Oh, puleeze, now you’re gonna make the speaker cry (*guffaw*), calling him a liar and all.

When Republicans are presented with inconvenient truths, their reply is “la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear YOOOOOUUUUU.”

Does this make John Boehner the political equivalent of Magritte?

Since 1980 and the Cadillac welfare queen that did not exist, the media has chosen to never question a GOP lie – big or small – and indeed at best report a he said/she said rather pointing out the lie.

Today’s GOP lie is just more of the same – A democratic Party person making a lying statement about reducing the deficit would be taken over the coals, but tonights 6 pm news will be at best he said/she said – if they mention anything. The big lie about our liberal media (based on the truth of an opt in survey of 400,000 cards sent out that got 5000 responses and showed that reporters – not editors or management – report themselves as mostly liberal – in the 5000 that responded) has been sold so well that our media pretends to work hard to not show their bias against the GOP – as they in effect show their bias toward the GOP.

The first thing these deficit hawks do is a $4 trillion (if over 10 years) Bush tax cut renewal, followed by trying to add annother quarter trillion via a health reform repeal – and a declaration that tax cuts do not add to the deficit. And our media is not exited to find this hypocrisy and to then expose it?

Why perform research or engage in reason and/or logic (It’s “hard work” – GWB) when all that is required (by the corporate media) is to deny the facts and assert that they are just someone’s opinion. Plays right into the anti-intellectual, faith-based Tea Party crowd’s Conservative Victimization Syndrome™. If everything is just opinion, then “my opinion is as good as yours!”

The CBO put out another estimate that, accounting for various double countings and false assumptions in the directed scoring of Health Care Reform scam (including rising Social Security payroll taxes, which are actually going to fall this year to 4.2% and likely stay there so long as we have high unemployment and elections every 2 years), the deficit will increase >$700 billion as a result of “Health Care Reform”. This was reported last night.

Boehner is not the only liar. So are Pelosi, Reid and Obama. It’s all about political posturing and power.

Lol, gotta love the artform.

“I do not believe repealing the job killing health care law will increase the deficit. The CBO is entitled to their opinion.”

I do not believe that the lying corporatist whore John Boehner is telling the truth, but he is entitled to his opinion.

Boehner gets away with it because the media lets him get away with it. The US press is by and large set to assume that whatever Republicans say is true without question, and only lots of pressure from those who know otherwise on a given topic can ever get them to change their default setting — and then only temporarily.

The corporate-owned rightwing media is run/owned by the same elites who own & run Boehner, Pelosi, Obama, Reid, McConnell etc ad nauseum. Needless to say, Agent Orange is merely mouthing the “opinions” of the elite, who want a Nanny State for themselves alone, whilst the rest of us proles out here can scrounge for whatever crumbs ‘n bones we find (and then get taxed to the hilt for finding “income” of a sort).

More lies. Same old Kabuki show, different day. What else is new?

On edit, I might add: Like Obama, one can know when Agent Orange is lying… it’s when Agent Orange has his mouth open & sound is coming out.

corporate media= FAX BE DAMNED

The CBO also projected that the new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center would cost $70 million.

It ended up costing over $600 million.

Good grief!

There is also the issue that the CBO scoring, as directed, included a 10-year projection of revenues under “Health Care Reform” but only 7 years of outlays.

BONER makes lying an art form just by insisting that his name is pronounced Bay-nər

No other organization on this (or any other I presume) planet can lie and be as hypocritical as the Republican Party, so Boner is their perfect speaker.

The only other organization that even comes close is the national Democratic Party.

” Boehner said, “I do not believe repealing the job killing health care law will increase the deficit. The CBO is entitled to their opinion.”

How is that a lie? Boehner is saying what he “doesn’t believe”. If someone tells you that he believes in Santa Claus, is he lying? Or if he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, that he’s lying? Apparently there are people around that don’t actually know what a lie is. Additionally, the CBO can’t guarantee what the financial ramifications of health care reform will be, because it hasn’t happened yet. Facts are things that exist in the here and now. There are no facts in the future.

And right on cue to prove the point of David Dayen:

I hope people don’t think that Republicans are engaging in a serious effort to understand the costs of the health care law. That’s completely besides the point. They’re trying to demolish CBO in the minds of the public, or at least their partisans, because throughout the year, they’re going to create policies that CBO will frown upon. They’d rather turn the whole thing into a food fight to dislodge CBO from their perch as a neutral arbiter. Then they can create their own reality. It’s always the same thing with these people.

