The great Republican lie about Obama and Bush
Read Time:2 Minute, 28 Second
The Republicans want you to think that Obama is worse for the country than Bush. Then again the Republicans want you to believe that climate change is a hoax
Problem: Your Republican co-worker is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about “Obama spending” and “Obama deficits” and how the “Stimulus” just made things worse. Solution: Here are three “reality-based” charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.
Spending
Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.
Deficits
Notes, this chart includes Clinton’s last budget year for comparison.
The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. People who claim that Obama “tripled the deficit” are either misled or are trying to mislead.
The Stimulus and Jobs
In this chart, the RED lines on the left side — the ones that keep doing DOWN — show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines — the ones that just go UP — show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.
It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.
Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!
More False Things
These are just three of the false things that everyone “knows.” Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is “going broke”, government spending “takes money out of the economy.”
Why This Matters
These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama — tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want — when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Excellent post. I agree that the hard-core Righties will dismiss this as voodoo economics. Lies promoted by the same bunch that cooked up climate change. They won’t believe anything until it comes crashing down on their heads, then they’ll blame the Dems anyway.
Too true. Too damn true.
It is amazing to me how many people could never be convinced by something like this. A my-party-first, hard core right winger would just attack the stats depicted in the graph as being a liberal hoax–numbers cooked up by the opposition. There is no changing the minds of the hard-headed. Frustrating. Great post, Mike.
I try to convince the Rightists in my family that they are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. So far, haven’t even made a dent. And yes, I’ve heard the ‘big liberal hoax,’ defense.
Graphs are great, my concern is where Obama is chopping the money from the budget. Seems like the middle class and poor are not only being taxed unfairly, but their benefits are being swept away. Why does NASCAR getting federal funding and not NPR? Obama gives way too many concessions to Republicans who would not give a crumb to a starving man…
Luckily nobody I know would send me a Limbaugh/FAUX false fact e-mail. They fear my response as well they should! 🙂