To listen to Conservatives, you might think that the Obama Administration is a threat to the very survival of our nation. According to conservative right-wing propagandists, under President Obama the federal deficit has skyrocketed, taxes have been raised, the banks were given free money in the form of a bail out, the stimulus was a failure, health care will bankrupt American business and ruin the American economy, Social Security is a “ponzi scheme,” and businesses will only employ workers again if we cut the taxes of the wealthy. Really?
Every one of these so-called facts is a lie!. A big lie! Lies that Tea Party and mainstream Republicans alike have been repeating over and over through the media, including through hundreds of million of dollars worth of political ads during the recently completed mid-term elections. The theory is that if you tell a big enough lie often enough then people will begin to believe it.
The truth of course is very different.
The annual federal deficit was a record $1.416 trillion in fiscal year (FY) 2009 — the last budget of the Bush Administration. The deficit dropped to $1.294 trillion in FY2010, and the Congressional Budget Office estimate for FY 2011 is $1.066 trillion. Not good for sure, but at least headed in the right direction.
President Obama passed tax cuts as part of the 2009 stimulus that went to 95 percent of the American people.
The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was signed into law by President Bush and as of Sept. 30, 2010, the government had spent $388 billion of the $700 billion, and $204 billion of that has been repaid. The projected final cost of the “bailout” is now estimated at $50 billion and that doesn’t even consider the very positive impact on jobs in the US automotive sector.
The $787 billion stimulus shored up demand for the past two years and saved between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.
The Health Care Affordability Act will provide a competitive market place for small businesses to obtain insurance for their employees, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget office estimates that health care reform as passed will cut the federal deficit by $138 billion over the next 10 years.
By definition, a ponzi scheme can’t be underwritten by federal tax revenues as is Social Security. Current estimates are that the Social Security retirement trust fund is solvent through at least 2037, and there are numerous ways to extend that well into the distant future.
Finally, the myth that American business will only resume it’s hiring of workers in response to tax cuts is bizarre. Economics 101 tells us that businesses hire workers in response to projections of increased demand for the products and services they produce.
