The Republicans had their rah-rah, go-team party last week, and the Democrats have now had theirs this week. So, now that all the balloons have been dropped, the speeches have been delivered and analyzed from every angle, the pollsters have decided which are the swing states and who are the swing voters, and with just two months until election day, what single question must the voters ponder and answer in deciding which candidates and which party gets their votes?
After all is said and done, it really boils down to one basic question. Do you believe prosperity flows from the top down or from the bottom up? Put another way, do you want the necessary sacrifices to be borne by the wealthy or the poor? And a third iteration of the same basic question might be how do you believe a healthy and vibrant economy can best be created?
Each of these questions goes to the heart of the essentially differing world-views of the Republicans and their standard bearers, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and the Democrats and their incumbent president and vice-president, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The campaigns will do everything they can to portray their opponents as lousy alternatives to lead the country in the next four years while they also try to project their candidates as the more competent to handle the job. But, in truth, the task of governing in modern-day America, apart, to be sure, from decisions of war and peace, is mostly about which of the two world-views about America you believe in.
And here is how those world-views differ and how they are theoretically supposed to work for the country:
Republicans believe in the top-down view of economic prosperity. They believe that the country’s economy works best when the wealthy are secure in their wealth and are enjoying profits from their investments. They believe that when the wealthy are prosperous (never mind for present purposes the obvious question of how the wealthy might ever not be prosperous), they promote business growth and job creation that benefits the entire society, raising, as it were, the standard of living of all citizens in that society.
The basis for this theory is that job are created by wealth and the desire for wealth and that only when those in position to create jobs feel wealthy (or, more generally, feel that they can take risks to get more wealthy) are jobs for the rest of the society going to be created in meaningful numbers.
In practical terms, this world-view results in calls for lower levels of taxation and regulation for those in the wealthy/job-creating classes of our society. Adherents of this view like to talk about “market economics,” by which they mean “laissez faire capitalism,” as in “keep government out of the business of business.” They use “freedom” as a catchword to identify that free-market form of capitalism that maximizes potential profits and minimizes required benefits for workers.
The other side of the coin for this world-view has to do with where the sacrifices are borne. Republicans prefer keeping wages and benefits low (more incentive for job creators to create jobs), health and safety regulations minimal (again, more incentive for job creators), aid to the poor and struggling working classes limited (less burden on those paying the taxes for such programs) and, above all else, taxes for the wealthy low (more incentive to increase profits, thereby presumably creating more jobs).
Democrats, on the other hand, believe, essentially, in exactly the opposite theory of how to create prosperity. They hold to the bottom-up view, which says that the country’s economy works best when the middle class is vibrant and growing, which, they believe, is most likely to occur when those living in or seeking to attain entry into the middle class are provided the means to improve their lots in life.
The basis for this theory is that an economy only functions at full efficiency when it has constant consumption of the goods and services that its businesses provide. And for that consumption to take place, the theory goes, the workers must be working and must be receiving income that is above the minimal level needed to subsist and survive.
Thus, Democrats favor things like government loans for education and job training, a minimum wage law that provides a living wage instead of a bare subsistence wage, significant unemployment insurance for extended periods during economic downturns, and lower taxes for those who are not wealthy and are not possessed of excess disposable income.
Democrats seek ways to make being employed worthwhile. They believe that a prosperous working class builds a large middle class and that a large middle class inures to the benefit of the entire society.
The other side of the coin for this world-view is that the sacrifices Democrats impose fall more heavily on the wealthy. Democrats prefer to keep taxes graduated so that the wealthiest pay a far greater share of their income in taxes than those who have less disposable income (beyond that necessary for a base standard of living). They favor greater restrictions on businesses in the form of health and safety regulations and on investments in the form of capital gains taxes and disclosure requirements.
At the extremes of both of these views are a plutocracy for Republicans (wherein the country is controlled by the super-rich and the mega-corporations) and a socialist state for Democrats (wherein all the productivity of the country’s economy is controlled by the government). And, not coincidentally, those most heavily aligned either party’s world-view are most likely to see the extreme results in the other party’s policies and actions.
