Feel strongly about an issue? Please use the form below to send us
your comments on the topics we cover! (If you prefer, you may also send your comments
to onlineda@newshour.org.)
I strongly disagree with your decision to cover this story by asking
a Republican representative's reactions without equal time given to an elected
Democrat's responses, or a White House representative. In this way you have given
the final word to a Republican without any recourse to the elected opposition.
It is exactly this type of coverage that weights public opinion away from any
sort of bipartisan approach to government. The news should not take part in making
the story by weighted commentary, unless it is presented as out of story commentary
-- such as Shields and Brooks. Otherwise the News Hour is no better than Fox News.
Carl W
Friday, January 29, 2010 6:57 PM
labor statistics
when Kwame Holman in his report Friday said "10 percent of Americans" are looking
for a job, he misstated the facts. Even allowing for the discouraged workers'
raising the rate to 17 percent, as economists would say, that's 10 or 17 percent
of the work force, not all Americans. The work force is variously estimated at
between 130,000 and 135,000, so even 17 percent would be much less than 10 percent
of all Americans. /carlw/
Brett L
Friday, January 29, 2010 7:39 PM
Shield/Brooks deficit discussion
Shame on Mark Shields for voicing a Republican half-truth about the
deficit: :The (US) “deficit is bigger than the national budgets" of most countries.
Of course it is. So is our GPD. The half-truth -- which is of course just a clever
way to lie -- distorts two nearly universally accepted truths. 1) The national
debt (deficit is just the annual contribution to the debt) is always analyzed
in comparison with that nation's GDP and is called the debt ratio. The US debt
ratio is not out of line with our Western European counterparts or in comparison
with the EU or with many other countries. 2) Mainstream, reputable economists
believe that it is the appropriate role of government to deficit spend during
economic bust cycles. This is in fact what all major ecomnomies did in 2009. I
believe, and I image the world believes, that this deficit spending was the right
thing to do to ease the suffering caused by the recession. To talk about the deficit
or the national debt as an absolute rather than a comparative number is to tell
a half-truth. To declare that deficit spending is inappropriate and not describe
when it is appropriate is a half-truth. Half-truths are lies. I expected better
from Mark Shields than to repeat these lies.