Remember that CBO report I linked to earlier this week? The one that supposedly said the stimulus package as proposed would not spend fast enough to be stimulus. Guess what. It doesn’t exist (via):
Reports of a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the vast majority of the money in the stimulus package won’t be spent until after 2010, have Democrats on the defensive and the GOP calling for a pullback in wasteful spending.
Funny thing is, there is no such report.
“We did not issue any report, any analysis or any study,” a CBO aide told the Huffington Post.
Rather, the nonpartisan CBO ran a small portion of an earlier version of the stimulus plan through a computer program that uses a standard formula to determine a score — how quickly money will be spent. The score only dealt with the part of the stimulus headed for the Appropriations Committee and left out the parts bound for the Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce Committee.
Because it dealt with just a part of the stimulus, it estimated the spending rate for only about $300 billion of the $825 billion plan. Significant changes have been made to the part of the bill the CBO looked at.
The CBO numbers were given to a small number of congressional Democrats and Republicans, but were not posted online because they’re not an official CBO product. (Media outlets, while reporting widely about the “report,” have declined to post it online. Here’s the whole thing.) Democratic aides say they are certain that the GOP leaked it to the Associated Press in order to undercut the spending portion of the stimulus.
I promised to myself that never again would I be as gullible as I was during the Bush years, but I really don’t know what the appropriate level of skeptical is for Republicans right now. Even after losing their asses in the last two elections, facing numerous crises, here they are just flat-out making shit up on arguably the most important topic of the day.
From now on, anything the Republicans say I am just going to have to assume is a lie, until proven otherwise. I don’t know how else to handle this, as they simply can not be trusted to tell the truth or do the right thing, regardless what the stakes are.
robertdsc
The President is putting everything on the line in terms of transparency:
Great Orange Satan’s transcript of this morning’s radio/video address
The recovery.gov site has a placeholder with info on when to check back after the stimulus package passes.
James
It’s the only way to go. No matter how cynical you are about the Republicans, they always manage to exceed your expectations, on the down side. No matter how badly you believe they will behave, they never fail to perform even worse than you had imagined.
James
…which reminds me, whatever happened to Joe Wurzelbacher?
gogiggs
See, you do know the appropriate level of skepticism. They always lie. About everything. Always.
tofubo
From now on, anything the Republicans say I am just going to have to assume is a lie, until proven otherwise
i had that as a standard from about 1988 (and from democrats since about 1996)
Gang Green
No one could have predicted this.
dmsilev
I’m hoping that Obama’s strategy of reaching out to the GOP is a reprisal of the rope-a-dope technique that he was a master of during the campaign. Get all bipartisan-y, watch the GOP demand more and more, and then turn around and say "well, I tried to negotiate in good faith, but apparently the Republicans don’t care about that".
He has a positive gift for making his opponents look like blithering idiots. Granted, it doesn’t take much to make the Congressional GOP look that way, but at the rate they’re going, it won’t be long before we starting looking at Alan Keyes as "the sane one".
-dms
Comrade Scrutinizer
You mean reprise?
bud
. . . and so completes your conversion.
dmsilev
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Um, yeah.
Note to self: Writing blog comments pre- third cup of coffee is a bad idea.
-dms
JimPortlandOR
I can think of only a very few Republicans in the public eye that are worthy of being exempt from the presumption of untruth. Sen. Dick Lugar comes to mind. Hard to think of #2, isn’t it?
And the media loves the GOP lies! Here the list maybe is a bit more mixed, among the Republican supporters, but I love to hear some nominations for truth-tellers with GOP orientation among media/think tankers? I can’t think of one, but there must be at least three, right?
Nicole
I really feel Republicans have irrevocably confused politics with sports. It doesn’t matter what their team does or what it stands for as long as it wins. I don’t understand it. I was a little kid in Pennsylvania in the 1970’s, so yes, I’m a Steelers Fan. I like "Steelers" as a concept and always want them to win. But whether they win or lose, it’s not going to affect my life all that much, other than a brief period of happy or disappointment. The Republicans know just how to tap into America’s sports-fan gene, and the fact that they are screwing up the country doesn’t matter, because people have decided they are "Republicans" and that’s that.
