Since September 11th, Main Focus on Terror Attacks and Their Aftermath
Aired October 29, 2001 - 09:56 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Finally today, our world stood still on September 11th, and since then, it seems our main focus has been on the terror attacks and their aftermath.
But leave it to our Bruce Morton to tell us it's time for a reality check.
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BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes the news media turn into Johnny one-notes, covering one story intensely, ignoring others. For weeks, before September 11th, that story was named Gary Condit, and we all looked pretty foolish.
Now we are concentrated on Afghanistan and anthrax, the war against terror. That's a big story, worth a lot of coverage. But we are ignoring some other big stories while we concentrate on the war.
The biggest, probably, is that the United States is in a serious recession. We were headed there before the September attacks, but those have, of course, made it worse -- airlines, other tourist- related businesses, laying off people, bellowing for federal help.
The sagging stock market is part of it. Sagging corporate investment is part of it. But as "The Washington Post's" Robert Samuelson pointed out this past week, the biggest part is decreased consumer spending. That spending is what drives the market, and consumers had been spending heavily, to the point where they weren't saving and were running into debt. So they've cutback and we're in a recession.
Congress is working on bailout plans, but as Samuelson points out, the House bill gives more than twice as much relief to businesses as it does to consumers, and businesses, with plants not working at full capacity because of reduced demand, are not likely to rush into a lot of new investments. The House bill also repeals an obscure something called the "alternative minimum tax," which, according to the Liberal Citizens for Tax Justice, would give IBM $1.4 billion, General Motors $833 million, and so on. You have to wonder if this has anything to do with soft money political contributions from this company or that, but campaign finance legislation is another thing we're not worrying about anymore. So tax relief, but most of it for business, not for consumers, whose spending drives the economy, and not much help for state and local governments whose expenses, of course, have shot up because of the war. And the federal government, of course, will run a deficit this fiscal year; it's spending more, too. Which reminds me: the next time some expert announces we'll have x trillion dollars in surpluses over the next 10 years, tell him to sit down and be quiet.
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," is one chant you might use, but there are others. So we're covering the war, but the recession matters, too. And who was that fellow Condit?
I'm Bruce Morton.
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