No Fear of Freedom

February 25, 2004

Bushwa Giveth While He Taketh Away - Media's Thinktank Failure

Debate Over Exporting Jobs Raises Questions on Policies

Programs for worker retraining and education will require political commitment and financing. Many labor experts note that the 1,200 two-year community colleges, which do much of the nation's worker training, are an important educational resource for retraining people for new jobs. President Bush, in his State of the Union address, proposed a $250 million initiative for community colleges.

But by cutting federal financing for other occupational education and job training programs at community colleges by roughly the same amount, the White House's budget effectively undercuts President Bush's promises.

Course, he brayed about the giving, but not the taking away. The article also says:

And many analysts are much more worried that proposals for government curbs on the use of offshore workers are the advance guard of an unfortunate drift toward trade protectionism.

"The impulse is understandable,'' said Clyde V. Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute in Washington and a former trade negotiator. "But it would be nice in a campaign year to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot if we can."

Some say the Economic Strategy Institute is centrist, some say mostly conservative. Prestowitz was a trade negotiator for the Raygun administration. He's a former CEO, and his institute gets 34% of its funding from corporations and 33% from foundations. The rest is generated internally. That's about all I could track down in an hour and a half of searching. It's interesting how difficult it is to trace thinktank funding. Of course, ESI's "non-partisan." They all are, no matter how far left or right. Otherwise they lose they're tax shelter.

"Conservative" thinktanks outspend left of center thinktanks by at least 2-1. Because donations are tax free, the tax payers are subsidizing the propaganda with which they are assaulted. FAIR reports, based on a Nexis search:

Number of Media Citations by Ideology

Conservative or
Right-Leaning 12,141 47%

Centrist 10,552 41%

Progressive or
Left-Leaning 3,204 12%

The left-leaning figure is down from 16% in 1997, and left-leaning thinktanks are labeled as such more often than right-wing thinktanks. In 1997, the extreme right wing Heritage Foundation was cited without a label 68% of the time. Ahh, fair and balanced. Just like Faux News.

posted 5:24 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

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