Being a budget reporter at the Washington Post is a full-time job. In principle, its reporters should have the time to verify the truth or falsehood of specific claims about the budget. Washington Post readers mostly have other jobs, they do not have the time to independently verify the budget claims that they read in the paper. This is why the Post did not do its readers a service when it printed the statement from Rep. Paul D. Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, that "the numbers are crystal clear, and they tell the truth, ...This budget, the Democratic budget, gives us the largest tax increase in American history." As best I can tell (I haven't done the homework myself) this assertion is not even close to being true, but in any case it is an assertion that is in principle verifiable -- either the tax increase implied by letting a portion of the Bush tax cuts expire is the biggest tax increase in history or it is not. The reporter at the Washington Post who writes on the budget should be in a position to tell the Post's readers that either Mr. Ryan is correct and we are about to see a really big tax increase or alternatively, that the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee is spewing nonsense.
--Dean Baker
