There are a lot of ridiculous memes making their rounds on Teabagger sites, and most of them have one thing in common:
If they’re not outright lies, there’s as cherrypicked to fit a bias as Thessalonians 3:10. Don’t think that’s a coincidence, either — rarely will you meet a Teabagger who can give you a quote from anything, and then tell you what comes before or after it, or what context it fit into. No, like our Biblical cherrypickers, our Political and Economic Cherrypickers prefer the kind of simplistic literalism that you can only get from
EIGHT! SECOND!! SOUNDBITES!!!
But the world doesn’t run eight seconds at a time, and sometimes REALLY! IMPRESSIVE! EXPLOSIONS! just don’t tell the story. So, one by one, we’re going to get our fingers sticky in stupid, dissecting this mess of a meme:
OK…got that? Facts don’t lie. Liberals do. And then a bunch of “evidence” of “liberal lies.” Might as well start at the subtitle.
“Facts don’t lie. Liberals do.”
In comedy there’s a kind of joke called “the simple truth.” Simple Truth jokes are meant to remind us of the logic of a child or idiot, and allow us to laugh at their innocent foibles. In a Simple Truth joke, the teller removes all context from the words of a saying or idiom, which is itself accurate, and then removes any education, meaning or context by interpreting the exact words literally. That’s why they’re often used as “kids say the darndest things” kind of jokes. Here’s our take on a few “Simple Truths” from the Tea Party.
- “Facts Don’t Lie” Wow…brilliant. That is true. If something is a fact, it is both self-evidently “true” by virtue of being a “fact,” and incapable of lying because it’s not a conscious entity.
- “Liberals Do (Lie).” Also true. Liberals DO lie. But, then again, so do conservatives, independents, anarchists, Nazis, Communists, Taosts, Kings, Billionaires, heads of corporations, churchgoers, atheists, men, women, children and HUMANS. So, yes. “Liberals lie.”
- CONTEXT: Even according to your precipt that “liberals lie,” are THESE your examples of “liberal lies?” I don’t think I’ve heard a single person dispute any one of these things, liberal or not. Is ANYONE arguing that gas is cheaper, our credit score is higher, unemployment is lower and the debt is lower than it was in early 2008? Who’s said that?
And even if these are your attempts to answer the question on whether or not Obama’s inhereted a mess…what does this prove? As usual, it’s completely out of context. All you’ve proven is that Bush left the U.S. a really crappy place, and it got worse after the recession that he caused. But, just in case that escapes your brain, here’s a little snapshot to put 2008-09 in perspective.
In 1999, under Clinton
- AAA Credit Rating
- 4.1% Unemployment
- $1.17 a gallon gas
- $123 Billion SURPLUS
- 1 War (limited, Kosovo)
So, to put things in context, and see how much worse Obama screwed up the country than Bush, let’s do this equation: (Obama -Bush) minus (Bush – Clintion)
- Obama increased unemployment by 0.5%, Bush increase it by 3.7%
- Obama added 5 Trillion to the debt, Bush added the most to the debt, more than $6 trillion. This more than doubled the debt, which was $5.8 trillion on September 30, 2001 — the end of FY 2001, which was President Clinton’s last budget. Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks by launching the War on Terror. This drove military spending to record levels, $600-$800 billion a year. President Bush also responded to the 2001 recession by passing EGTRRA and JGTRRA, otherwise known as the Bush tax cuts, which reduced revenue. For more on Bush’s accounting tricks which hid the cost of his wars (which President Obama rejected) click HERE
- Obama was still fighting Bush’s wars when he got in office, and started 1 more. Bush inherited 0 wars from Clinton, and started 2.
As far as the Annual budget:
- And…who approves the budget again? Oh, that’s right…Bush had a budget, because he had a bought-and-paid Congress that didn’t block everything but his toilet. Contrary to what Mitt Romney may have told you, Obama actually DID propose two budgets, which our Teabagger-anarchist congress failed to pass. Beacause Obamacare. It’s Congress’ job to pass a budget. And that’s why Politifact called Romney’s statement out as complete BS.
About the only legitimate complaint on this meme is in regard to the price of gas — which, to be fair, has gone up a lot more under Obama than it did Bush. It was $1.17 when Clinton left office, so it went up about $0.64 under Bush, and $1.80 under Obama. Fair enough…that is a pretty good jump. Speaking of jumps…let’s see where the biggest one started:
Notice that significant peak during Bush’s tenure, right before the economy crashed while he was in office?
- The highest national average during Bush’s tenure was $4.12, and the highest was $3.96 during Obama’s tenure.
- The LOWEST the national average hit $1.61 in December of 2008, and was $1.81 days after Obama was sworn in.
Now, let’s remember that Obama took office on January 20th 2009. Right on the 2009 line. We already know that oil prices drop during a recession, that’s historically true. And, when exactly did that recession start?
And this brings us right to the crux of the issue, right to the subject and the context of the meme.
Did Obama inherit a mess?
The Economy dropped off a cliff in late 2007, more than a year and a half before Obama took office. It was ALREADY IN FREEFALL when he was SWORN IN. For a little contemporary perspective, here’s a headline from a month after Obama was sworn in.
“Supply Side Tax Cuts Failed to Deliver Jobs and Growth Between 2001 and 2007“
Jobs and employment, you say? Let’s see THAT graph
FactCheck.org reports that 2.5 MILLION jobs were created in the 3rd quarter, 2013. Suck it.
How about that credit rating? Well, according to Standard & Poor, the blame falls squarely on the GOP. This is from the National Journal:
- The big new element on Friday was an official outside recognition that U.S. creditworthiness is being undermined by a new factor: political insanity. S&P didn’t base its downgrade on a change in the U.S. fiscal and economic outlook. It based it on the political game of chicken over the debt ceiling, a game that Republicans initiated and pushed to the limit, and on a growing gloom about the partisan deadlock. Part of S&P’s gloom, moreover, stemmed explicitly from what a new assessment of the GOP’s ability to block any and all tax increases.
- S&P was remarkably blunt that its downgrade was mostly about heightened political risks: “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed,” it said.
- “We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues.“
As far as the old myth of the “Spendocrats” and “fiscally irresponsible” libtards spending our nation to death…well, Forbes Magazine doesn’t agree with that part.
Bear in mind again, that’s from FORBES, the fattest of the Fat Cats in the world, whose fortunes ride on realistic assessment free of Teabagger hyperbole. And to the guys who live on Wall Street, crunching numbers and predicting results…well…this “spendocrat” crap doesn’t quite pay the bills.
THIS GRAPHIC from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows unequivocally that the Bush Wars, and Bush Tax Cuts are the LARGEST drivers of the debt and deficit.
And finally, on the “annual budget” GARBAGE in this meme. Firstly, the lying degenerate meme creator ought to know that it’s Congress that controls the purse strings.
Republicans failed to pass budgets in 1998, 2004, and 2006. The Congressional Research Service noted in a January document that “Congress has adopted 39 budget resolutions during the 35 years that the congressional budget process has been in effect. At least one budget resolution has been adopted every year except 1998 (for FY1999), 2002 (for FY2003), 2004 (for FY2005), and 2006 (for FY2007).” Republicans held House and Senate majorities in 1998, 2004, and 2006.
So, forget the BS, and the numbers spinning. Draw a line straight up 2009 on these charts, and let your eyes do the pattern recognition for you. After that, you should be able to determine for yourself, “Did Obama Inherit a Mess?” Yes. A gigantic, GOP-created mess.
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