Shut-up Stupid Sunday: Who needs truth when you have repetition?

I just read Dave Johnson’s “Eight False Things the Public "Knows" Prior to Election Day” and figured it would be a good thing to share on this post. It is a good read and I suggest you check it out, if not here are the highlights:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.

The truth is Bush’s last budget had $1.416 Trillion deficit and Obama’s first budget had a $1.29 Trillion deficit, for math challenged Fox news anchors that is a 9% decrease.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.

President Obama passed the largest middle class tax cut in history. 97% of Americans got a tax cut or larger rebate while the top 3% saw no change.


3) President Obama bailed out the banks.

TARP was passed under Bush.

4) The stimulus didn't work.

The stimulus added or saved at least 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.

This is the stupidest of all the GOP positions. If a small business owner doesn’t want to pay taxes the simplest way to do it is to hire more employees, the business owner doesn’t pay taxes on that employees salary. The second simplest way is to expand and buy more equipment, this is a asset that is tax deductible over a few years. The business owner gains Corporate Equity that they can use some other time, like in case of a health emergency or for their kid’s education both of which are tax deductible. Higher individual tax rates on the wealthy cause them to invest to avoid the tax.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.

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.

Social Security is fine for the next 25 years, life expectancy is actually decreasing in the US due to our bad healthcare system but hopefully that will change. The big problem is the top 2% of income earners don’t pay into Social Security, there would be no problem if this were changed.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.

This is a myth that I need to address in at least one more post, but the basic answer is yes and no. Roads, Education, R & D, Economic Incentives, and Social Services add money to the economy. Support for obsolete industries slow the flow of money to the economy. The money that goes to the military is a drain on the economy, in accounting a weapon is classified as obsolete as soon as it is made. The people who push this myth want the government to stop spending on things that boost the economy and continue to spend on things that depress it.

To sum up the platform of the candidates that are running on these myths, I will steal a quotation that Stephanie put on her blog yesterday that fits perfect with this: “If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.”
–Ronald Reagan [Ed: might we remind the GOP of that now?]

So to all those people that are continuing to spread these lies, I say, “Shut-up Stupid, it’s true that people will fall for repetition over facts, but facts are stubborn things and reality will catch up with us if pursue a policy based on self-delusion instead of truth.”

By Darrell B. Nelson author of Invasive Thoughts