THINK MAGAZINE: 8 LIES REPUBLICANS WANT US TO BELIEVE

Thursday, 24 May 2012

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8 Lies Republicans Want Us To Believe

Politics - Democracy

Written by Dave Johnson

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Tags: elections 2010 | Obama | propaganda | Republicans

8 Lies Republicans Want Us To Believe

bush lied

During this election campaign the American public has been inundated with lies from the Republican Party. Some of these lies have been told and repeated for so long that they have assumed the proportions of myth, and are accepted by a great many Americans. But they are still just Republican lies. But Dave Johnson over at Campaign for America's Future has combined them into one very good post. He cuts through all the BS and exposes these mythic lies, and then tells the truth about them. Here are those 8 lies:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budgetreduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. 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.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (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.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

Don't believe the lies being told by Republicans. They just want to return to power, and they'll say anything to do that. If the American people fall for this nonsense and return them to power, the recession will continue unabated and the country will be damaged for many more years. Remember when you go to the polls this November, it was the Republican policies that put the American economy in the mess it is in right now and those policies have not changed.

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