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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Robert Schlesinger
Bachmann and Perry lead the GOP's all star falsehood squad
In politics these days, there are lies, "monstrous lies," and statistics. By lies I mean the mundane nonsense that dribbles out of politicians' mouths when the facts don't suit them or they just don't know any better. By "monstrous lies," if I can borrow the phrase of the moment, I refer to the grander deceptions swallowed by whole political movements, delusions and deceptions that infect larger issues of policy and worldview.
Statistics in this case, along with pesky facts, help expose and distinguish the two species of falsehood -- both of which have been on dramatic display during the
Take, for example, Michele Bachmann, who is practically a walking, talking full-employment plan for journalistic fact-checkers.
Appearing at a recent Republican debate (sponsored by
Bachmann was even more egregious after the debate, when she went on Fox News Channel, and later the Today show, and asserted that Gardasil, the vaccine that Texas Gov. Rick Perry had tried to mandate for Texas schoolgirls, caused "mental retardation." It's such whole-cloth twaddle that even the likes of Rush Limbaugh ("she might have jumped the shark") and the Weekly Standard ("Bachmann seemed to go off the deep end") blasted her for it.
But Bachmann is literally and figuratively small potatoes, Perry's arrival having returned her to the
lower tier of
The phrase of course comes from his memorable description of
"It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you've paid into a program that's
going to be there," Perry said at his first presidential debate. "Anybody that's for the status quo with
Elsewhere he has called the program "by any measure ... a failure" and cited it as "by far the best example" of an extra-constitutional program "violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles."
It's a catchy turn of argument, but one monstrously divorced from reality. His "failure" kept nearly 14
million seniors and 1.1 million children out of poverty last year, according to
Here are the facts about
Without any modification, it will pay out full benefits for the next 24 years. Starting in 2035, its trust fund will no longer be able to pay full benefits. Instead it will pay roughly three quarters benefits through 2084, which is as foreseeable a future as anyone can peer into in these matters -- a problematic future, but hardly a monstrous one and certainly not an impossible one.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office has produced 30 policy recommendations, some combination of which
could fix the
Obama "had
This gem -- a staple of
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the first round of stimulus created or saved between
1.3 million and 3.6 million jobs; HIS/Global Insight put the number at 2.45 million,
So instead forgo the inconvenient truth in favor of the monstrous lie.
These lies are monstrous because they are not one-offs, but are central to the
He may be able to do math, but his grasp on the facts is tenuous at best.
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The GOP's Lies and 'Monstrous' Lies | Politics
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