Michael Lissack in the bucket of the national debt, but as benefits conferred by a bountiful government. When Congress voted to expand the deficit by cuffing taxes and in- creasing spending during the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings decade, the news accounts focused on the desirable aspects of these steps-the economic ben- efits being handed out, the political support the policies enjoyed, the career progress being made by the measures' sponsors. The effect on the deficit was either ignored or covered perfunctorily as a subsidiary issue, a matter of secondary importance. By the same token, news stories about proposals or actions to cut the deficit by reducing specific spending streams or raising specific taxes fo- cused on the steps' negative aspects-the dislocations they would cause, the political opposition they were arousing, the social callousness of the con- servatives supporting the moves. The stories ignored or played down the positive effect on the deficit such steps would have. In other words, during the decade in which the federal deficit exploded to meltdown proportions, there were lots of news stories about government's taking steps to reduce the deficit, there were plenty of news stories about government's providing the people with the bounties of various tax cuts and spending programs, but there were no news stories about government adding to the deficit even though that was what was happening. Thus, the fiscal actions government took in this period and the news reports the press ran about them amounted to a charade. The public's power to tax and spend was exercised in a way designed to create a misleading impression of advantage and benevolence. In some cases real benefits were handed out amid much fanfare and credit claiming, while the costs were carefully concealed. In other cases benefits were simulated, while a prior and controlling refusal to impose the requisite costs, a refusal that rendered the benefits illusory, was concealed. In no case were actions taken and reported in their real-world context in which there is no free lunch, benefits come with a price tag attached, and policy is made by striking a balance between anticipated costs and anticipated benefits. In all cases actions were taken and reported in an artificial, journalistic context in which costs and benefits
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