Thus, rabid Republicans at the party’s convention last week frequently shouted “Socialist!” when Barack Obama’s name was mentioned, and hard core Democrats at the party’s convention this week used words like “Nazi” and Fascist” to describe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
But stripped clean of the extreme rhetoric and reactions, the foregoing description of each of the major parties’ world-view is what is really before the voters this year. The Romney/Ryan ticket will seek to unburden the wealthiest members of the society and the largest corporations in the economy at the expense of the working class and the non-working poor. The Obama/Biden ticket will seek to open the middle class to greater growth and prosperity at the expense of the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations.
All the rhetoric and demagoguery notwithstanding, that basic distinction is really what, from a policy perspective, this election boils down to.
Ed,
We agree that the election is about fundamentally different visions, though I believe your statement of the Republican vision is skewed by attributions of wealth and privilege. I agree with your characterization of the Democrat extreme as a socialist state with a government planning the economy (and everything else once they control economy), but I do not see Plutocracy as the extreme of the Republican vision. The negative extreme would be closer to anarchy. In his book, “A Conflict of Visions,” Thomas Sowell insightfully distinguishes economic conservatives and liberals on the basis of “pre-cognitive visions” about human nature. Liberals have a far more benign view of human nature, and so are inclined to place trust in governments to accomplish social harmony and justice on a large scale. Conservatives have more cautious view of human nature, and so are highly attuned to the corrupting influence of power, realizing that tyranny is a consequence of good intentions becoming ever more iron-fisted as the hope and change does not pan out. Adam Smith did not support free markets because he liked businessmen, but because he liked academic and cultural elitists even less, and realized that no one–NO ONE–is sufficient wise or virtuous to decide for others what is in their best interests. Utopian visions–think of the President’s speech last night–are dangerous. Policies that promote commerce work for the common good, however imperfectly. Life can only be imperfect. From my corner of the universe, the election is mostly about freedom.
What’s on your mind?
SORT
Ralph Brill
The Romney/Ryan plan is now clear. They have so much money from Super Pacs, the Koch Bros., Bush’s Brain, etc., that they will run T.V. ads on every channel in Ohio, Pa., Florida, Virginia, and the other swing states, telling outright lies, over and over and over. They hope enough people will hear or see the soundbites and believe the lies, and that the Dems won’t have enough money to be able to out-ad them to debunk the lies. They hope to get enough voters who don’t study the allegations, they will opely say they won’t let Fact-Checkers determine their campaign, the lies will get more flagrant as election day looms, and they will then carry the swing states along with the deep south to win. Please pass on the truth on your webpages to your friends and ask them to pass the truths on to their friends. Costs nothing in t.v. time, but we know that facebook posts can go viral too. Copy truth ads, or truthful info from the papers or other sources and pass it on to friends. Let facebook be the rebuttal vehicle for Obama.
Ralph,
The fact that you do not tell us what lies the Republicans are so intent on telling prompts me to think that you do not truly have inside information about the Republican campaign strategy, but presume that Obama’s adminstration has been so successful and self-evidently virtuous that anyone who argues to the contrary MUST be deceitful. Republicans cannot prevent facts from being checked. The worst any political partisan can do is to take Harry Reid’s approach and make malicious assertions that are not verifiable. But it is very difficult to win an election on unverifiable assertions alone; effective disingenuity must, as have the Democrat PACs that paint Romney as responsible for a woman dying of cancer, assert purported FACTS that can actually be checked. If Republicans tell outright lies, they will be called on them by the media. I am puzzled that you can be so certain of the Republican strategy without mentioning specifically what lies Republicans intend to tell. Thus I cannot help but wonder if you consider a lie to be any opinion regarding President Obama’s performance that differs from your own.
Joel: How Naive Can You Get? And Ad Hominem attacks on me don’t really become you. In fact, they make me downright angry at you.
