Pardon the cartoon strip [Washington Post, 12/22.12], but it speaks a truth about news reporting and politics. Our cartoonist/commentator, however, misses a variant: Unasked questions. And another: Unavailable politicians. As found elsewhere in this blog, our First Amendment press freedom clause is meant to keep the federal government from stifling – or blocking – criticism of the government and its officials. But, unfortunately, some members of the Fourth Estate fail to exercise that right listed so high in our Bill of Rights. Unfortunate for citizens of this great land. A reader might expect that here would begin a listing of questions and answers that should have been asked (but were not), unanswered questions, and answers that were followed up with more questions. Listing any of those could reveal – or imply or lead to inferences of – partisan bias. The intent is to beg consideration of a basic need in a country such as the United States, which probably is the only country so far extent on the earth that has shown the potential of true greatness as far as governmental structure is concerned. That need is for a free press to do its duty under the system. The questions the press, in all its variations, asks and its persistence in demanding honest answers to those questions sum up the basic stuff of a government dependent upon the consent and the will of the people. Those reporting on what is happening in everyday as well as political life and then disseminating it (along with clearly labeled comment) are surrogates for citizens and all residents alike. Standing in for people who cannot witness in person what is going on is the purpose of the news business, regardless of how that news is delivered. Questions those people cannot ask, and answers they need to hear are the stuff of the news media. Government officials, under the U.S. system of self-government, need to answer those questions fully and truthfully (perhaps delaying only when national security is at stake) if the system is to work and to continue. Clients of the press who vastly outnumber their stand-ins must enforce the efficacy of this system. They do that by using the free market. Buy or refuse to buy the product, just as they make or break entrepreneurs. Readers, listeners, viewers should demand good questions, full answers and exposure of question-evaders by stopping subscriptions, turning knobs, flipping channels, closing Websites, cancelling apps. Conversely, good work by good news sources should be rewarded by usage and by buying products and services of advertisers.

DECREASE IN INCREASE

Cuts. That word appears in print and is heard on radio and television over and over when the subject is governmental spending or taxes.

Hikes. More. Increases. Those words should rather be used. They would be true. “Cuts” generally is a falsehood, sometimes an outright lie.

Politicians and the reporters who cover them, not to mention the editors who oversee the wordsmiths, seldom tell us the truth about “cuts” in spending. For actual reductions in governmental outlays almost never occur.

Those supposed reductions are actually smaller additions to much larger outlays of taxpayer dollars. The reason is that federal budgeting – when it actually occurs and is enacted into law – begins with baselines, which is governmentese for spending requests with inflation built in. Automatic increases, in other words.

And, one might notice, the talk about the Bush tax cuts, which were actual reductions in income tax rates that could only be agreed to by the political parties in Congress if they had an expiration date. The “cuts” in this instance are really current rates. There is, thankfully, a recent tendency in news and commentary to refer to them as the Bush tax rates. Those rates were actually extended the last time the problem of governmental expenditures and debt were at the forefront. If those Bush rates were kept in place there would be no reductions in taxes; if they were allow to expire at the end of the year, there indeed would be increases in tax rates for the next tax year.

So, the reader might ask here, what’s new about that? And the answer is nothing. Still, should not all of us – taxpayer and beneficiary of governmental largess – call an increase an increase? Maybe such truth-telling would result in some worthwhile public discourse, instead of political deception.

WAIT TO SEE

Today the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial spoke a truth that should be worked into every conversation – argument – about the fiscal cliff, sequestration and the general state of federal budgeting.

“Since 1974,”  it said, “Capitol Hill’s ‘baseline’ has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which mean before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms.”

In other words, cuts in proposed federal spending are no such things; cuts are smaller increases in spending.

With such “cuts” budgets can never, never shrink. Revenue can never be grown to catch up with the spending.

Whenever a politician utters the word “cut” he or she should be challenged.

Reporters and pundits never ask politicians about that truth. Certainly, never is the president asked to explain.

Roughly, in recent fiscal years, our governmental keepers (take that in any sense and it now seems to fit) the tax collectors take in something like 2 trillion dollars but the lawmakers spend 3 trillion. The total gross national product is roughly 15 trillion. Thirteen percent should be enough to buy whatever kind of government the nation needs, rather than 20 percent. Actually, the feds are now spending something like 23-25 percent of GDP rather than the 19-20 percent, which has been considered fairly normal in recent history. Add in state and local taxes as well as fees and other governmental extractions from the common pocketbook, and no wonder the burden is becoming unbearable.

And, of course, the national debt is more than 16.5 trillion dollars, which surpasses the GDP. That staggering debt that cannot be described in understandable terms except by astronomers talking with other astronomers about universal distances, so how can voters be made to understand that more spending is not the answer?

Warnings about the inevitable consequences seem of no avail. As Nancy Pelosi said about the Affordable Care Act before it became law: It will have to pass before you can know what’s in it. As ObamaCare is shaping up as it becomes effective, it ain’t affordable.

Thomas Paine, the Englishman who fomented the American Revolution, wrote in the introduction to his history-changing pamphlet Common Sense, “Time makes more converts than reason.”

Maybe the country will have to plunge over the cliff before its fate becomes clear. Politicians don’t learn without bruises.