrictions that we must abide by? I do not think so and to that end have written and sent the following letter to my three members of Congress, with appropriate personalization:

Dear [congressperson],

As you are probably aware, Greece is undergoing some serious financial problems as a result of its out of control deficits. What you may not know is that the United States is currently on course for the same financial problems that currently plague Greece. Greece's problems began occurring as their deficit reached thirteen percent of their GDP. Currently, the United States has a deficit that takes up 10 percent of the GDP.

The problem is not that American taxpayers so not pay enough to the various layers of government. The problem is that the government - like an alcoholic - simply does not know when to stop. Would you spend more than your paycheque every month until you had your home foreclosed and your assets seized? Would you regard your salary as a 'guideline' as opposed to an actual limitation on your personal spending? If not, then why would you do this with American taxpayers' dollars? This is not Monopoly money that is inexhaustible.

I understand that a bill has been introduced by three members of the House (Congressmen Mike Pence, John Campbell and Jed Hensarling) that would amend the US Constitution to restrict Congress from spending more than twenty percent of GDP. The bill is HJ Res 79.

Unless you enjoy the thought of your children and grandchildren facing the same crushing debt that my children face, unless you like the prospect of the kinds of social unrest Greece is seeing and unless you honestly have no qualms about spending money that you did not earn, I would urge you to sign on to this bill as a sponsor or introduce it in the Senate if that has not already been done. Only by forcing Congress to rein in their appetites for spending other people's money can we get this looming financial disaster under control.

Please sign on to HJ Res 79. This is one bill that absolutely must proceed if we are to have any chance of saving our country before we end up like Greece.

I hope that anyone who reads this (and who is a US citizen or legal resident) emails their Congressperson and their Senators, urging them exactly the same thing. The problem, as Ronald Reagan once famously put it, is the government. Only by forcing government to live within the same means that we the people must are we going to climb out way out of this looming pit. And since Congress and the current Administration seem to have neither the will nor the leadership to do it, we must force them to do it against their own wishes. After all, it's our money their wasting and out children they are saddling with this frightful debt.

The Coming Crash?

Peggy Noonan has an opinion piece in today's online Wall Street Journal talking about the current state of things in the United States. She writes,

The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.

She has a point. While the ignorant, self-important corruptocrats in Washington DC and mot State and local governments continue their orgy of spending, new taxes and increasing the size and power of their governments, ordinary Americans are beginning to turn away and lose faith in them entirely. And if the governed once lose trust in the governors, then he system will no longer work at all,

The Constitution is built upon one simple idea - that the governed PERMIT their elected representatives to make decisions for them. In return, they expect their representatives to exercise restraint and behave morally in their best interests. This contract has long since been abandoned by the inhabitants of that strange city we call Washington DC. Buoyed by the ranks of government unions (since when is it acceptable that bureaucrats get unions while the soldiers and sailors - the only government employees who actually EARN their pay have none), the elected representatives are busily dipping into the public till or their own perks while ignoring the interests of the people they profess to serve. William Jefferson had freezers full of cash, and the Washington establishment has ben almost entirely silent about his corruption. Chriss Dodds and Barney Frank have massive sweetheart deal with shady lobbyists - including many of the people responsible for the financial collapse, and the Washington establishment seems to think that is perfectly fine.

Noonan suggests that it is because they are the Baby Boomers - a generation that has never had to worry about anything and one that is infamous for it's selfishness and self-obsession. She writes,

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.

I hope that they notice at some point. The tea partiers may not have the juice in the long run to end this orgy of disaster that the Washington elites are engaged in, but they symbolize a frustration and a slow-growing wave that may in time take down the corruptocrats. And I issue a warning to these self-important jacks-in-office. Be careful. You folks - particularly on the Left side of the political spectrum - have made a career out of polarization and personal attacks. Remember the typical descriptions of every conservative from Ronald Reagan to George Will to William F. Buckley. They have ben demonized, hung in effigy and compared to Nazis (who were actually closer to the political Left than to the modern American conservative movement). And these same people - many of whom could not have succeeded at a real job where there are actual performance reviews - who are increasingly telling us that only they are qualified to make decisions for us on all levels of our daily lives, regardless of the Constitutional limits on what government can and cannot do.