There are so many lies the candidates have been telling that have been documented in the media, that it will take up all the gigabytes in Grumpy Ed’s blog to state them. They have included the false allegation that Obama will cut $716 billion in Medicare benefits , the supposed elimination of the work requirement in welfare, that Obama’s tax plan will tax the Middle Class. They are listed every day on A blog called Mitt’s Mendacity. http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/20/12859512-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xxvi?lite
Here is just the lastest issue of that. (I hope the links within it can work on Ed’s blog – if they don’t, go to the URL above. And see the previous weekly editions of this column, listed at the bottom. In addition, here are a number of other posts I’ve made on my facebook page.
1. The Romney campaign argued this week that Fisker Automotive “got over half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy, which did not result in jobs being created in America, but actually jobs being created overseas in Finland.”
This has been debunked over, and over, and over, and over again. It was a lie when it came up a year ago, and now it’s been downgraded to a rather pathetic lie.
2. At a campaign event in Bowling Green, Ohio, Romney said Obama intends to “raise taxes on small business.”
No, actually, he doesn’t. In fact, it’s a detail that generally goes overlooked, but the president has actually cut taxes on small businesses several times.
3. At the same event, Romney added, “This president said he’d cut the deficit in half. He’s doubled it.”
Maybe Romney doesn’t know what “double” means. The deficit on Obama’s first day was $1.3 trillion. Last year, it was also $1.3 trillion. This year, it’s projected to be $1.1 trillion. When he says the president “more than doubled” the deficit, as he has many times, Romney’s lying.
4. Romney also argued, “The president and his administration said they are going to usurp your religious freedom by demanding that you provide products to your employees, if you’re the Catholic Church, that violates your own conscience.”
Neither the Catholic Church nor any other house of worship are required to “provide products” — in this case, contraception — to their employees. Churches are exempt from preventive-care requirements. Romney knows this, but continues to lie anyway.
5. He went on to say, “There’s only one person I know who has cut Medicare by $500 billion, and that’s President Obama.”
Romney says this a lot. He’s not telling the truth.
6. Romney told WTOL in Ohio that, when it came to the rescue of the auto industry, “My plan was absolutely right.” (thanks to reader F.B. for the tip)
You’ve got to be kidding me.
7. The Romney campaign said repeatedly this week that it’s “standard” for a presidential nominee to only release two years’ worth of tax returns.
That’s demonstrably false.
8. At a rally in Irwin, Pennsylvania, Romney said, “The Chamber of Commerce went out to their members and surveyed them and said, ‘What’s been the impact of Obamacare?’ And three-quarters — three-quarters — said they are less likely to hire people because of Obamacare.”
The “survey” is a joke. The Chamber, a pro-Republican lobbying institution heavily invested in helping Romney, put up an unscientific online survey. Treating this as a legitimate poll of businesses is fundamentally dishonest.
9. At the same event, Romney claimed that President Obama promised “he’d hold unemployment below 8 percent.”
As Romney surely knows by now, that’s simply not true.
10. He also said, “When you increase the number of regulations that are created three times that of his predecessor … you don’t add jobs.”
This is based on a dishonest premise. Obama approved fewer regulations in his first three years in office than Bush did in his first three years.
11. Romney went on to say, “When you put in place regulations that don’t allow coal to be able to be mined or to be used, these things kill jobs, and that’s got to stop.”
In reality, coal production is up, not down.
12. Romney added, “I’m ashamed to say that we’re seeing our president hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors…. That kind of crony capitalism does not create jobs, and it does not create jobs here.”
There is no universe in which this is even remotely true.
13. At the same event, Romney said Obama blamed “ATM machines” for economic problems.
As his lies go, this one’s just dumb.
14. Romney also argued, “We won’t forget, by the way, that Congress was in his party for two years with a supermajority.”
That’s demonstrably untrue. In Obama’s first two years, Democrats did not have a supermajority for 20 out of 24 months.
15. Romney went on to say, “You can look at what [Obama] said. And what he said was this; he said, and I quote, and he’s speaking, by the way, of business like this one; small businesses, big businesses, middle-sized businesses, mining businesses, manufacturing service businesses of all kinds. He said this; ‘If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.'”
That’s not what Obama said.
