WaPo fact checker gives Biden a pass on deficit claims

by Don Irvine on May 11, 2021

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, who recently announced that the paper will no longer maintain a database of President Joe Biden’s falsehoods, but promised that he would continue to rigorously fact-check the president, has gone back on that promise.

This week Kessler gave Biden a pass when it comes to his claims that his American Family Plan will not increase the deficit.

Kessler described how Biden proposed to pay for more than $4 trillion of government expenditures without increasing the deficit not even by a “single penny,” as the president has said repeatedly.

The president has proposed two main programs as part of his “Build Back Better” proposal, the American Jobs Plan, which would cost $2.25 trillion, and the American Family Plan, which comes in at $1.8 trillion.

Biden would do this with revenue from tax increases of $1.75 trillion tied to the American Jobs Plan over 10 years, while the American Family Plan claims revenue gains of $1.5 trillion over the same time period. But that still leaves Biden short in the neighborhood of $800 million.

Kessler explained that in order to cover the costs of his programs, Biden will extend the standard 10-year window that the federal budget is evalauted on to 15 years, which adds another $1 trillion in tax revenues and thus doesn’t increase the deficit, but notes that 15 years is “a long way off,” signaling his own doubts about Biden’s claim.

Moody’s Investor Service expressed concern about whether the plan to end some programs — such as an expanded child tax credit in 2026 — would actually occur and yield the revenue claimed by Biden.

Rather than call Biden out and award him any Pinocchios, despite amassing plenty of evidence that the claim is built on overly rosy assumptions, Kessler chose instead to pass the buck.

“We will leave the verdict to the official scorekeepers. The president may need to go back to the drawing board to fulfill his pledge if not adding even ‘a single penny’ to the deficit.”

Accuracy in Media

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