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HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN REPUBLICANS ARE LYING?

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on February 28, 2011.

02-28-2011 by L. S. Carbonell

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is being touted by the right as the hero of budget deficits, the man who knows how to do it right (no pun intended) and who should be running for President. That would all be very nice if Indiana’s balanced budgets of 2006, ’07 and ‘08 hadn’t evaporated into deficits in 2009 of $1.4 billion, 2010 $2 billion and a projected 2011 deficit of $1.4 billion.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is being celebrated everywhere, and repeatedly begged to run for President by a hyperventilating Ann Coulter, but an analysis of his state’s budget shows that the $11 billion that he is bragging about saving the state, out of its over $28 billion deficit, has actually been shifted forward to next year and beyond. Pension obligations are just one of the things he has shifted out of the budget to make it look good. By doing so, he increased the obligations with accumulating interest charges.

Arizona’s Jan Brewer, who this weekend said that the President should get out of the governors’ faces and let them solve their states’ problems as they think best, is taking her state from a deficit of $125 million last year to $825 million this year to $1.4 billion next year, all while Arizona’s economy is actually recovering from the worst effects of the recession. Part of Arizona’s problem is the mass exodus of hard working, tax paying Hispanic Arizonians out of the state because of Brewer’s “papers please” law.

The so-called fiscally superior Republican governors are being exposed as actually making things worse. Their union-busting, immigrant bashing, ax-wielding spending cuts and refusal to accept stimulus money and Federal infrastructure projects are hurting their states, and especially hurting education and the social safety net.

Speaker of the House John Boehner keeps insisting that “the American people have spoken.” No, we haven’t. Nationally, only 41.6% of eligible voters bothered to show up. It’s simple mathematics. Of those that did vote, around 52% overall were Republicans and 45% were Democrats. Simple mathematics. If we give the right the other 3%, just to be fair, 55% of 41.6% is 22.9%. Just 22.9% of eligible American voters actually voted for the Republican agenda. Fifty million Americans isn’t “the American people” by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just 16% of us.

How do you know when Republicans are lying? They open their mouths while giving you that “you are so-o-o-o stupid” smirk.