Be careful, government bureaucrats. Remember that it was a similar situation in ancient Rome that gave rise to Julius Caesar and the Empire. While I would be happy to see most of the bureaucracies disbanded (especially on the Federal level), I don't think that any of us wish to see an American equivalent either to the Roman Empire or to the Socialist nightmares that the current Adminitration seems to be bent on recreating here. But I warn the political elites (and their shills in the Establishment media) - ignore the rising anger and cycnicism at your own cost. Some day there WILL be a reckoning.

To the Democrats, I warn you to stop with the socialism. Most Americans are not socialists and socialism is a system that has failed everywhere it has been tried. Name a single state that has experienced success with a socialist philosophy. There is not one. You can bribe your way to power, but most Americans are still adamantly opposed to your particular brand of ideology - even those nominally DEmocrat. The Leftists who actually support your agenda are noisy, but they constitute under thirty percent of the UNited States. They are not a path to power. Respect the Constitution instead of merely picking the parts you like. All parts of the Constitution should hold equal power. Just because you don't like guns or conservative speech is no reason to toss aside the First and Second Amendments. Weren't you the folks who screamed about dissent being the highest form of patriotism when George W. Bush was President?

To the Republicans, I say - return to your roots or you will cease to exist. Conservatives outnumber liberals and if we have no place to go, we will form our own party. The Democrats are the party of bribery, of election-rigging, of racial politics and of out and out machine politics. The Republicans must be a viable alternative preaching small government, self-respect, individualism and the responsibility. If you are merely Democrat-lite, you have no reason for being. Small government, a strong defense of American interests and a healthy respect for free markets, private property and the individual are the path to power, but only so long as you continue to support those beliefs. The Left controls the Press, the educational establishment and most of the legal profession. You will get no help from any of those and they will sabotage you at every turn. But if you can put your case directly to the voters, I believe that you can persuade them that your path is the correct one. Maybe not in states too far gone down the corruption path - I refer to New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, etc - but to the swing states you will need to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. You must not merely reduce the rate of growth of government, but somehow begin reducing it!

Noonan suggest that if the government pushes people far enough, they might simply tune out and take their tax dollars with them. That is possible - in Italy, tax evasion is a national sport. if that begins to happen in this country, there is no way the Federal government could finance their grandiose dreams and the IRS cannot persecute everyone in this country - though they certainly will try! However, history says that is is far more likely that if the people are pushed far enough, a strong leader will arise who will simply take power in his own way. And ultimately, that is not a good thing for the country's survival. Rome itself endured a mere four hundred years or so after the change from Republic to Empire. And I doubt that a multi-cultural America ha any chance at matching that record.

If I had influence or money or power on the requisite scale, I would be busy recruiting solid conservatives in every state to go to Washington and their local governments and dismantle this socialistic nightmare that the left is busy erecting around us. But I don't have any of that. I wrote my thoughts on the future of this once-great nation when Obama won. Nothing I've seen since has changed that opinion.

Presidential Popularity

The US Press Democratic Party Propaganda Corps likes to tell us that President Obama's popularity is immense, and indeed, according to Gallup, Obama still enjoys a personal support level of over sixty percent. However, when it comes to his policies, that support disappears in a hurry. According to an (admittedly unscientific) poll posted at MSNBC (yes, the network that is unabashedly in the tank for Obama, and whose commentators did not even attempt to hide their partisanship- do you recall Chris Matthews' "leg shiver" comment?), over seventy percent of the voters have given Obama's policies as expressed so far either a 'D' or and 'F' grade. Only 27 percent would give Obama a passing grade.

See the below chart for more:


This snapshot was taken at 0930 this morning. To me this clearly indicate that the is widespread apprehension and distaste for the Obama policies- regardless of how most people view The One himself.

And it is telling that in the first seven weeks of the Obama Administration, we have seen the stock market plunge further than it did in eight years on George w. Bush's watch. This despite a recession and a terrorist attack on the heart of American's Financial District that killed over three thousand people. Yet in those eight years, according to the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow's lowest point was 7673.99 on March 6, 2002 (following the recession and the terrorist attacks). After that low point, the Dow did not sink under 10000 for the remainder of the Bush Administration, and reached a high of over 14000 (four thousand points higher than it ever was under Clinton, by the way). Yet in the seven weeks since President Obama's team has taken control in Washington (and not coincidentally announced programs that would damage the US economy), the Dow is currently at 6326.94. Since it became clear in October that Obama would win the election, the Dow has been dropping steadily. Since Obama became President, the decline has increased. Since Inauguration Day, the Dow has dropped by almost two thousand points.