The problem with this being that I don’t get to vote on whether the Steelers win. If they play crappy they lose. Political parties can play crappy and still get to the Superbowl (maybe I should say the World Cup, due to the four years thing, except then I’m sure Republican fans will throw beer bottles and say I’m a Euro-loving Commie or something).
I think the sport that comes closest in truth to politics is horse racing because it runs on gambling and if you bet on the wrong horse, you lose money. Which is maybe why it doesn’t have a huge fan base- because there are immediate consequences to losing. (Well, that and breeding running the business, but that’s a whole other rant. Unless breeding= military industrial complex.) The difference in politics being that while you might pick Secretariat, if everyone else picked Twice a Prince you’re still screwed.
Reverend Dennis
"Nothing Has Changed" for the Republicans since 1993:
For the Republicans, it’s all about preventing Democratic success. If America goes down the shitter as a result that’s just collateral damage – and we know how they feel about that.
Scott H
Fact-checking and parsing the Republicans and their think tank surrogates will make your head explode.
I got through about about three minutes of an AEI flack on C-SPAN trying to blame the banking crisis on over-regulation. Yes, there are some tough regulations and laws on the books. They just don’t work too well when they’re not being enforced.
Jay
I heard Guilfoyle complaining about Obama’s Teflon coating trickling down to cover his appointments last night on Hannity.
Republicans are in a world of hurt right now, and they’re lashing out blindly like a shedding snake.
And for some reason I’m enjoying seeing Eric Cantor in the background everywhere like Waldo. I think that guy has the potential to be the O’Reilly of the House: exuberantly and emphatically wrong on just about everything.
Comrade Darkness
I really feel Republicans have irrevocably confused running the country with soiling their nappies and screaming until they have the largest lollipop.
Really. The sports analogy gives them far too much credit.
The Moar You Know
The GOP is treading on some really, really dangerous ground here. My mother and stepfather (PUMA and one of the last of the Rockefeller Repulicans, respectively) have already stated publicly that they think Obama is doing a good job and that "Congress" had better not interfere with what he is trying to do. Cornyn’s blatant douchebaggery WRT the confirmation hearings has particularly pissed them off.
Dangerous sentiment if the GOP expects to see any change in their fortunes in 2010 and 2012.
I think we can count on them getting slaughtered even worse in 2010 if they don’t figure out the obvious pretty quick; namely, that they are operating under wingnut standard procedure and that the times are not standard times. I don’t think they’re going to figure it out.
wvng
I think Obama’s approach is creating useful and positive divisions among the repuglicans. For example:
But House Republicans do not have enough votes to prevail. And events on Friday made clear they do not pose a united front with Senate Republicans. In a speech, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, countered criticism from party conservatives, like many in the House, who oppose compromise with Mr. Obama. “Anyone who belittles cooperation resigns him or herself to a state of permanent legislative gridlock,” Mr. McConnell said. “And that is simply no longer acceptable to the American people.”
This is not the first time I’ve heard similar talk from McConnell in the last couple of weeks. He seems genuinely taken with Obama’s willingness to engage the repugs in a way that Bush simply never did. The challenge is going to be sorting it all out, learning which repugs can be even remotely trusted to tell the truth. Uncharted territory.
JL
Change you can believe in! When John Sununu lost, it sent shivers down the spine of moderate Republicans. They have a choice, either join with the southerners of their party or align with Obama.
Boehner can yell that money is going for contraception all he wants, but there are some of his party who are going to vote for the stimulus. In this time of hardship, I think family planning should be part of medicaid.
MattF
As a rule, Republicans regard questions about policy as disguised questions about power. And politics is about power– if you’re a politician and you don’t care who’s in charge, you should find another job.
Obama understands this very well– and, very deliberately, presents Republicans with a choice. Either learn about policy and make rational arguments that can actually be tested (be like, e.g., Tyler Cowan), or be stupid and dishonest. For most Republicans in Congress, there’s apparently no real choice.
Tim H.
Time for you to leave, Kwai Chang Cole.