Yep, they all agreed the CBO would be the non-partisan arbiter of facts when it came to budgetary affects of legislation. But when they don’t like the results, then they want to claim it’s “all just opinion” to easily discredit it.

Gotta hand it to wingnuts. They can masterfully talk out of both sides of their mouth (and likely lying out of both sides) at the same time with a straight face better than any sentient being ever.

Not really sure that’s a good thing though.

Where is this new “without double counting” CBO estimate published on the web that says repeal will save money ?

The Wednesday release is found here – http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12040/01-06-PPACA_Repeal.pdf

You have to realize that on FDL your statements will be checked – indeed there just might be more expertise on FDL on any question than one finds in the sum of the GOP offices and Fox News.

As an aside, the “cost more money” folks do have a case – the Obama bill sucks on cost control – the reason most wanted to reject it here at FDL, in favor of a retry for a public option or even single payor – albeit that was pre Scott Brown’s win in Mass and pre Obama showing that he opposed any better bill.

So we have a bill that has no employer penalty for ending health insurance as a benefit – meaning the estimate of the subsidy to be paid for employees that move to the exchange in 2014 because the employer killed that benefit could be very optimistic. The less optimistic additional subsidy, as US companies become more competitive because of no health cost, having moved that cost to the Federal government and their employees, could be in the high tens of billions every year – but since when are the Republicans against a change that makes American business more competitive?

The CBO can come up with an estimate or a projection or a guess or a prediction, but they can’t come up with a fact. Not when it hasn’t happened yet.

Whenever you hear a Republican politician use the term “job killing law,” you can be sure that you are hearing a lie. That’s because the last concern of a Republican is an adverse impact of something on the labor market. Republicans care about corporate executives, not workers.

If your boss tells you that he is going to cut your pay next week by 50%, would you say it’s a fact that next week your pay will be smaller or an opinion since it hasn’t happened yet?

Good luck with that one.

See my comment #18. The framing itself is a lie.

It’s neither a fact nor an opinion. And it’s impossible for me to tell if he’s lying or not.

OK, so let’s say you each SIGN A CONTRACT that next week your pay will be 50% less. Is it a fact that next week your pay will be less?

Got a way to wiggle out of that one? Because legislation signed as law is like a contract for future actions.

Do you have a link for that?

And Jon, Remember Obama’s boy – Jonathan Gruber? The Administration used Gruber to distort the facts about what the CBO score would actually pay for. And then Peter Orzag of the CBO then got involved in selling the bill. He did not stay neutral.

Jane Hamsher: How the White House Used Jonathan Gruber’s Work to Orchestrate the Appearance of Broad Consensus (links are in Jane’s article)

…
The White House is placing a giant collective bet on Gruber’s “assumptions” to justify key portions of the Senate bill, which they allowed people to believe was independent verification. Now that we know that Gruber’s work was not that of an independent analyst but rather work performed as a contractor to the White House and paid for by taxpayers, it should be made publicly available so others can judge its merits [..]

How did the feedback loop work? Well, take Gruber’s appearance before the Senate HELP Committee on November 2, 2009, for which he used his microsimulation model to make calculations about small business insurance coverage for his testimony. On the same day, Gruber released an analysis of the House health care bill, which he sent to Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. Ezra published an excerpt.

White House blogger Jesse Lee then promoted both Gruber’s Senate testimony and Ezra Klein’s article on the White House blog. “We thought it would all be a little more open and transparent if we went ahead and published what our focus will be for the day” he said, pointing to Gruber’s “objective analysis.” The “transparent” part apparently stopped when everyone got to Gruber’s contractual relationship to the White House, which nobody in the three-hit triangle bothered to disclose.

But that was child’s play compared to the effort that went into selling Gruber’s analysis of the bill unveiled by the Senate on Wednesday, November 18. Two days later on Friday November 20, Gruber published a paper entitled “Impacts of the Senate High Cost Insurance Excise Tax on Wages: Updated,” claiming that the excise tax would result in wage hikes of $234 billion from 2013 through 2019.

And it was off to the races.

The next day on the 21st, Ron Brownstein wrote in the Atlantic about Gruber’s effusive praise for the cost-cutting measures in the bill: “Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing,” says Gruber.

On Monday the 23rd, the DNC was sending the Brownstein column a round in its entirety…one of 71 emails they would send touting Gruber’s work and it was included in OFA’s Monday Morning News Clips on BarackObama.com.