If Barack Obama and his far-left allies in Congress think that they can impose European-style socialism on this country without a fight, they may have mistaken their constituents. I hold my fellow voting Americans in the lowest possible light, seeing as how they have ignored the fact that the last two years- two years of increasingly partisan politics, increasing deficits and shrill rhetoric- the democrats have controlled Congress. They have ignored that the Democrats are largely responsible for the financial debacle we face. But when the Democrats make the naked power grab for their wallets that is going on in Washington, maybe they may arise from their self-imposed ignorance and fight back. Our money is ours- not those bloated corruptocrats in Washington DC. It is time to make that point. We cannot count on the courts. We cannot count on government. We can only count on ourselves, and it is time for the people of this country to tell Washington (and all other governments who engage in this type of behavior (are you listening Sacramento?)- "Enough!"

I would like to see Congress forced to pay out of their own pockets when they spend more than they take in. I would like to see the government workers forced to actually work a real workday. I would like to see government employees in office on all these holidays that they don't allow us, but only to themselves. And I would like to see them held accountable in the Press for their bad decisions. Of course none of this will happen.

I predicted when Obama won the election that this country had chosen to abrogate personal responsibility. For Obama is a Chicago machine politician and his party is the party of dependence. Not that the Republicans are much better. I would wish for a true third party- made up of those like me who are disgusted with the hypocrisy and corruption in government. But that is a pipe-dream. All we can do if fight as hard as we can, so that our children and grand-children might remember America with some kind of pride when the Democrats- helped by their shills in the media- have finished destroying her.

Hat tip for the poll to Glenn Reynolds.

Home Prices Rise- Press Spins Gloom

In the midst of the press' ongoing doom-and-gloom meme on the United States economy, those pesky little economic indicators suimply don't seem to be cooperating. First, the PRess' attempts to paint the current economy as the worst since the Great Depression were scuttled by the facts- the current economic indicators are all better than the supposedly record highs of the CLinton 1990s. Now, as they prepare for Round Two of the malaise meme, come s the news that the housing market is perhaps not as bad as they would like it to be.

According to a story by the Associated Press on Yahoo! News, the Commerce Department reported today that home sales rose in April. However, the press cannot simply report the good news- they have to inject a little negativity into the story. Reporter Martin Crutsinger writes,

Sales of new homes rose in April for the first time in six months although the unexpected increase still left activity near the lowest level in 17 years.
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The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales of new homes rose 3.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000 units.

But the government revised March activity lower to show an even bigger drop of 11 percent to an annual rate of 509,000, which was the weakest pace for sales since April 1991. Economists believe that new home sales will remain weak for some time as the housing industry struggles with falling prices and rising mortgage foreclosures, which are dumping even more homes on an already glutted market.

It seems to me that if the press would simply cease their scare tactics and allow the market to work as designed, then maybe the economy would do just fine. But that, of course, would put a crimp in the chances for a Democrat to take the Presidency- something that the Press has no intention of allowing to occur.

Those Annoying Economic Facts

The Corner at National Review has posted an interesting and educational reminder of the Democratic Party's hypocrisy regarding the economy. And as a side note, it provides a reminder why the mainstream media is not to be trusted on any topic that might affect their patent desire to elect a Democrat to the White House in 2008.
According to the Corner,

A Hill staffer sends this along:
It’s the Politics, Stupid:
Comparing Labor Market Data in 1996 and 2008

Democrats on the Economy in 1996:
“Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades.” (President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996)

Democrats on the Economy in 2008:
“The bottom line is that this administration is the owner of the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover." (Senator Charles Schumer, Press Release, March 7, 2008)

So what is interesting about this? The fact that in 2008 virtually every major indicator of economic health surpasses those of 1996, yet the tone adopted by Democrats and their flunkies in the Press is of unmitigated gloom and doom. A useful chart of the actual numbers is also included in the Corner's posting. Read the whole thing, then ask yourself if the media and the Democrats' lines of economic disaster ring entirely true.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Despite Media Drumbeat, Economy Not So Bad

The media has been busily telling us how bad the economy is for the better part of the past seven years, never acknowledging the facts. In recent months, as their goal of electing a Democrat becomes ever more possible, the bad news on the economic front- whether justified or not- has increased correspondingly. Unfortunately, despite their best attempts, the economy is not cooperating as they would probably like.

