Right-Wing Conservative Film "I Want Your Money" Packed With Lies
In his documentary I Want Your Money, filmmaker Ray Griggs employs an all-star cast of right-wing misinformation propagators who fill the film with long-parroted and thoroughly debunked conservative myths about U.S. economic history and President Obama's economic policies.
Griggs falsely claims Obama "doubled" the FY2009 deficit
Griggs: "[I]t's clear that Bush did not leave President Obama a $1.4 trillion deficit. It looks like President Obama and the Democrats Congress more than doubled it." Griggs compares the deficit in Obama's first year to that of Bush's last in office, claiming that "President Obama and the Democratic Congress more than doubled" Bush's deficit. From I Want Your Money:
GRIGGS: What's the true story behind the $1.4 trillion deficit Obama claims he inherited in 2009? Well, let's take a closer look at that. During President Bush's last full year in office in 2008, the federal deficit was $600 billion. Obama steps in and adds quite a bit to next year's budget. First, he and the Democratic Congress pass the stimulus bill -- $787 billion, which $242 billion was spent in '09. Subtract that from the $1.4 trillion, and you get a deficit of right around $1.1 trillion. But the Democrats also passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. Oh yeah -- take off $60 billion for the auto industry. Then there was the $8 billion expansion of the SCHIP health insurance program, and another $3 billion for Cash for Clunkers, and I'm sure I did not find all the new spending. But it's clear that Bush did not leave President Obama a $1.4 trillion deficit. It looks like President Obama and the Democratic Congress more than doubled it.
$1.2 trillion of $1.4 trillion deficit was already projected before Bush left office. The CBO projected on January 7, 2009, that, including spending authorized under the Bush administration for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and government takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the deficit that year would total $1.2 trillion. According to the CBO, the actual FY 2009 deficit was $1.4 trillion.
NY Times: Obama policies are "responsible for only a sliver of the deficits." According to a budget analysis done by The New York Times, "Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies -- together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama -- account for 20 percent" of the increase between the FY2008 and FY2009 budget deficit estimates. The Times analysis also stated that 70 percent of the increase was due to a combination of economic hardships, including "the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists' assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years" and "new legislation signed by Mr. Bush ... like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit."
CBPP: "By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 -- two weeks before Inauguration Day -- it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion." An analysis of the federal budget deficit by James Horney and Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that "the events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration's control."
Film pushes falsehood that health care reform will dramatically boost federal deficit
Voegeli falsely claims health care reform will increase the federal deficit. In I Want Your Money, The Claremont Institute's William Voegeli said of President Obama: "So he's complaining about the deficits, but then doubling them, and now with health care tripling, and has plans for unending deficits."
CBO has consistently said that health care reform law will reduce deficit by $143 billion over next ten years, and by more in second decade.
More documentation of "I Want Your Money" lies, and distortions at the link. Where are those conservative values we keep hearing about like truth and honor. Conservatives simply cannot win an economic debate based on the numbers. What America is experiencing right now is the product of right-wing conservative economic polcies. Plcies they carried out under the Bush administration and a Congress controlled by Republicans six of thsoe ight years. Its like they stole their parents credit card and went crazy. Now they're trying to blame the hradship caused by those debts on responsible adults trying to pay them off.
Wisconsin Republican Senate hopeful Ron Johnson Freezes When Asked For His Plan To Help Middle Class
Wisconsin Republican Senate hopeful Ron Johnson had a deer-in-headlights moment in a recent interview with the Green Bay Press Gazette.Johnson doesn't have a plan he has some bumper sticker slogans in reply to complex questions. hardly the makings of someone who will make a positive contribution to keeping America on course to restore the sanity Ron's conservative friends had no use for the last ten years.
Asked to explain his jobs plan, Johnson banged away at the GOP mantra: cutting spending, regulation, etc. That didn't satisfy the editors.
"There's no real jobs plan?" one interviewer asked.
"I would say bring fiscal discipline to the federal government," Johnson replied. "We've got to curb spending."
That didn't satisfy his interviewers.
"So your jobs plan is to control spending. But what about the middle class?" the editor responded. "I mean, I hear you talking a lot about business, businesses. But I mean, what is your plan for the middle class?"
"We have to get the economy moving," Johnson said, frozen.
"Isn't that pretty simple though what you're saying is just, you know, elect me, to go there and cut spending and everything will take care of itself."
