Truthiness in Messaging

If there was ever a time that we should hook up public speakers to a lie detector, it was last night for the Republican response by Rep. Paul Ryan, I could go on for a long time about him, but instead I’ll just highlight some of the most blatant lies and pitiful attempts at obfuscation that were used.

“Our debt is the product of acts by many presidents and many Congresses over many years. No one person or party is responsible for it.” Right, except for the fact that the last Democratic president left us with a budget surplus and then a Republican president wiped that out by providing massive tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% and not paying for it. Oops.

“There is no doubt the President came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation.” Again, correct but he fails to mention who championed the deregulation which helped cause it. (Hint: It was Republicans)

“Unfortunately, instead of restoring the fundamentals of economic growth, he (President Obama) engaged in a stimulus spending spree that not only failed to deliver on its promise to create jobs, but also plunged us even deeper into debt.” But wait what about the 1.6 million jobs it has created so far?

Last, but not least, his argument against health care reform:

“What we already know about the President's health care law is this: Costs are going up, premiums are rising, and millions of people will lose the coverage they currently have. Job creation is being stifled by all of its taxes, penalties, mandates and fees.”

Once again, reality is taking a pretty big hit here. Premiums aren’t going up, sorry. Employees of small firms would effectively see unchanged premiums, at large firms the premiums would be unchanged or go down a little and more than half of those who buy their own coverage would qualify for tax credits, earning a family of four up to $88,000 per year.

Next, it’s not really a job killing bill. In fact HCR could increase jobs by 250,000 to 400,000 per year over the coming decade.

Those millions of people who are losing their coverage, yeah, that’s actually from a study where 123 million people would choose a public option if it were cheaper than their current coverage, but since there’s no public option I guess we won’t have to worry about this.

As an extra bonus, for all those Republicans concerned about the deficit, if we repeal HCR, the Congressional Budget Office expects that the deficit would increase by $145 BILLION from 2012-2019 and if you go to 2021 it’s an increase of $230 BILLION. Now that’s not very responsible.

Stay tuned for our look at one of our favorite ranting, raving, right-wingers, Michelle Bachmann and her response to the State of the Union.