A case in point is the housing industry. Home sales have been dropping for the past six months, and in advance of the latest release of data, reporters have been busy telling us how bad the housing industry is going to be. The numbers for February were released today, but unfortunately for the media, home sales actually increased in February! Not that the actual facts stopped the media from painting the news in the bleakest possible light. As the Associated Press report puts it,

Analysts cautioned against reading too much into the one-month rise in sales. Many economists are predicting that the steep slump in housing will not bottom-out until later this year after prices fall further and allow huge levels of unsold inventories to be reduced.

And of course, the AP then inserted the requisite warning about a recession they have been trying to provoke for seven years, and also managed to include a plug for the Democratic Party's preferred 'solutions'- more government! The article continued,

The steep slump in housing has raised concerns about a possible recession. Democrats are pushing the Bush administration to do more to stem a tidal wave of mortgage foreclosures to keep more unsold homes from being dumped on an already glutted market.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Monday called on President Bush to appoint an emergency working group on foreclosures to recommend new ways to confront the housing crisis.

"Over the past week, we've seen unprecedented action to maintain confidence in our credit markets and head off a crisis for Wall Street banks," Clinton said. "It's now time for equally aggressive action to help families avoid foreclosure and keep communities across this country from spiraling into recession."

This is wonderful news overall. If the media and the government would simply allow the market to work on its own, I am confident that the nation will manage to survive the fall in home prices, considering that the housing market has been overheated for some time- especially in the San Francisco area where I reside. But of course, if the media reported the facts on the ground without their usual bias, the chances of electing a Democrat in November would lessen- and that is definitely not the result that the media want to see. So they continue to push their recession theories. We can only hope that the recession theory bears as little relation to the truth the media's line on Iraq, global warming and most other stories that find their way to the mainstream media's front pages.

The Myth of European Superiority

Liberals and their shills in the mainstream media have been trumpeting the benefits of European society- low crime, high benefits and so forth, for as long as I can remember. These arguments are used primarily to convince wary Americans that the European model is vastly superior to ours. However, is this view of the EU really true? Recently I have seen two articles that suggest this may not in fact be the case.

Firstly, in an article on Trading Markets.com, the European Union was celebrating the fact that unemployment had dropped to the lowest rate in twenty-five year- to a mere 6.9 percent. As reported by TradingMarkets.com,

The average unemployment rate in major European Union (EU) countries stands at 6.9 percent and is the lowest in 25 years, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Tuesday.

"I very much welcome the European Growth and Jobs Monitor's main message: that despite the decade-long defeatism of the cynics -- Lisbon is working," Barroso said in a statement on the newly-released European Growth and Jobs Monitor, a competitiveness ranking jointly developed by German insurer Allianz SE and the Brussels-based think tank Lisbon Council.

The study aims to measure the performance of 14 European countries in implementing the so-called Lisbon Growth and Jobs Strategy.

Of course, this is still a full two percentage points above the US unemployment rate, which was recorded as being 4.9 in the last reports from the US government. Remind me again about the European Union's superior economy?

Secondly, it appears that the supposed safe havens European cities are so often presented to be is also a myth. And the answer appears to be yes. It is well-known that since the British disarmed the population, violent crime in Britain has skyrocketed. A study by Sean O'Neill of the London Telegraph concluded (perhaps surprisingly) that the United States is among the middle-ranking countries in crime statistics- the list is dominated by European countries. Mr. O'Neill writes that,

PEOPLE living in England and Wales are at greater risk of falling victim to crime than citizens of most other industrialised nations, according to a study published yesterday.

The International Crime Victims Survey, based on 34,000 telephone interviews across 17 countries, found that 26 per cent of people - more than one in four - in England and Wales had been victims of crime in 1999. The figure for Scotland was 23 per cent and in Northern Ireland 15 per cent.

...

