PolitiFact is still carrying water for the Administration
September 27, 2012 at 10:27 am in News by Dustin Siggins 6 Comments
Remember when fact-checking meant looking at the facts in an even-handed way? Over at PolitiFact, they’ve apparently forgotten and decided to outright campaign for the President. Just last week, they called Romney’s claim that the President said his stimulus would keep unemployment below eight percent “Mostly False” because of caveats… but when they recently analyzed the alleged deficit reduction impact of the President’s health care law in response to a Romney claim, they ignored such caveats.
Let’s dig down a little into this significant hypocrisy:
1. Here is how PolitiFact ranks Romney’s statement about the stimulus:
Romney told donors he could win over wavering voters by reminding them that Obama said “he’d keep unemployment below 8 percent.”
Obama didn’t say that. Rather, his Council of Economic Advisers predicted that the stimulus would hold it to that level. Their report included heavy disclaimers that the projections had “significant margins of error” and a high degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is “unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.”
The sub-8 percent prediction did not hold true, but it’s still incorrect to characterize it as a promise or guarantee.
We rate Romney’s statement Mostly False.
2. Yet when it comes to the President’s health care law:
The CBO said this about the health care law back in 2010: It lowers the deficit, by about $124 billion over 10 years.
And in 2011, when Republicans offered a bill to repeal the health care law, the CBO said that increased the deficit, by about $210 billion over 10 years.
Now, is the CBO infallible? Certainly not. And good questions have been raised about some of the CBO’s methods in accounting for the health care law’s effects. We reported on some those concerns in great detail in a fact-check of statement from U.S. Rep Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. He said the law was “accelerating our country toward bankruptcy.” We rated that Mostly False.
The CBO itself acknowledges the uncertainty surrounding its estimates. Its reports regularly warn that uncertainty increases as it makes projections farther into the future.
And, the Supreme Court ruling may change certain elements of the health care law’s costs, especially as it affects Medicaid spending. Medicaid is the joint federal-state health insurance program for the very poor.
A statement on the CBO website on the day of the ruling said, “CBO is in the process of reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision related to the Affordable Care Act to assess the effect on CBO’s projections of federal spending and revenue under current law. We expect that this assessment will probably take some time.”
Still, we find no factual basis for Romney’s claim that the law “adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt.” We rate his statement False.
So despite major qualifiers in both analyses, PolitiFact toes the line for the Administration. This is despite the following:
- PolitiFact quotes Romney as saying Obama “told you [disappointed Obama voters] he’d keep unemployment below 8 percent. Hasn’t been below 8 percent since.” Yet PolitiFact’s analysis focuses on saying Romney claims Obama “promised” the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. Nowhere did Romney use the word promise, and it is considered normal political practice to consider an Administration’s economic council advisors as representing the Administration. Strike one against PolitiFact.
- As outlined by this Reason Foundation piece, the CBO acknowledges it is forced to double-count hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts in the law as “savings” despite their being used for more spending. Strike two.
- There is an education component to the health care law that would save billions – which CBO was legally required to include in its analysis, but has nothing to do with health care. Strike three.
So, to summarize, PolitiFact finds great validity in the qualifiers by the President Council of Economic Advisors regarding the stimulus. Fair enough. But why aren’t those same qualifiers considered important in the CBO analysis of the health care law?
Did you know that there are healthcare bill exemptions in the Obama Healthcare Bill? This is very interesting.RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION. – Such term shall not include any individual for any month if such individual has in effect an exemption under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect of division thereof described in section 1402(g)(l) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section.
It must be made clear that personal religious objections do not exempt an individual from the mandate. Therefore, those who do not belong to a denomination with specific bans on insurance, for example, will not be considered exempt from the law.REF:http://www.newsonhealthcare.com/healthcare-bill-exemption/
Everyone knows that Republicans just hate facts.
The facts are that Obama promised that he would get this thing fixed in 3 years or he would be looking at a one-term proposition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCN5-ovvFL0
I only hope that he was right about that.
There has been, and never will be, a shortage of udul idiots in this country.
Bah, lets try this again..
