U.S. President Joe Biden will introduce his first budget for the federal government tomorrow. The mainstream media is already filled with hundreds of articles about it – even before it has been issued.
Contrast the attention to the budget to the coverage of the annual Financial Report of the U.S. Government. That report was released about two months ago -- to deafening silence. Mainstream media coverage was basically zilch.
Not to end the week on a depressing note, but this doesn’t bode well for the future of our Republic.
Back in March, the federal government released a report showing marked and accelerating deterioration in our federal government’s financial position. And nobody cared. But the budget gets a lot of attention.
Why? A simple reason could be that many more people care about the government spending money than the number of people that care about the government accounting for that money.
There are words, and there are deeds, the old saying goes.
A month ago – about a month after the actual financial results for the federal government for fiscal 2020 were released – President Biden delivered another first – his first “State of the Union” address.
There were more than 6,000 words in that speech. How many times did the word “debt” appear, in a speech on the heels of a huge increase in federal government debt?
Not once. Zilch.
How about the word “deficit?” Only once, in the following:
So how do we pay for my Jobs and Family Plans? I’ve made clear that we can do it without increasing deficits.
At least he didn’t say he made it “perfectly clear.”
Biden isn’t alone, of course. Presidents from both sides of the aisle have given short shrift to reporting on the fiscal state of the federal government in their “State of the Union” addresses. And the media has long stressed reporting on budgets before results, whoever has control of Congress or the White House.
About time to close up shop for the holiday weekend. But that budget deserves some scrutiny, and in light of the overlooked (and dismal) results in the Financial Report of the U.S. Government.