I can think of at least one example where the "prestigious" think tank, the Cato Institute, produced a ludicrous report. This was in the late 90's.
In chiding the Congressional budget Office for their estimates, the think tank said that a report the Congressional Budget Office released in 1991 or 1992 predicted huge budget deficits which never came to pass.
This is true. It did.
However, the Cato Institute report never got around to pointing out that the budget deficit plunged in 1993-Clinton's first year-and eventually went into surplus.
Here is a graph of the budget deficit. Notice how it goes up, up, up until Clinton takes office in 1993, then it goes down, down, down until it finally hits surplus:
Now, any estimate of future budget deficits made in 1991 or 1992 would have no way of knowing that the deficit would start shrinking in 1993. It would have to go by the rate of the increase in the previous years, which of course would yield extrememly high results.
Yet, the Cato Institute left all this out of it's report, and instead just said the Congressional Budget Office estimates were way, way out of line with what happened.
Obviously, even a junior high school student could see that, judging by the economic situation
when the estimates were made, which was pre-Clinton, the estimates would have to be high.
Now, if this sort of half-baked tripe is the kind of thing the "prestigious" Cato Institute puts out, why on earth should any media outlet quote them or pay them any mind at all?
On the basis of what I have seen here, to ignore the Cato Institute is not being biased in your reporting-it's simply doing your job!