16. He added, “The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft, you can go on to list…. To say something like that is not just foolishness, it’s insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America, and it’s wrong.”
The only two accurate words in that quote are, “It’s wrong.” The rest is ridiculously untrue, since Obama never said economic pioneers didn’t build their enterprises.
17. Romney said, “Look, President Obama attacks success, and therefore, under President Obama we have less success.”
For one thing, Romney has never been able to point to a single instance in which Obama has attacked success. For another, we’re having a hell of a lot more success now than we were four years ago.
18. Romney went on to say the president is “trying to take work out of welfare requirements.”
This is untrue to a jaw-dropping degree.
19. He added that Obama “wants Americans to be ashamed of success.”
If Romney can produce any evidence in support of this lie, I’ll donate a bucket of cash to the charity of his choice.
20. Romney said “in the last three and a half years, we’ve seen … higher taxes keeps us from achieving what we can achieve.”
Taxes haven’t gone up; they’ve gone down. In fact, Americans’ federal tax burden has down, reaching a 30-year low after Obama cut taxes in 2009.
21. Romney spoke about trade agreements and said, “Do you know how many this president’s put in place? Zero. Zero.”
I don’t know why Romney keeps telling this lie, but he does.
22. Romney vowed, “Slow growth means fewer jobs, and that is why as president of the United States, I will get America on track to have a balanced budget.”
There’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Romney says his plan “can’t be scored,” but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller, and add trillions to the national debt.
23. The Romney campaign argued this week that Obama “told the businesspeople of America they shouldn’t take credit for building their businesses.”
Not only did Obama not say this, the president’s argument was later endorsed by Mitt Romney.
24. The Romney campaign also claimed that the president “never really held a private sector job in which he earned a real paycheck.”
This is a common attack, but it’s not true. Obama worked at a private-sector law firm before entering public service.
25. The campaign also argued that Obama has accused Romney of “not paying taxes.”
That’s wrong, too. Team Obama has said there are all kinds of unanswered questions about Romney’s finances, since he keeps his tax returns secret, but neither Obama nor his campaign has ever said Romney didn’t pay his taxes.
26. The Romney campaign also released a video that tied together two separate Obama sentences to make it seem as if he was making an argument he did not make.
Even by 2012 standards, wrenching presidential comments from context this ridiculously was outrageously dishonest.
Finally, Romney told Fox News this week, “A campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty does not have long legs.” We’ll learn soon enough whether that’s true.
Previous editions of Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity: Vol. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII,XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV
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By JACK GILLUM, Associated Press – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Laying out the first plans for his party’s presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama’s policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.
Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama’s trade dealings with China. A day earlier, the convention’s keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, bucked reality in promising that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will lay out for the American people the painful budget cuts it will take to wrestle the government’s debt and deficit woes under control.
And former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum stretched the truth in taking Obama to task over his administration supposedly waiving work requirements in the nation’s landmark welfare-to-work law.
A closer look at some of the words spoken at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:
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RYAN: “And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. … So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”
THE FACTS: Ryan’s claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.
In addition, Ryan’s own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program’s spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.
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RYAN: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.”
THE FACTS: Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan’s pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies.
One of them, the nonprofit Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp., received $20.3 million from the Energy Department to help homes and businesses improve energy efficiency, according to federal records. That company, he said in his letter, would build “sustainable demand for green jobs.” Another eventual recipient, the Energy Center of Wisconsin, received about $365,000.
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RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. “A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.”
THE FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants — though not the Janesville facility — to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.
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RYAN: Obama “created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing.”
THE FACTS: It’s true that Obama hasn’t heeded his commission’s recommendations, but Ryan’s not the best one to complain. He was a member of the commission and voted against its final report.
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CHRISTIE: “Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy. … Tonight, our duty is to tell the American people the truth. Our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. We all must share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth.”
THE FACTS: Romney has made a core promise to cut $500 billion per year from the federal budget by 2016 to bring spending below 20 percent of the U.S. economy, and to balance it entirely by 2020.
