{"id":3059,"date":"2010-10-26T00:54:49","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T07:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3059"},"modified":"2010-10-26T01:01:21","modified_gmt":"2010-10-26T08:01:21","slug":"eight-false-things-the-public-knows-that-just-aint-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3059","title":{"rendered":"Eight False Things The Public “Knows” That Just Aint So"},"content":{"rendered":"

OurFuture.org<\/a> has put together a list that should be in every American’s mailbox before election day. It’s a perfect manifestation of Mark Twain’s admonition that, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”<\/em> So here is a short list of some things the GOTea Party “knows”<\/em> for sure:<\/p>\n

\n1) President Obama tripled the deficit.<\/strong>
\nReality: Bush’s last budget<\/a> had a $1.416 trillion deficit<\/a>. Obama’s first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.<\/strong>
\nReality: Obama cut taxes<\/a>. 40% of the “stimulus”<\/em> was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt<\/a>, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.<\/p>\n

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.<\/strong>
\nReality: While many people conflate the “stimulus”<\/em> with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush<\/a> and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts<\/a> to be “non-reviewable by any court or any agency.”<\/em>) The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election<\/em> of President Obama.<\/p>\n

4) The stimulus didn’t work.<\/strong>
\nReality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough<\/a>. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office<\/a>, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.<\/p>\n

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts<\/a>.<\/strong>
\nReality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand<\/a>. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.<\/strong>
\nReality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme<\/a>, is “going broke,”<\/em> people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.<\/strong>
\nReality: Social Security<\/a> has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound<\/a> for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit<\/a> (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.<\/p>\n

8‌) Government spending takes money out of the economy.<\/strong>
\nReality: Government is We, the People<\/a> and the money it spends is on We, the People<\/a>. Many people do not know that it is government that builds<\/a> the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives<\/strong>. Many people think that all government spending is on “welfare”<\/em> and “foreign aid”<\/em> when that is only a small part of the government’s budget.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fact that there are so many people who believe things that are demonstrably untrue is a sad reflection on the media that ought to be informing the public. And worse, it’s evidence of how the corporations that control the press so blatantly misrepresent the truth. That’s why it’s so important for the rest of us to pass along the information above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OurFuture.org has put together a list that should be in every American’s mailbox before election day. It’s a perfect manifestation of Mark Twain’s admonition that, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” So here is a short list of some things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[183,218,301,534],"class_list":["post-3059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-democrats","tag-republicans","tag-tea-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-Nl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5862,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5862","url_meta":{"origin":3059,"position":0},"title":"Chris Christie Rebuts His Hallucination Of Obama","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/29\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A new video soundbite has been making the rounds of conservative media, particularly Fox News. 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And of course, it was a discourse that utterly abandoned known\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=219"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9190,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9190","url_meta":{"origin":3059,"position":4},"title":"Conservatives Struck By Epidemic Of Sequester Pychosis Syndrome","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/27\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"As the deadline approaches for congress to take action on the indiscriminate budget cuts they themselves voted for, the wailing on the part of conservative politicians and pundits is reaching ear-shattering decibel levels. 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