Media Browski
Jebus John! You just came to this conclusion? When did you break with the GOP again?
kay
Obama’s shop have a pie chart out with the good numbers.
People love pie charts.
He’s going to need a third of his staff engaged daily in simply countering bullshit.
As usual, I’m disappointed with the Congressional Democrats, on television. I have no idea why they aren’t more aggressive with a President who has 77% approval. I don’t know why they are apologizing.
With the notable exception of the always fierce and effective Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Elvis Elvisberg
Nicole, as to your comment, Davis X. Machina had a very pithy and astute comment on those lines around here a year ago:
bago
Boehner. hehe.
tom p
Rep JoAnn Emerson (se MO)has impressed me for years as one who is willing to buck the party line from time to time… That doesn’t exactly qualify as being truthful (I can not say for sure on that point), but she is open to the truth.
kay
Lawrence H. Summers will appear on the NBC News program “Meet the Press" to explain the program.
Fabulous. That’ll be riveting. No one conveys a sense of populist urgency like Lawrence Summers.
TheHatOnMyCat
The good news is, you caught on, John. The bad news is, we were basically telling Republicans this (that their party was just a lie machine) years ago, and nobody was listening.
That convinces me that the 28 percenters, the believers, are a lost cause. Just write them off. There’s another crazy 28 percent (or so, YMMV) on the left. What’s left is the middle, which is an amalgam of diverse, but reachable, voters. The middle that at least one front pager and a lot of your commenters swear does not exist.
In the Obama era, we are going to see how an administration that understands this governs to the middle. Not from the middle, but TO the middle, literally showing that middle what it can do for them at each step of the way. This lets the middle try to make voting choices based on their actual interests, and not on false issues like culture and abortion.
Interesting times we live in.
Thomas Tobiason
The problem isn’t that you can’t trust Republicans to tell the truth even when the stakes are enormous. The problem is that the AP reported the Republican lie as fact. The Republicans are quickly making themselves irrelevant. Their only hope is to keep using the liberal media to stir things up for them.
Ash Can
Not always fierce and effective, seeing as she was dragging her feet last year on endorsing fellow Dems in Florida for fear of ticking off her Republican pals in Congress — despite the fact she was on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
lovethebomb
Repubicans serve corporate/plutocrat interests. The interests of the public are often at direct odds w/ those interests. (pollution, consumers, workers) Therefore, the vast majority of what republicans say is a concocted lie designed to change the subject, attack a strawman or misrepresent their own policy as somehow in the public interest (country first, my ass).
That is the reason for their otherwise incomprehensible utilization of religion. It is a side dog and pony show used to deflect any attention from the interests they serve and the legislation they pass. BTW, does anyone remember this much attention being paid by the media to the god-awful legislation the republicans passed during the 6 yrs they had both congress and the white house? Suddenly when a Dem is in office, they rediscover skepticism.
Bob In Pacifica
How much of that stimulus do I get?
I want to get a little flat screen for my man cave and figured it might be a good time to pick over the bones at Circuit City.
Tsulagi
From now on? Now? Okay, I’ll pass on the easy slow jokes.
Aside from his sock puppet, Cheney has long been a great, unerring human compass. You always knew where the truth laid or the intelligent course of action. 180 degrees from where he was pointing.
Mike P
McConnell has the cover of recently being given another six years in the senate, so he actually has incentive to compromise now, as opposed to some of the clowns in the House who will be up for re-election in a year or so. Plus, members of the senate always seem more taken with their reputation for comity than is the House, so perhaps the bipartisan tack really is working on them (not to mention the fact that the current president was himself recently a senator).
kay
@Ash Can:
I saw that at the time, although I didn’t read it. I assumed it was really about Cubans voting or not voting for her, despite what she said.
She’s not perfect, but she’s a good tv Dem. It’s unlikely Lawrence Summers knows or cares what a gallon of 2% milk costs in Florida. Debbie can tie the price of a gallon of 2% milk to health care, and back again, in 40 seconds.
jTh
The naked dishonesty has been blowing out the doors for years, until Bush simply took the doors off the hinges.
At this point, they can’t even breathe without lying. If we could ever wise up the media enablers, all their oxygen would finally be cut off.