His campaign manifesto, however, is almost completely devoid of the “hard truths” Christie promises. In fact, Romney is promising to reverse $716 billion in Medicare savings achieved by Obama over the coming decade and promises big increases in military spending as well, along with extending tax cuts for everyone, including the wealthiest.
The few specifics Romney offers include repealing Obama’s health care law, cutting federal payrolls, weaning Amtrak from subsidies, cutting foreign aid and curbing the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.
But it’ll take a lot more than those steps for Romney to keep his vague promises, which are unrealistic if he’s unwilling to touch Medicare and Social Security in the coming decade. Even the controversial budget plan of his vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., largely endorsed by Romney, leaves Medicare virtually untouched over the next 10 years.
What’s left for Romney to cut is benefit programs other than Medicare and Social Security, which include food stamps, welfare, farm subsidies and retirement benefits for federal workers. The remaining pot of money includes the day-to-day budgets of domestic agencies, which have already borne cuts under last year’s budget deal. There’s also widespread congressional aversion to cutting most of what remains on the chopping block, which includes health research, NASA, transportation, air traffic control, homeland security, education, food inspection, housing and heating subsidies for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, the FBI, grants to local governments, national parks and veterans’ health care.
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PORTMAN: “Take trade with China. China manipulates its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage. So why doesn’t the president do something about it? I’ll tell you one reason. President Obama could not run up his record trillion-dollar deficits if the Chinese didn’t buy our bonds to finance them. Folks, we are as beholden to China for bonds as we are to the Middle East for oil. This will end under Mitt Romney.”
THE FACTS: Portman is an expert on commerce, having served as President George W. Bush’s trade representative from May 2005 to May 2006. But he didn’t fare particularly well in stemming China’s trade advantage, either.
Under Portman’s watch, the U.S. trade deficit with China soared by 25 percent in 2005, and the next year it climbed more than 15 percent. By contrast, the deficit rose 10 percent over the first three years of Obama’s presidency, according to U.S. government figures.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have launched unfair trade cases against China at the World Trade Organization, but neither has been able to rebalance the relationship.
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SANTORUM: “This summer (Obama) showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare. Now, I helped write the welfare reform bill. We made a lot crystal clear. No president can waive the work requirement, but as with his refusal to enforce our immigration laws, President Obama rules like he is above the law.”
THE FACTS: The administration did not waive the work requirement. Instead, it invited governors to apply on behalf of their states for waivers of administrative requirements in the 1996 law. Some states have complained those rules tie up caseworkers who could be helping clients directly.
In a July 18 letter to congressional leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that to be eligible for a waiver, governors must commit that their plans will move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work. Moreover, states must show clear progress toward the goal within a year, or lose the waiver.
“We will not accept any changes that undercut employment-focused welfare reforms that were signed into law fifteen years ago,” Sebelius wrote.
Ron Haskins, a former senior Republican House aide who helped write the welfare-to-work law, has said “there is merit” to the administration’s proposal and “I don’t see how you can get to the conclusion that the waiver provision undermines welfare reform and it eliminates the work requirement.”
Haskins, now co-director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families, says the administration was wrong to roll out its proposal without first getting Republicans to sign off on it. But he said the idea itself is one both parties should be able to agree on, were it not for the bitter political divisions that rule Washington.
Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Andrew Taylor, Henry C. Jackson and Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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“My position has been clear throughout this campaign,” Romney said. “I’m in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and the health and life of the mother.”
Except, that’s wrong in more ways than one. After the interview, Romney aides said the candidate misspoke and he doesn’t support a “health” exemption, despite what he’d just told a national television audience. So much for “clarity.”
Moreover, Romney’s platform calls for a constitutional amendment that bans all abortions; Romney said he “absolutely” supports a “Personhood” measure that would ban all abortions and some forms of birth control; and in 2007, Romney boasted that that he’d be “delighted” to sign a bill that would no longer allow abortions “at all, period.”
In the same interview, Romney said decisions about reproductive rights “will be made by the Supreme Court,” adding, “The Democrats try and make this a political issue every four years, but this is a matter in the courts.”
