Opinion

Here’s How The New York Times Is Covering Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Vs. How They Covered Trump’s

   DailyWire.com
The New York Times Building is seen in New York City on February 4, 2021.
DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images

Two presidents of two different parties introduce infrastructure plans. The New York Times ran an article on each and the coverage couldn’t be more different.

When former President Donald Trump introduced a modest, $200 billion over 10 years, infrastructure plan, the Times covered it in a negative light, saying it hurt low-income communities and forced states to provide funding instead of having it all come from the federal government – which the Times reported as a bad thing. Compare that to recent coverage of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion over 8 years plan, in which the Times focused on Biden’s alleged intent behind the plan, saying the money would be used to help people.

Eddie Zipperer noted the difference on Twitter, highlighting a passage from each article about the contents of the respective president’s plans.

The bias starts in the headlines, with article about Trump’s infrastructure plan reading, “Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Puts Burden on State and Private Money.” The article about Biden’s plan, meanwhile, has this headline: Biden Details $2 Trillion Plan to Rebuild Infrastructure and Reshape the Economy.”

Notice the negativity in the headline regarding Trump’s plan with the use of the word “burden,” where as the headline about Biden’s plan includes positive words “rebuild” and “reshape.” The article about Trump’s plan included no sub-headline, but the one about Biden’s plan includes the following:

The president will begin selling his proposal on Wednesday, saying it would fix 20,000 miles of roads and 10,000 bridges, while also addressing climate change and racial inequities and raising corporate taxes.

The tone and focus differences only get starker further into the article, as Zipperer noted. The costs of the plans were treated differently. Here’s how the Times reported on the payment plan for Trump’s infrastructure plan:

Coming up with the $200 billion in federal funding will not be easy. Republicans have already ballooned the deficit in last week’s spending agreement and with their tax cuts. Democrats are unlikely to go along with cuts that would offset the cost of Mr. Trump’s plan.

And here’s how the cost of Biden’s plan was described:

But even spread over years, the scale of the proposal underscores how fully Mr. Biden has embraced the opportunity to use federal spending to address longstanding social and economic challenges in a way not seen in half a century. Officials said that, if approved, the spending in the plan would end decades of stagnation in federal investment in research and infrastructure — and would return government investment in those areas, as a share of the economy, to its highest levels since the 1960s.

The Times did note that Republicans are unlikely to go along with Biden’s plan given the amount of spending and the corporate tax increases that would pay for it. Unlike the Times article about Trump’s infrastructure plan, the Biden article doesn’t contain continuous quotes from critics.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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