Media outlets ignore national debt in coverage of massive spending bill

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Media coverage of the massive $1.7-trillion government spending bill passed through Congress this week has almost entirely avoided mention of the nation's more than $31-trillion national debt.

MSNBC and CNN have largely sidestepped the issue while discussing the package, which passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, as 18 Senate Republicans joined the chamber's Democrats. Just nine House Republicans voted for it as well on Friday, and President Biden will sign it in the coming days.

But mentions of the "national debt" were hard to find in recent weeks. Former GOP congressman David Jolly, a political analyst for MSNBC, mentioned the Trump administration's "awful record on increasing the national debt" during a discussion about the spending bill. Jolly, who now openly supports Democrats, also said House Republicans as they take the majority will not "play nicely when it comes to raising the debt limit." 

According to a search of the term "national debt" on Grabien Media, there were three mentions of whether the new Congress will raise the "national debt ceiling" on CNN this month, and Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., in a separate MSNBC appearance said Democrats should try to raise the debt ceiling before Republicans take the majority, while admitting it had "obviously hasn't done anything to curtail the national debt."

President Joe Biden will soon sign the $1.7-trillion spending plan passed by Congress this week into law. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images) (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

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MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, also an ex-GOP congressman, noted the country's "$31 trillion debt" in a show earlier this month. But most discussion of the so-called "omnibus" bill appeared to ignore the larger debt number.

According to a search, the New York Times' only mention of the term "national debt" in recent weeks came in a profile on Dec. 19 of former Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, where he mentioned his concern with the debt piling up at an "unimaginable rate."

The Washington Post's story on the final passage of the bill Friday showed a smiling Nancy Pelosi in the featured photograph, with the lead sentence describing it as "a sprawling year-end package that funds his top priorities, provides new aid to Ukraine and averts a government shutdown." The word "debt" did not appear in the article.

Neither did Politico's writeup of the passage, although it did refer to the staggering bill as "mammoth." Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a vocal opponent of the spending plan and its rushed passage, posed next to the more than 4,000 pages of the legislation this week in a viral photo.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took to Twitter on Tuesday to mock the 4,155 page $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that was made public earlier. (Sen. Rand Paul/Twitter)

Wire services like the Associated Press also discussed the ins and outs of the bill but also avoided the term "debt."

National Review, a conservative outlet, put out an editorial this week demanding an end to brinksmanship-style votes on measures of this magnitude, and criticized lawmakers for not meaningfully debating discretionary spending.

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"Yet again, the American people are being treated to a ‘Consolidated Appropriations Act’ that’s thousands of pages long, crammed with important policies, and largely unread by the people who will vote on it," they wrote.

"Mandatory spending — on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — is still driving the national debt, but if members can’t even meaningfully debate the parts that are supposed to be discretionary, there’s little hope of ever addressing our entitlement insolvency," the editors added.

Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell. (Getty Images)

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. supported the bill, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., also balked at the nation's debt in an op-ed for the Tampa Bay Times explaining his opposition. 

"America’s national debt is $31 trillion and growing. When are we going to be so fed up that we decide this isn’t sustainable? When we get to $35, $40 or $45 trillion in debt? Too many Democrats and Republicans in Washington are happy to close their eyes, plug their ears and pass another reckless, multi-trillion dollar spending bill we can’t afford," he wrote.

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The bill, among its many items, increases defense spending to $858 billion and domestic spending to $772.5 billion. It also allocated $45 billion in aid to Ukraine.

Requests for comment to MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico went unreturned.