Mr. Romney, do you realize that if you’re elected, you get to nominate new justices on the Supreme Court, or do you hope voters are unaware of this?
Romney’s running mate appears to be struggling, too.
After some provocative comments on the issue last week, Paul Ryan kept the story alive again yesterday.
GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday he supported removing the term “forcible rape” from his bill banning taxpayer funding for abortions, claiming it was included only as “stock language” and not to limit the definition of rape.
“Rape is rape, period,” Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. “This is language that was stock language used for lots of different bills, bills I didn’t author, and that language was removed to be very clear and I agree with that. Removing that language so we are very clear. Rape is rape, period, end of story.”
It’s true that the “forcible rape” language was eventually removed from the bill Akin and Ryan co-sponsored, but it’s a stretch to call this “stock language.” It was a new effort on the part of the far-right to redefine rape as it relates to existing federal law. Ryan read the bill and quickly became an early co-sponsor — before the controversial language was dropped.
Maybe he’s embarrassed by his own legislation now, but Ryan can’t shrug off his record that easily — he backed the bill just last year.
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Defending the indefensible–ROMNEY’s CONTINUING LIE ABOUT OBAMA’S WELFARE POSITON.
By Steve Benen
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Thu Aug 23, 2012 11:00 AM EDT
65
Just two weeks ago, Mitt Romney suggested attack ads rejected by “the various fact-checkers” shouldn’t be on the air. Yesterday, the Republican added a caveat: when “the various fact-checkers” denounce his ads, they should be ignored as biased liberals.
To briefly recap, President Obama didn’t weaken the work requirement in welfare law; Romney has lied nearly every day for two weeks, including more than once yesterday, saying the opposite of the truth. Literally every independent fact-checker that’s looked at the claim has reached the same conclusion: Romney’s smear has no basis in fact.
Yesterday, asked why he keeps repeating a claim disconnected from this plane of reality, Romney told the Des Moines Register he has no use for independent journalists who examine the issue “in the way they think is most consistent with their own views.”
Yesterday, Romney campaign chairman John Sununu went a little further.
The full transcript of Sununu’s interview with Wolf Blitzer is online, and I’ll gladly give credit to the CNN host for pressing the Republican to defend his obvious falsehood. In fact, Blitzer literally read “the precise language from the Health and Human Services memo outlining what the states who seek this flexibility” can do.
And yet, the Romney campaign surrogate stuck to the lie anyway.
My favorite part came when Sununu explained what it would take for Team Romney to stop lying.
BLITZER: [E]very major fact checking organization out there says he has not — has not gutted, has not gutted by any means the work requirements.
SUNUNU: All they need to do is have HHS send out a hard letter making sure that the only things that will qualify under the work requirement is hard training and the — and the cooperative programs with employers and define it in such a way that what was allowed before is all that’s allowed in the future…. That’s all that’s required.
Really, that’s all that’s required? Because that “hard letter” already exists — the Obama administration published it (pdf) two months ago.
In it, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, “Our goal is to accelerate job placement by moving more Americans from welfare to work, and no policy which undercuts that goal or waters down work requirements will be considered.”
There is no ambiguity.
Romney and his team know this, but they keep telling the same racially charged lie — five videos, including three broadcast ads, in just two weeks — because they just don’t give a damn. Confronted with reality, they’re not embarrassed or ashamed; they just stick to the lie, assuming voters won’t know the difference.
It’s the era of post-truth politics, and Romney wants to test what he can get away with.
* Postscript: A quick word about independent fact-checkers. To hear Romney tell it, they’re reliable when they agree with him, and biased liberals when they disagree with him.
That’s ridiculous. If he wants to argue that these fact-checkers aren’t always great at their jobs, he’ll get no argument from me. Indeed, I’ve expressed deep concerns with PolitiFact’s poor work on more than a few occasions. If Romney wants to say, “I’ve seen the reports, and let me tell you why they’re mistaken,” I’d be all ears.
But that’s not the case he’s making. Romney’s argument is that independent fact-checkers are to be taken seriously, so long as they agree with him. It’s intellectually lazy and unserious, and speaks volumes about his commitment to honesty.
