Why can't the media understand both sides of the ledger?

Matt Duffy makes an important comment this morning about the media bias on how to report the story on spending/taxes for hurricane relief (and ultimately the Iraq war). The media is ready to make any comment possible about Bush's resistence to tax increases but are not ready to make the same comment about possibilities of spending cuts. In the case of the Iraq war they decry the effort and wonder how we can pay for it without new taxes. In the case of Katrina, an event mostly outside of mortal control, they simply cajole the President to raise taxes.

As a professor at HBS once said "accounting is about the whereget and the wheregone" - indeed the constant harrangue from most of the media is about the whereget - taxes. Were this emergency in a family, the first thing most families would look at would be the wheregone side of the equation. My wife has complained about the increasing price of gas (a minor emergency) but has she gone out and tried to increase her income to solve the problem of $50 tanks? No, she has begun to use fuel more carefully, has found a carpooling buddy to work and other things. If she can understand that - why can't the media?