Stuff We Think We Know

Soon, the hot air quotient in America will go down; the mid-term elections will be history.

There is no shortage of rhetoric, revelations, accusations, and downright hogwash as candidates fight it out to the end. Everybody wants to get the last word in with the electorate (or, perhaps, the last robo-call. Who invented those demonic devices, anyway?)

I read an interesting column today, written by Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America's Future. Let me save some of you the trouble of looking the organization up; it is an acknowledged "progressive" think tank. I am one person who doesn't think the word progressive is a dirty word.

Progress is not God, but it ain't bad. I'm thinking here of the kind of progress that has given us, say, Jonas Salk, or Pampers, or multiple flavors of Philadelphia Cream Cheese -- just to name a few brilliant examples.

Mr. Johnson has written about "a number of things the public 'knows' as we head into the election that are just false." (article available here) Of course, what he really wants to do is hold out the possibility that the public may not know as much as it thinks it knows.

I wondered if he was just another left-wing breezebag, shouting paeans of praise blindly to President Obama.

I dunno; you be the judge:

Everybody knows that President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion (Reuters News Service report from October  16, 2010 -- read it here. Apparently Obama actually DID reduce the deficit. Geez!)

Everybody knows that President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. (see the New York Times article here -- it's TRUE!)

Everybody knows that President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: The bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Again, the New York Times -- read it here. Facts are such pesky things!)

Everybody knows that health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion. (Again, Reuters citing the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office -- read it here. Maybe they should add those figures again!)

Okay, okay, enough already! You had me at tripling the deficit!

If you have managed to read this far, I hope you'll take the time to share at least one of these facts with at least one of your friends. I just happen to believe that it still matters that we tell the truth in politics. Americans are not dumb!

We just don't always know what we think we know.