After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 per cent), Sweden (25 per cent) and Canada (24 per cent). The United States, despite its high murder rate, was among the middle ranking countries with a 21 per cent victimisation rate.

However, in this area, England is definitely not alone. It appears that other European cities are also experiencing similarly high crime rates. The Power Line blog reported on an article first published in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten which lamented the fact that crime in Oslo, Norway's capital city, is now four times as high as in New York- long the city that set the standard for Europeans to deplore the United States' crime. The newspaper goes on to report that,

Oslo had the highest rate per person in Scandinavia in terms of reported crimes, with 90 reported crimes per 1,000.

Copenhagen had 50 crimes reported per 1,000 and Stockholm had 79.

In New York, there were 22 reported crimes per 1,000 inhabitants.

This means there were four times as many reported crimes per person in Oslo as in New York.

So in other words, in any one of the Scandinavian capitals, a resident or visitor is far more likely to be the victim of a crime than in infamously violent New York? And the mainstream media have managed to completely ignore this little statistic? Hmmm. I wonder if the statistics were reversed, how many US and European front pages would be screaming about how violent the United States is and how we need more gun control? Oh, wait- this is the mainstream media- they are defined by their lack of principle and objectivity.

Between these stories, is it any wonder that Americans are somewhat reluctant to adopt the EU's high taxes, low level of personal protection, complete lack of military muscle to defend themselves and their willingness to welcome aliens who have no interest in assimilation, only invasion and conquest?

AP Highlights Jobs Cut- Ignores Unemployment Drop

According to an Associated Press report today via Yahoo! News, employers eliminated 63,000 jobs in the month of February- the most in five years. Naturally, the headline at Yahoo! screamed "Employers Slash Jobs by Most in 5 Years". It is in the interests of the national media to make the economic picture seem as bleak as possible- it increases the chances of a Democrat getting elected in November. The reporter, one Jeannine Aversa, writes,

Employers slashed 63,000 jobs in February, the most in five years and the starkest sign yet that the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.

Unfortunately, for the media, the numbers don't actually play along- unemployment actually dropped despite the job cuts. To Aversa's credit, she included the good unemployment numbers in her second paragraph, thought she seems to feel constrained to paint it in a gloomy manner, writing,

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also indicated that the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 percent as hundreds of thousands of people -- perhaps discouraged by their prospects -- left the civilian labor force. The jobless rate was 4.9 percent in January.

Ms. Aversa, this doesn't make sense. If thousands of people left the workforce, how could the unemployment rate drop? If employers cut jobs, one would expect to see the jobless rolls swell. However, this ahas not actually occurred. Therefore, one can reasonably assume that the economy is doing just fine- so fine that it can absorb these job losses without so much as a hiccup.

However, that narrative does not seem to match the national media's preferred scenario. So Aversa continues with the doom-and-gloom pen, writing that,

With the economy losing momentum, fears have grown that the country in on the brink of its first recession since 2001.

Economic growth slowed to a near standstill of just a 0.6 percent pace in the final quarter of last year. Many economists predict growth in the January-to-March quarter will be worse -- around a 0.4 percent pace. Some believe the economy is shrinking now.

Spreading fallout from the housing and credit debacles are the main factors behind the economic slowdown. People and businesses alike are feeling the strains and have turned cautious. Adding to the stresses on pocketbooks, budgets and the economy: skyrocketing energy prices. Oil prices have set a string of record highs in recent days. Gasoline prices have marched higher, too.

To help shore up the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled last week that the central bank is prepared to lower interest rates again. Economists predict another cut on March 18, the Fed's next meeting. The Fed, which has been slicing the rate since September, recently turned more forceful. It slashed the rate by 1.25 percentage points in the course of just eight days in January -- the biggest one-month reduction in a quarter century.

The White House and Congress, meanwhile, speedily enacted an economic relief package, including tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. That -- along with the Fed's rate cuts -- should help give a lift to the economy in the second half of this year, says Bernanke.

Still, unemployment is expected to move higher this year. The Federal Reserve predict the jobless rate will rise to as high as 5.3 percent in 2008. Last year, the unemployment rate averaged 4.6 percent.

All the economy's troubles are putting people in a gloomy mood.