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Joel, old man:
Obama didn’t gut the work requirements. As even the Romney campaign knows, governors asked the Obama administration for some flexibility on the existing welfare law, and the White House said that’d be fine, so long as the work requirement isn’t weakened. It’s consistent with the policy endorsed by many Republican governors, including Romney himself, just six years ago.
What I find interesting, however, is the number of people who are picking up on Romney’s shameless attempt to deceive the public. Consider these comments from Joe Scarborough yesterday:
“I’ve been looking for a week-and-a-half to try to figure out the basis of this welfare reform ad,” Scarborough said, concluding that that the attack is “just completely false, and I’m pretty stunned.”
The Associated Press this morning ran a news piece on the racially-charged smear, calling the attack “factually inaccurate,” noting the campaign can’t “back up” the attack, and explaining that Romney is “distorting the facts.”
But Romney just doesn’t give a damn. He’s put out five videos repeating the attack — three for broadcast, two for the web — in just two weeks, and his campaign repeated the same obvious falsehood again this morning, effectively taunting reality. “Yep, I’m deliberately and repeatedly lying to the public,” Romney seems to be saying . “What are you going to do about it?”
As we discussed yesterday, Romney is testing American politics, pushing past boundaries and traditional norms, raising uncomfortable questions about just what kind of man he really is.
Sorry, but Joel had gotten my dander up: There are so many sources on so many lies, and he has the audacity to say that I am making them up, that it is a lie if I CONSIDER IT A LIE.
BLOMBERG NEWS: (NOT EXACTLY A DEMOCRATIC NEWS SOURCE)]]
Romney Misleads on Obama Health Cost: Reality Check
By Bloomberg News – Aug 30, 2012 11:13 PM CT
Each side has made statements about the other’s positions in the presidential campaign. How do some assertions in Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention square with the facts?
Obamacare’s Cost
Enlarge image Romney’s Critique of Obama Health Cost Misleading
Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, center, speaks at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa, Florida on Aug. 30, 2012. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Romney’s Convention Address Highlights
3:12
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney addresses attendees at the Republican National Convention. House Speaker John Boehner, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, film director Clint Eastwood and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida also speak at the event in Tampa, Florida. (Excerpts. Source: Bloomberg)
Jeb Bush on Obama, Romney, U.S. Economy, Education
40:59
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) — Former Republican Florida Governor Jeb Bush talks about the failure of President Barack Obama to foster bipartisan cooperation and the impact of that failure on crafting stimulus and health-care legislation. Bush speaks at an event sponsored by Bloomberg LP and the Washington Post at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Bloomberg’s Al Hunt and Washington Post columnist Dan Balz moderate. (Source: Bloomberg)
Christie Says Romney Will `Lead With Conviction’
24:30
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie speaks about President Barack Obama’s “absentee leadership” and the need for Americans to be told the truth from Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on issues such as the national debt and health care. Christie addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. (Source: Bloomberg)
The claim: “We must rein in the skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and replacing Obamacare.”
The background: Though President Barack Obama’s health-care plan was modeled after one enacted in Massachusetts by Romney, and its mandate that Americans buy insurance was initially proposed by Republican lawmakers, Republicans have opposed the law. Republican-led states unsuccessfully sued to overturn it.
The facts: Connecting current inflation in health care to the new law, which doesn’t take full effect until 2014, is a stretch. Health-care costs have been rising faster than prices in general for many years, though the pace has been slowing recently, in part because of the recession. Health costs rose 3.4 percent in 2010 from 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the U.S. inflation rate was 1.6 percent.
Obama’s health-care law cuts future Medicare costs by more than $700 billion over 10 years, in part by reducing payments to hospitals and insurance companies, including those that provide costlier Medicare Advantage plans. Romney says he would restore that money. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repeal of the law would increase the federal deficit by $100 billion over 10 years.
Republicans have yet to offer full details of how they would replace the health-care law. They have pushed measures to limit compensation for patients injured by medical malpractice. A 2009 Congressional Budget Office report found that a $250,000 cap on damages would reduce health costs by $54 billion over 10 years, or 0.5 percent of annual health-care spending.
