Obama Scolds Republicans For Their Lies

You can tell this is an election year because the Republican lies are coming fast and furious. And the biggest lie of all is that they are worried about the federal budget deficit. Before they took their summer break, the Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would cut taxes for small businesses and provide low-interest loans for those small businesses. This bill would have been a job stimulator (especially the billions in loans that would allow small businesses to expand) and it was supported by conservative business organizations.

But the Republicans didn't care. They are willing to throw small businesses under the bus (and American workers) as long as they can get elected -- because their own political well-being is more important than helping ordinary Americans climb out of this recession (which was caused by Republican policies that favor the rich and giant corporations). Their reasoning in opposing that bill was that it would add to the federal deficit. Of course that was a lie. Democrats had included enough cuts in the bill to make it budget neutral.

Now President Obama has released some details of a new job stimulus program. Part of it is $50 billion to repair and improve the country's transportation infrastructure (which the Republicans allowed to dangerously deteriorate while in power). This bill hasn't even been introduced in Congress yet and the Republicans are already attacking it. They say it will add to an already too high federal deficit. Again they are lying. The bill is budget neutral because it will be paid for by cuts in subsidies to the giant oil and gas companies (which is the real reason they oppose it).

Both of these Democratic proposals would be job stimulators and would help small businesses and workers alike. But while the Republicans claim to be on the side of small businesses and workers, the truth is that they don't care about either one. All you have to do is look at their major economic proposal to know this -- the extending of tax cuts to the richest 2% of Americans (the only Americans who don't need the tax cuts).

Once again they are floating some big lies. They try to make it sound like President Obama and Democrats want to increase the taxes for all Americans. Not true. Democrats have already pledged to leave the tax cuts in place for 98% of the population. It is only the richest who will be asked to pay more (the same as they paid during the Clinton administration and the first part of the Bush administration -- and less than they paid under other presidents).

They also claim that eliminating the tax cut extension for the richest 2% would hurt job growth in this country. Another lie. First, most job creation is done by small businesses and less than 3% of small businesses would be affected by eliminating the tax cuts for the rich. Second, the rich will not hire new workers just because they get a tax cut extension, or refuse to hire needed workers because the tax cut is not extended. The only reason to hire workers is because more workers are needed to meet demand. If more workers are not needed, then the money will just go into the already fat bank accounts of the rich.

But perhaps the biggest lie of all is what they won't tell Americans -- their lie of omission. And that's the huge hit the federal budget will take if the tax cuts for the rich are continued. They would like to pretend that these tax cuts for the rich wouldn't affect the deficit, but the truth is that it would increase the deficit by at least $830 billion -- eight or nine times what the two Democratic bills mentioned above would cost (if they weren't budget neutral).

The truth is the Republicans don't really care about the deficit -- just look at their out-of-control spending during the Bush administration. They took a budget surplus left by President Clinton and turned it into a massive federal deficit. They want to funnel more money into the pockets of the rich and don't really care what it does to the federal deficit.

Hopefully the president is getting tired of all the Republican lies. At least he sounded like he was in his Wednesday speech in Cleveland, Ohio. He scolded the Republicans for their mistruths and desire to return to the same economic policies that created the recession in the first place. Here is some of what he said:

"So let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everybody else. We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer."

"Make no mistake: He and his party believe we should … give a permanent tax cut to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. With all the other budgetary pressures we have, with all the Republicans' talk about wanting to shrink the deficit, they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next 10 years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 each to folks who are already millionaires."

"For those who claim that this is bad for growth and bad for small businesses, let me remind you that with those tax rates in place, this country created 22 million jobs, raised incomes, and had the largest surplus in history."

"They're making the same calculation they made just before the inauguration: If I fail, they win. Well, they might think this will get them where they need to go in November, but it won't get our country where it needs to go in the long run."

I hope the president is serious. He needs to continue to attack the Republicans hard and often about their lies. And the other Democrats need to back him up when he does. This election is not over yet, but it might as well be if the Republicans are allowed to lie with impunity.