Time to Go Viral: Mark Twain Was Right/Eight False "Facts" On Which To Fight This Election

Via Digby, I came across Dave Johnson’s essential piece, “Eight False Things  The Public “Knows” Prior to Election Day.”

Here’s the link, and here’s the core of the post:

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.

This stuff really matters.

Yes it does.  I stole as much as I did of Johnson’s work because it matters so very much.  Go to his place to read the whole thing.  Then steal it too.  Let’s make this thing go as viral as we can in the nine days we have left.  I’m just sick of this election turning on lies; I’m sick of our country being bought and sold on the cheap.  Time to hit the bad guys every way we can — the high road, with facts like these…and Aqua Buddha too, over and over again….

So:  I’m going to twitter this, I’m going to stick the reference in every open thread of the blogs I visit that I can, and I urge those of you with the stomach for the comment threads on the other side of the fence to post it there too.  Post it in comment threads at MSM newspapers, at the CNN sites and so on.  Maybe we can get someone who hasn’t quite lost their mind to the other side to read it, and vote accordingly.

BTW:  for those who aren’t up on your Mark Twain aphorisms/cliches, the reference in the title is to this quote:

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.

That quote alone would make him the patron saint of much of what this blog is about — so in homage, this image:

Just a bit of homage, ya know.  Not bad for a man of 48.  I should look so good….

Image:  Mark Twain shirtless, c. 1883.

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Tags: Facts are Beautiful, Lies Republicans Tell, Stupidity, Why The Tea Party Makes Me Turn To Bourbon

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