March 08, 2009

Wallace allowed McCain to falsely claim CBO says spending will "cause us to have a negative ... GDP growth"

Media Matters - Wallace allowed McCain to falsely claim CBO says spending will "cause us to have a negative ... GDP growth"

Chris Wallace allowed Sen. John McCain to falsely claim that, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "[a]ll of this spending, all of this debt, all of the policies" will, "in the long term, cause us to have a negative ... GDP growth." In fact, CBO has predicted a slight reduction in long-term GDP growth when compared to current projections -- though not enough to result in negative GDP growth -- due to the "crowding-out" effect of the increase in government debt resulting from the economic recovery act.