Relations with Israel
The claim: “President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus.”
The background: Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have had public disagreements on several issues, including over the expansion of settlements in occupied territories that Palestinians claim as their homeland, and whether or when to use force against Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from building a nuclear bomb. Romney has attempted to sow doubts about Obama’s support for Israel in an apparent effort to peel off Jewish voters, who gave the Democrat 78 percent of their votes four years ago.
The facts: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told CNN in July, “I should tell you, honestly, that this administration, under President Obama, is doing, in regard to our security, more than anything that I can remember in the past.”
Obama’s ‘Apology Tour’
The claim: “I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour.”
The background: Obama, trying to reset relations with Europe following the administration of President George W. Bush, acknowledged in Paris that “there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” He went on to say, “But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.”
The facts: Obama didn’t begin his presidency with an apology tour. Independent fact-checkers have debunked this story. The Washington Post said, “The apology tour never happened.” Politifact said, “There is criticism in some of his speeches, but it’s typically leavened by praise for the United States and its ideals, and often he mentions other countries and how they have erred as well. There’s not a full-throated, sincere apology in the bunch.”
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at [email protected]; Matthew Barry in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at [email protected]
Ralph,
Insofar as my initially response might bear the interpretation of a personal attack, I apologize. My intent was to point out the impossibility of political conversation with one who presupposes that there is no good faith argument to be made for the other side. The best I can say about your massive effort to prove that Republicans are liars is that it helps to clarify the obstacles to conversation between the two of us, which appear insurmountable.
We appear to have very different concepts of what constitutes a “fact,” as opposed to a characterization or an opinion or an interpretation. Whether or not Obama has “gutted” the work requirement of welfare reform is not a question of fact; it is a characterization that will seem appropriate or not depending on one’s point of view. It is the same species of assertion as “Obama has been a good president.” One can disagree and attempt to point out various facts that the speaker appears to be ignoring or interpreting in a misleading or inappropriate context, but the “truth” of the matter is not ascertainable by any single empirical metric. To assert that fact-checkers have proved the characterization false is a tautology; it says only that people calling themselves fact-checkers diagree with it. If there is enlightenment to be gained in debate, the discussion should attempt to uncover the pre-cognitive dispositions that give rise to these different points of view, or to the consequences that will follow from what the President has done, however it is characterized.
From my angle, the characterization seems appropriate. It is a matter of opinion. Your argument misses my point–or proves it, depending on one’s point of view–by misapprehending the distinction between fact and interpretation. Political differences are inevitable, but not because one side is necessarily lying and the other is telling the truth. Those of us who believe that Obama has “gutted” welfare reform view the consequences of his act as having greater significance than you perceive. This different view does not make us liars. If you cannot see this, I honestly do not know how to talk to you. That is my point.
You seize upon the general epithets hung onto a factual statement and miss the underlying factual statement. Romney/Ryan say that Obama has taken out the work requirement for welfare payments. He has not. Some cast the R/R allegations as accusations that Obama has “gutted” the welfare requirements. But the underlying fact for that characterization is not a matter of opinion. He either did or did not remove the requirement that recipients of welfare seek employment as a condition for employment. He did not. He acceded to requests from state governors to waive the specific provision if they can show another way of getting the recipients to seek and find work as a condition. Now you knw how to talk to me. Talk about facts, not slogans.
Whether Obama “gutted,” “diluted,” “weakened,” “expanded,” or “added flexibility” to the work requirement is a characterization predicated on the perceived consequences of his action. Depending on one’s point of view, the characterization will be fair or not. We can disagree about the consequences. If there is an underlying fact that appears indisputable, it is that it state officials will find it easier to place people in the welfare system and to keep them there longer. We can argue whether that fact justifies the given characterization–which reduces to an argument over the goodness or badness of the consequences. You perceive me as ignoring facts. I perceive you as elevating your own value judgments to the level of fact, enabling you to view those who disagree with you as liars. Yours is a posture that precludes conversation so far as I can see.
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