The Hill, an insider Capitol Hill newspaper, published a story Friday that reprinted the misleading talking point that the Democratic budget represents “the largest tax increase in American history” without any additional context:

GOP leaders Friday used new employment figures showing a job growth in March of 180,000 to attack the Democrats’ budget, which Republicans claim would include a large tax increase.

The Department of Labor reported the increase in payrolls Friday, and also said that the unemployment rate is 4.4 percent.

“Democrats needn’t look any further than this month’s job report for evidence of what broad-based tax relief and pro-growth policy-making can do for an economy,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “Unfortunately, the lessons of the past 12 years seem to have been lost on this new majority, as it has eschewed fiscal discipline in favor of advancing a budget that will impose the largest tax increase in American history.”

Instead of supporting economic growth, Blunt charges that the Democrats’ budget only expands “the size, scope, and reach of the federal government to historic, and very dangerous, new levels.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) also cited the job figures as “yet more proof that Republican policies are working.”

He strongly criticized the Democrats’ budget as policy that “will simply punish working families and slow the economic growth that continues to create the new jobs of tomorrow.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did better by printing a critique of the claim (which the NRCC is using to target a freshman Democrat), but presented the dispute in “he said”/”she said” format:

The NRCC argues that Mr. Altmire is supporting the “largest tax increase in American history” by backing a five-year budget plan that doesn’t renew the tax cuts pushed by President Bush in his first term. Mr. Altmire counters that Republicans, not Democrats, devised the tax cuts so they would expire in 2010.