If the press had reported the economy accurately for the past six years, I suspect people might not be in such a gloomy mood. If the press could put the US economy in perspective- for example, comparing our economy with that of say, Germany or France or any other country in Europe, people might realize that things are not as bad as the press wants to paint them. But of course that would require objective reporting, and would lessen the possibility of electing a Democrat in November.

Flat Tax Succeeds, Media Silent

In the United States, the flat tax has long been an object of complete derision by the media and the Democratic Party. However, as the Investors' Business Daily (IBD) reported in an editorial on Spetember 24, Eastern Europe is rushing to embrace flat taxes and it has already caused massive improvements. Yet the American press has been completely silent. Accident or deisgn? I fear the latter, as it does not fit the media's preferred mold.

However, their silence is becoming increasingly unsustainable. According to the IBD,

In America, cutting tax rates is an ideological issue. In the former Soviet satellites of Europe, it is increasingly not an issue at all — so obvious is it that it gives people better lives.

It began with Estonia in 1994, when Mart Laar as prime minister, thinking he was just emulating the capitalist West, made it the world's first nation in modern times to enact a flat tax. A major fiscal crisis resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union was soon fixed, Estonia was growing at 7% a year and the "Baltic Tiger" was born.

...

Nearby nations soon began getting their feet wet. First, Latvia and Lithuania, both at rates of about 25%. Then Russia in 2001 enacted a flat tax on personal income at 13%; revenues doubled there in less than three years.

Serbia followed in 2003 with a 14% flat rate. Ukraine set its flat tax at 13% in 2004.

Slovakia activated its 19% flat rate the same year. Romania's flat tax was pegged at 16% in 2005.

Georgia outdid them all, passing a 12% flat tax into law on an overwhelming parliamentary vote just before Christmas 2004. Macedonia's flat tax rate, inaugurated this year, is also 12%.

And the flat tax has improved conditions in every single state that has adopted it. Yet the media and the Democrats continue to claim that our progressive tax code is necessary. Maybe necessary to the reams of tax lawyers, IRS flunkies and people like most Congressmen who can afford to pay others to find the loopholes, but certainly not necessary to ordinary people like me. The flat tax has been proven in Eastern Europe. How much could we increase our economy if only the cowardly politicians in Washington and their socialistic flunkies in the media would actually report honestly on the European experience with the flat tax. They would prefer to sugarcoat the ravages of socialism than tell the truth about a capitalist success, it would seem.

Economy Good: Media Disregards Story

The Drudge Report has a front-page headline about the good news from the economy this morning. The headline links to an extensive story in Bloomberg News covering the economic news in detail. But it seems that for the majority of the media, this is not news that they wish to highlight.

While the New York Times did not appear to consider this news as important as the report on the Viriginia Tech shootings, they did place a link to a short summary of the news on their front page in the 'Other News' section. On the other hand, CNN has so far not even mentioned the good economic news. ABC News has the Chinese toy-recall story placed prominently on their main page, but also seems to have missed the economic news as of 0825 hours Pacific time.

As for the other major news networks, MSNBC does have a link on their front page, stating the 4 percent growth that is the heart of the eceonomic report. Unlike the times, MSNBC did consider the economic news to be one of their top stories.

CBS News considered the Virginia Tech report, a story on an audit of Iraqi leaders and a record temperature in Phoeniz all important enough to be top stories. However, as of 0832 Pactiic time this morning, one had to scroll down to 'Economic News' in order to discover that Economy Grows Despite Housing Woes. There is not a single mention of the 4 percent growth numbers.

Fox News has a link under "Latest news' that announces the 4 percent growth numbers. Surprisingly for a "right-wing" news outlet, Fox also do not have these numbers as their main headline- that honor was reserved for the GAO Iraq progress report and a story on Senator Hillary Clinton's Chinese money. However, their story was fairly detailed, unlike that of the New York Times.

All in all, it seems that the New York Times, ABC, Fox and MSNBC found the economic news worthy of reporting in some manner, though none of them made it their leading story. However, CNN did not even have a link and CBS buried it as far as they could. One would almost think that the media had some interest in not reporting this news. It is a pity that good news does not get the same press as bad news, but then it would seem that as long as George W. Bush occupies the White House that the media in this country will do their utmost to downplay any postitives.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters. Hat tip to the Drudge Report.