But it might be more fun to watch them gasping for a while…
Mazacote Yorquest
My skepticism toward the GOP makes Richard Dawkins look like Pat Robertson.
jenniebee
’bout the same as it ever was, which is to say, total. The last forty years, they’re all progressively bolder variations of Spiro Agnew.
What, you’re just now catching on to that?
The Grand Panjandrum
I believe one quarter of what the Democrats tell me so you can imagine how I feel about the party of Bush and Cheney. It’s trust but verify with D’s and as far as I am concerned R’s can only tell the truth when all other options are exhausted and then you still have to verify every single word uttered.
Jody
"Flat out making up shit about the most important topic of the day" is their entire modus operandi.
Just look at Iraq. Or Bill Clinton’s entire presidency.
MikeJ
I think the real difference between Senate and House Republicans is that Senate Republicans really could block every bill and stand in the way of the stimulus package passing. In the house the majority party will win and there is o way to stop it.
If you know your opponent’s plan is going to pass anyway, you could argue that you are better off opposing even things you think are a good idea. Unless everything works perfectly (and of course nothing ever will) you can always say that the people should have listened to you instead.
In the Senate you run the risk of actually killing the bill and then being responsible for coming up with something that works. And then being held responsible for the success or failure of that plan.
Anoniminous
"Making shit up" is the default position for Conservatives and, thus, the GOP.
Second is presentations of various arrangements of Informal Logical Fallacies communicated in various tones of shrillness.
Incoherent blather is the last.
woody
this has always been the requisite posture for dealing with the Right. PrezO is playing to their strengths when he offers conciliation and compromise. To the extent that there’s a difference between ‘principle’ and ‘ideology,’ i find it worrisome me that, in vanquishing ideology, pragmatism will dispel principle, too.
Jay
@kay:
About Debbie Wasserman-Shultz:
It ain’t, ironically, rocket science. Her constituency isn’t Hispanic and Taddeo might not be on board with the genocide in Gaza.
Sorry, John, but our funding of the Warsaw Ghetto-ization of Gaza will not stop if we don’t start calling it what it is.
Nicole
@Elvis Elvisberg: That was well said (and briefer than me, for sure). It makes me nuts- half of the self-described Republicans I know (I grew up in the Alabama section of Pennsylvania) can’t even articulate what the Republican platform is, but by God, at some point they decided they were Republicans and that’s that. That’s their team. Those that can articulate it, when it’s pointed out that their guys have done nothing remotely resembling what they claim they stand for, just stare blankly or say that while yes, they’re disgusted with everything their party has done over the last 8 years, by God, it’s their party and they aren’t giving up on it, so therefore they shall vote for John McCain to show their misbehaving party a thing or two! Pointing out that voting for a misbehaving party is merely rewarding the bad behavior gets you another blank look. And angry accusations that you think said conservative friend is a bad parent (I wish I was making this up).
Of course, today MSNBC had some ad on about some upcoming news show and from the way they described the upcoming stimulus package discussions, I thought I was watching a spot for some show on ESPN. Lots of bangs and flashes and talk of "rumbles" or something along those lines. So the media doesn’t help with the politics=sports thing.
mattH
Interesting to think that in part this is the result of gerrymandered districts for these House members. By creating districts that cater to electing more conservative members, they now can’t get any coverage from voting for sensible legislation because they have to pander to the constituents they have, not a broader selection of the populace. Good to see that bite them in the ass.
Church Lady
Well, since the media was also writing about the supposed CBO report, perhaps you should also include them in your gallery of liars and assume that anything reported is a lie, until proven otherwise.
Martin
Not quite. I don’t think he assumes anything the Democrats to say to be a lie – which is important to being a true Democrat.
Obama puts LGBT issues on the White House civil rights page and the community still thinks he’s full of shit because 18 month ago someone on his staff hired a C/W singer.
I don’t assume everything Democrats say to be a lie, but I’m damn skeptical of everything they say. That’s really the benefit of DKos and TPM and other sites for me – Democratic supporters tend to be a lot better about doing the research and backing up or refuting what their officials say, with the usual assumption that everything from the GOP is a lie. Democratic officials seem to be a lot better about not putting quite as much complete shit out there because it’ll usually get caught and shared.
