A Texas-size Whopper

[white cloud]

A Texas-size Whopper
February 1, 2010
Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, at a nationally televised meeting of House Republicans in Baltimore, accused President Obama to his face of running up deficits a dozen times greater than the GOP’s. The president said, "That’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true," and he invited "any independent fact-checker out there" to assess which man got the facts right.

OK, we will.

We have to score this one for Obama. Hensarling told a Texas-size whopper — and then tried to claim Republican credit for Blll Clinton’s budget surpluses.

Let’s look at exactly what was said, and what the facts show.

Hensarling said that under Obama, "what were the old annual deficits under Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under Democrats."
>>>snip




>>>>> snip

He issued a news release the same day, stating that the average deficit was only $104 billion "in the 12 years that Republicans controlled the House." Republicans controlled the House during the last six years of President Bill Clinton’s administration (regularly voting against his budget bills). During that time, the U.S. was in the longest sustained economic boom in its history, and the federal government ran budget surpluses in fiscal 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 (the last year for which Clinton signed the spending and tax legislation). Hensarling’s accounting also avoids GOP responsibility for the last two years of Bush’s deficits, on grounds that Democrats took control of the House in January 2007.

Obama’s Spin

We can’t stop with criticizing only Hensarling, however. The president invited a comparison of "your presentation versus mine." And the president tends to pick the rosiest figures available when talking about budget matters. For one thing, he claimed to have inherited a slightly higher deficit than CBO was predicting.

Obama: Now, look, let’s talk about the budget once again, because I’ll go through it with you line by line. The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. — $1.3 So when you say that suddenly I’ve got a monthly budget that is higher than the — a monthly deficit that’s higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans, that’s factually just not true, and you know it’s not true.

>>>>>>>snip


http://factcheck.org/2010/02/a-texas-size-whopper/

[sonias]

1. That's why he's become the poster boy for "misinformation"

No wonder President Obama can't keep his name straight. Jebbie/Jimmie likes to make things up and cherry pick certain facts to suit his "view of the new world order". For those of you catching up on our nationally discovered, too much exposure, crazy like Faux News, Texas republican congressional idiot - check this previous thread:

Hensarling TX-5 having a bad day

Obama wins again!

:kick:

Sonia

[sonias]

2. Can't wait to see Jebbie/Jimmie's vote on this one

He wants to privatize social security real bad!

Talking Points Memo 2/5/10
Dems To Force GOP Vote On Anti-Social Security Privatization Resolution

House Democrats are going to force their Republican colleagues to vote on a resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security. The move shows Democrats are putting their full political muscle into painting the Republicans as enemies of Social Security and using the chief GOP budget writer Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to cut benefits as evidence.

Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) this afternoon introduced the resolution which "expresses the will of House Democrats to preserve Social Security and reaffirms our commitment to working in a bipartisan way to make common sense adjustments to strengthen the program for generations to come."

It's the sort of tough political vote that Democrats have rarely pushed Republicans on since winning back control of Congress in 2006, and similar to resolutions the GOP constantly forced the Democrats to take positions on when they were in power.

The resolution - which has not yet been scheduled for a House floor vote but has more than 20 original co-sponsors - is the latest salvo in the new fight over Social Security.

:popcorn:

Sonia

[sonias]

3. Heeeeeees bacccckkk!

Oh Jebbie/Jimmie you just can't quite sticking your foot in your mouth, right? :eyes:

Talking Points Memo 2/6/10
See No Evil, Budget No Evil ...

This is pretty classic. A week ago GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling (TX) was telling Chris Matthews about the glories of the House Republicans' draft 2010 budget, filled with plans to cut and privatize Social Security and abolish Medicare. But as news began to spread this week about the draft plan prepared by chief House Republican budgeteer Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Republican leadership, especially Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) started acting like they barely knew anything about it.

That brings us up to today, when Republicans sent Rep. Hensarling to give the response to the president's Saturday radio address. So what he say about the draft Ryan plan?

Not much. Hensarling for some reason used the whole time to talk about House Republicans' 2009 budget. In other words, an outline plan from last year about the year that already happened and was actually panned at the time for not including any details and even including a lot of fake charts.

They got nothing! Nothing but smoke and mirrors. Pulling out the old plan that was fake!

Sonia