Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
Eight False Things the Public Believes Going Into Election Day
Submitted by Sisyphus on Sat, 10/23/2010 - 12:02pm.
Dave Johnson posts these eight things perpetuated by media narratives that just ain't true.
1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first reduced 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.
Dave supports each fact with links on his blog which I did not duplicate here. Go check it out to assure yourself in case you have doubts. Engage rational folks, i.e. non-teabaggers, on these matters in encouraging them to vote. In addition to the foregoing I've put out a series of posts providing more facts which help elucidate what's at stake.
H/T Digby
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We're pilgrims in an unholy age & place
Yes Sis, all very true & well said. But here's a strategy Democrats could use to upend the same deliberate shit done to America by Bush, Cheney & Co. In football, it's called the "quick kick" (Wiki that).
Assuming Dems loose the House by a handful, but hold the Senate, and Mr. Boehner is the [tenuous] new Speaker. Why not pull a Palin? Barak & Joe just resign "for the the good of the country", etc, etc. (Yeah I know, all the little donkies will be soooooooo upset) Boehner becomes Prez, much to his puckered-ass surprise, and ditto for the very Prick-Party that screwed-the-goose orginally. What a shockerooni it would be to those sanctimonious assholes; they now have to [seriously] fucking fix things!
Think about it, a quick kick in football is ALL about field position. If Obama played this card trick straight-up, knowing full well a GOP House would delay and subpoena everything he tried to do for the next 2 years, and how much "more important for the good of the country that things get done" [cue Democrat santimony, LOL] ....it would make political history. And Great Theater!
Honestly, we'd all be laughing for hours.
too-expensive comedy
I have a buddy in California who has the same sentiments, Tom.
But the fact is the comedy would be ashes in all our mouths by 2012.
Remember Bosnia- before the shit really started flying, Bosnia-Herzegovina was a prospering modern society. Once the civil war started, they were all reduced to the middle of the 19th Century in less than a year. I doubt very much that something similar here would be any less savage, or that we could recover from it in short order.
There's too much riding on this election and the one that follows to act irresponsibly.