The GOP doesn’t have that dynamic yet. They’re still focused on getting their boosters to back them up regardless of whether they are right or wrong, which means that over time, anyone not drinking the cool aid is going to catch on and check out. There is nobody out there helping the public see that the GOP aren’t the party of pathological liars and I don’t think they’ll really recover until that happens, assuming that Democrats keep on their own as they have for the last few years.
dslak
@Church Lady: Often, journalists are just stupid or lazy rather than malicious. That’s why so many of them rely on hacks for their "facts."
Laura W
I just drove through downtown (small western NC mountain town) and on the corner of Main St, in front of the Courthouse, were exactly nine white people, average age 65 – no shit – holding handmade signs:
Let Gaza Live
Stop Bombing Gaza.
(And one Obama/Biden sign, just for gloating, I imagine.)
kay
@Jay:
Absolutely. That’s a piece. I’m a at odds on that with Wasserman-Schultz, and I came to that position very, very slowly and carefully. The latest in Gaza, was, for me, the end. It takes me a while.
If you can show me that she’s relying on that single issue to pick and choose which Democrats she supports, in terms of getting Democrats elected, I would find that persuasive.
Dan Parker
My first reaction to this post was the same as the Peak Wingnut one, which is "What!!". You don’t already have that attitude when it comes to the wingnuts? I mean seriously it is about well 28 years now, but then John has only recently left the darkside :).
Dan Parker
My first reaction to this post was the same as the Peak Wingnut one, which is "What!!". You don’t already have that attitude when it comes to the wingnuts? I mean seriously it is about well 28 years now, but then John has only recently left the darkside :).
kay
@Jay:
I got the Cuban-American angle from the fact that the Reps she won’t align against are all Cuban-America. I don’t know jack about Florida politics, but that seemed to make sense.
….has declined to endorse the Democrats running to unseat Cuban-American Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart."
rawshark
@dmsilev:
That’s a lot of coffee. I never have more than one cup. Of course I drink a six pack of Mountain Dew a day. :)
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Except, of course, that the corporate media enablers are them.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
That would have been about the time the Republicans rebranded themselves specifically as the White Man’s Party. Policy justifications came after the identification.
jTh
MattH @46:
So you’re saying that "they went to Congress with the constituency they have, not the consitituency they want to have?"
Not quite true, of course, but the irony is telling.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Laura W:
H’ville?
Laura W
@Comrade Scrutinizer: So very close!
shhhhh…….
scarshapedstar
The sun keeps coming up in the morning, too.
@The Grand Panjandrum:
And even then, when you convince yourself that what they said is maybe technically true, you find out two weeks later that they had their fingers crossed behind their backs and they’re going to do the exact opposite.
NonyNony
@Martin:
Skepticism of public officials is actually important to being a good citizen. Partisanship has nothing to do with it. Only someone who has no idea about the basic values of democracy assumes that politicians should be believed or are working in the best interests of the country without a healthy dose of skepticism and watchdogging.
That said, there are differences between "skepticism", "crushing negativity" and "fuck, you guys aren’t EVER going to tell the truth about ANYTHING". IME, Democrats often tend to fall into the "crushing negativity" camp – EVERYTHING is just a setup for a potential disappointment, and it’s tough to recognize that, no, really, you’re going to win this one this time! That’s different from assuming that Democratic pols are lying about everything they say – it’s more assuming that Democratic pols are losers who will disappoint you no matter what.
Cpl. Cam
Yep, that’s pretty much the assumption I’ve been opperating under since 1992.
TenguPhule
Let’s all have a good laugh here.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Mountain Dew has more caffeine than coffee, unless you’re guzzling some very high-octane joe. And you drink SIX of them a day!? You must have quite the reputation at the office.
Before the increased popularity of kitchen-sink meth, the South used to run on Mountain Dew and iced tea. I recall that the soda machine in my Alabama high-school locker room had five slots filled with MD and one with Pepsi.
And I still start every day with a shining green can of this wondrous, life-giving elixir, so unfairly maligned by you leftards.