There never has been, or ever will be, a shortage of Useful Idiots in this country.
Thank God for the tea party movement. You know you are effective when CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC NY times, Wash. Post LA Times et. al. are trying to marginalize you.
The popular media are scared to death that the American people will wake up, stop watching friends, Sporst, Soaps and Reality Shows long enough to start governing themselves again.
If we don’t get a grip very soon it will be too late.
We don’t have to worry about China and Japan holding trillions of our debt. That is just another smoke screen.
During te last 3 years the federal Reserve Bank has purchased 70% of all new federal debt. They purchase these Treasury Bonds with money they just print out of thin air.
This is devaluing our currency at an alarming rate. This has a devestating impact on all working people, except City, County, State and federal employees, they all get high raises in pay from us to make up for the lower purchasing power of the dollar.
Long ago the CPI index was changed to exclude the cost of FOOD and ENERGY (gas) because these items are too “volatile”. How conveniate, if food and energy were included in the CPI the inflation rate for the past 4 years would be over 90% or higher than at any time in the history of America.
Since there is no political will to reduce the number of public employees at alll levels of government and to reduce their obscene wage and benefit packages it is obvious that those in power have a plan.
In my opinion that plan is to continue financing our ever increasing debt with fake money from the Federal Reserve Bank untill they value of the dollar is reduced by hyper-inflation to the point where the US and Local governments can pay the unstainable wage, benefits and pensions with worthless dollars.
Don’t fall for that utter nonsense that our debt does not matter because we only owe it to ourselves. Owing the debt to ourselves is far worse than owing it to foreign governments. Foreign governments and private investment entities will no longer purchase Treasury, bonds, notes or bills that everyone knows are wothhless junk bonds.
If you do not believe hyper-inflation can happen here just Google (hyper-inflation weimar republic) and take a look at what happened to Germany between WW I and WW II. Hyper-inflation broke Germany and laid the ground work for Hitler and the NAZI Party to take control of the country.
The so called historians and economists will tell you it was the crushing war debt from WW I that caused the problem but that is a lie.
The cause was Germany’s Central Bank ( e.g. Federal Reserve Bank) printing fiat money backed with nothing.
Since I have touched on the subject of the “expert” economists that we see as talking heads on TV almost daily, lets get something straight. These “experts” are basing their opinions that America can easily recover from the current and future disaster is sophomoric and juvnile. Their opinions assume that present day America is the world economic power house that we were decades ago. this is simply untrue.
Our manufacturing base is almost gone. Our balance of payment for foregin trade have been negative for decades.
For the last 30 years our country has been run by “experts” that apparently the our manifest destiny is to sell more and more burgers to ourselves while we substitute the residential construction industry for a healthy manufacturing base. Wake up. We don’t export houses and 70% of our economy is consumer based with us buying foreign goods with fake money printed by the Fed.
Furthermore, we are not going to dig ourselves out with the next generation of American engineering and science inovators. Our disgraceful public school system has closed this door.
America has the most expensive and unsuccessful public school system in the world. Over 90% of those awarded advanced degrees in engineering from America’s top universities are from foreign countries. The reasons are simple: our K thru 12 public schools are such an abysmal when it comes to teaching advanced math and science that hardly any of our high school graduates are able to make it in a bono fidi college math and science curriculum.
Almost al of our American college students are enrolled in subjects like cultural anthropology, womens studies, and a host of other majors that may be fun but do not result in a post graduation job or contribute to the economic success of America.
Ask any college professor and if he is truthful he will tell you that college for American students has become an extension of high school that must be, above all else, fun. This mutual admiration society we call college is the result of a symbionic relationship between the faculty and student body where the professors flatter the students with over inflated grades in order to perpetuate their privileged life style.
This one of the “next shoes to drop”. The low estimates for the student loan “bubble” is more than a trillion dollars in payment defaults, most of which were cosigned for by parents that do not have the money to pay and will be financially ruined because they are too old to earn the money to pay.
If we do not elect politicians that recognize the extent and urgency of the problem we will very soon be unable to dig ourselves out of the vast and deep hole thent his house of cards is gouing to crumble and sooner rather than later.