The inside headline on a metro page in today's New York Times reads, "Bloomberg Passes Hat, Aiming at Corporate Help for City Budget Gap." On the same page of the Times metro section is a teacher-recruitment ad from the New York City Board of Education, the text of which reads in part, "No one ever goes back ten years later to thank a middle manager." Nowhere in the Times news article is the suggestion that if the mayor indeed wants corporate help to close the city's budget gap, it might behoove him to stop spending city money on ads that insult corporations.
Low Growth Rate: An article in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Bush Budget's Low Growth Rate for Medicare Is Questioned by Lawmakers." What is the "low" growth rate? The Times article makes clear that under the Bush budget, "Medicare spending would grow 73 percent in the next decade." The Times reports that "the Bush administration foresees increases averaging about 5.5 percent a year" over the course of the decade. The total cost of Medicare over the next decade, according to the Bush administration, will be $3 trillion. These numbers may be "low" compared to historic growth rates in Medicare or in private-sector health insurance costs, but they are high compared to inflation overall and high compared to the projected rates of growth in other government programs. The lawmakers may indeed be right that the growth rate is "low," but it's a matter under dispute. The Times headline sides with the complaining lawmakers against the Bush-budget-makers.