Napoleon
Although any more I rarely drink pop, this life long northerner has always considered MD his favorite soft drink, even though I was often the only person I knew who would drink it.
PaulW
Isn’t there a law against falsifying documents?
At the very least the idiots who faked the CBO report are committing fraud, and should be charged as such.
We need to stop the damn lies…
lucslawyer
Hell, I haven’t believed anything said by a republican since Kent State…
Rick Taylor
I don’t think Republicans were always like this, just making stuff about everything. It came to its culmination under Bush. After we invaded another country and began at least a six year occupation to remove weapons that did not in fact exist, nothing surprises me. When I heard that 61 detainees had returned to the battlefield after being let go, I just assumed that was entirely made up. It would certainly be good if our new administration actually made it possible to trust the government a little bit again.
koko
That’s the point that they don’t want to make. Did all of those guys "return" to the battlefield, or did they join it because of Gitmo?
The one thing that this article made me think about is when will someone, anyone, blow the top off of the wingnut talking point that 40% of Americans don’t pay income taxes. I actually called Bill Bennett’s radio show after he’d had Jack Kemp on and asked the phone screener who these people were that represented that 40%. All he could tell me was that they were welfare recipients. I expressed my incredulity and got hung up on.
I heard the 40% number again from Boehner (sp?) in connection with the meeting Obama had with them. Don’t they (the congressional Republicans) understand that we all can read our paychecks and know that we pay our taxes with each check and that anyone who gets a refund does because of the deductions and credits that already exist, largely based on home ownership and the number of children one has? Don’t they get it that Obama and Biden were very asstute to correctly point out that 95% of us make less than $250K? Don’t they get that everyone know exactly how much money they make?
Maybe not.
TimmyB
I know what you mean about believing pathological liars. I have a brother like that. Believing what he says is like Charlie Brown believing Lucy will hold the football for him.
You end up on your back enough times, you learn.
John
Mountain Dew is good stuff, but I’m much happier (because I sleep much better) without caffeine in my diet at all.
On the subject of political honesty, my view is that none of them tell the truth about anything. The few who dare to do so get labelled kooks by the faithful standard-bearers (who absolutely wave their foam fingers as a substitute for actually engaging their grey matter).
Very few people have any idea who really runs things, nationally and globally. I’ll give you a hint: don’t hold your breath waiting on Obama to 1) Denounce the war crimes in Gaza, 2) throw the Wall Street banking criminals in jail, or 3) have BushCo formally investigated for their myriad misdeeds.
The Blago affair that was all set to take Obama down before he was ever sworn in, and then suddenly pulled a Barbrady? ("Nothing to see here, people, move along…") Come on, folks, think.
North Dallas Thirty
All right, let’s see what the Pravda Post is claiming.
Because it dealt with just a part of the stimulus, it estimated the spending rate for only about $300 billion of the $825 billion plan.
Which, if people will recall, was made perfectly clear in the first reports on the topic.
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Barack Obama’s plan found that most of the approximately $355 billion in proposed discretionary spending on highways, renewable energy and other initiatives wouldn’t be spent before 2011. The government would spend about $26 billion of the money this year and $110 billion more next year, the report said.
About $103 billion would be spent in 2011, while $53 billion would be spent in 2012 and $63 billion between 2013 and 2019, the report said.
Furthermore, it also brings up the dirty little secret from the plan — which is that, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on dubious projects that wouldn’t even take effect until next year, simply cutting taxes would provide an immediate and larger effect for much more money, and likely make the wasted special-interest spending useless, since the economy would already be in recovery.
But, since it questioned the intelligence and effectiveness of the Obamamessiah’s plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Obama Party-aligned special interest groups, the Pravda Post had to smear and stop it by claiming the Republicans "lied", even though the report made it clear to what they were referring.
Excellent Obama tactics — claim your opponents are lying when they aren’t and try to avoid explaining why you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars that don’t exist to prop up pointless projects that will be totally unnecessary by the time they’re built.
Dan Andrews
In addition to automatically assuming anything a Repub says is a lie (something I’ve been doing since 1973) you should also assume anything that comes after the term "some say…" is completely made up bullshit.