Weekend Editorial Roundup

Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy:

• In an editorial titled, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” The Wall Street Journal questioned the CBO cost projections for the Senate healthcare bill. The Journal said the Baucus bill, “is ‘paid for’ with huge tax increases plus phantom spending cuts that will never happen in practice.”
• The New York Times praised the Baucus bill for being deficit neutral over 10 years and deficit reducing in the long-term. Yet The Times also criticized the accounting gimmicks used to meet President Obama’s goals.
• The Wall Street Journal called for the government to limit mortgage guarantees for small lenders. Taxpayer guarantees distort the housing market, making it more difficult for the government to eventually withdraw and for the U.S. to return to a private mortgage market.
• The Washington Post argued that the U.S. economy does not need more stimulus, even though it has the highest unemployment rate since 1983. The Post reasoned that the current stimulus is large enough and the U.S. cannot afford to add to the already enormous deficit that is one-tenth of GDP.

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