The Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation ought to be happy. The coverage of the House budget resolution more or less includes their talking points about how "spending is the problem" with the federal budget. What's more, these ideas are not attributed; they're just presented as facts that the reporters decided, for an unnamed reason, to add to these stories. THe New York Times: Indeed, total government spending has climbed far faster under Mr. Bush than it did under President Bill Clinton, while tax revenue has climbed far more slowly. All told, federal debt has grown by almost $4 trillion since Mr. Bush took office. The Wall Street Journal: Given this uncertainty, Democrats argue their more incremental approach is the better course to restore more discipline. But they have made little attempt to address the rising costs of benefit programs, and much rests on Congress's ability to stay focused on deficit reduction. Neither of these passages seem to make factual errors. Yes, spending has exceeded revenues- that's called a running a deficit (Someone explain to me how else you run a deficit, I'm curious). And no, the Democrats haven't made an attempt to address "benefit program" costs, which I'm assuming is a clever new way to lump together the problems in Medicare and Medicaid with Social Security and perhaps all other domestic aid programs. Why aren't the reporters more specific about what type of spending they're talking about? And what exactly rests on Congress's ability to reduce the deficit? Cutting "benefit programs," you know, isn't the only way to reduce the deficit, though that's pretty much how it's framed here. These reporters are doing Cato and Heritage's work for them. Who do these reporters work for- the public or radically conservative policy shops?