On Tuesday the 24th, OFA had another post touting the Brownstein article and citing Gruber as a “self-proclaimed skeptic on this stuff. The DNC sent that around, too. Mike Allen wrote that Obama had made the Brownstein article “mandatory reading” in the West Wing. TPM had the scoop that Rahm Emanuel told senior staffers “not to come back to the next day’s meeting if they hadn’t read the article.”

David Brooks of the New York Times was not convinced that the Senate bill would be deficit neutral, so Peter Orszag pointed him to the Brownstein’s “insightful article on health care costs” on the White House OMB blog that same day. It’s hard to believe Orszag didn’t know about Gruber’s contract — a search of the White House visitor logs indicates he [Orzag] met with Gruber on March 26, the day after his HHS contract was first awarded.

Paul Krugman cited Gruber’s glowing analysis in the Brownstein article — “this is the best effort anyone has made” — as one of the reasons he supported the Senate bill, noting that “the health care economists I respect are seriously impressed by the cost-control measures.” Rahm Emanuel subsequently cited Krugman and Brownstein to Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal as evidence of a “progressive backlash against the progressive backlash” to dismiss liberal criticism of the bill. Jeff Bingaman mentioned the Krugman piece on the floor of the Senate, and entered it into the Congressional Record.

On November 25, Peter Orszag and Nancy-Ann DeParle had a conference call with reporters to tout a letter written by 23 economists — including Gruber — encouraging the President to enact the excise tax and other measures. Once again, Orszag again invoked the Brownstein article, saying he “has done the work to understand the issue”:

Orszag seconded that notion, saying, “I agree with Jon Gruber that basically everything that has been put forward in health policy discussions for a decade is in this bill.”

“And then some,” added DeParle.

Peter Orzag wiki page:

Orszag was director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2007 to November 2008. During his tenure, he repeatedly drew attention to the role rising health care expenditures are likely to play in the government’s long-term fiscal problems—and, by extension, the nation’s long-term economic problems. “I have not viewed CBO’s job as just to passively evaluate what Congress proposes, but rather to be an analytical resource. And part of that is to highlight things that are true and that people may not want to hear, including that we need to address health-care costs.”[9] During his time at the CBO, he added 20 full-time health analysts (bringing the total number to 50), thereby strengthening the CBO’s analytical capabilities and preparing Congress for health-care reform.[9]

Read Jane’s Article. It’s so good that I couldn’t decide which parts to leave out here.

Defeat Boenher by showing what Obama did. The CBO is not non-partisan. Does the CBO need to be reformed/restored? We all lose with these partisan attacks.

They aren’t paying any attention to your posts. It’s more fun to call Republicans liars I guess.
Thank you anyway.

Signing legislation into law might make the law a fact but it doesn’t guarantee the consequences of that law. Always a problem for the statist faction. The enabling legislation of the 18th Amendment, the Volstead Act, prohibited intoxicating beverages in the US. No doubt its advocates felt that it was a FACT that this would lead to decreased alcohol consumption. You know how that worked out. My boss and I could sign a contract for future wages and he could be out of the business the next day. Maybe you should sign up for an internet logic course.

Boner (c’mon, Boeh? How would that be pronounced?) is a real piece of work. The prick handed out tobacco checks on the House floor for chrisakes! He is the poster boy for corruption, fraud, theft, and hypocrisy in Congress (with apologies to Orrin Hatch!)

Everybody ought to read Taibbi’s piece on him in the Rolling Stone. He is the quintessential corporate toady.

It is going to be a fun two years (not).

I would hope that the good rep from Ohio would have the good grace to surpass his 100 # rounds of golf in the this year of his Speakership. Thanks Ohio. Have another drink with the Johnny

whitepup

Perhaps I should sign up for a logic course.

Of course, that wouldn’t help with comprehending the load of bullshit you keep responding with, but heck, it couldn’t hurt.

Always trying to use pretzel logic to meet your sides goals at the moment, never any consistency. In the real world, and teh internet one, that’s known as HYPOCRISY.

Tomorrow hasn’t happend yet, but as far as all planning is conerned, it’s a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow and there will be a tomorrow. Your trying to obfuscate the issue with “if it hasn’t happened yet therefore it can’t be fact” is merely more plays with words to cover the FACT that your side doesn’t like the results of the CBO anaylsis.

And it speaks volumes of the parties involved when they agree to a thing (i.e. the CBO shall be arbiter of facts with regards to budgetting implications of legislation) and then immediately turn around and cry (literally, in Boner’s case) “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa, waaaaaaaaaaaa, I don’t like doz nummers dammit, derfor in dis case its pinion, just cuz I sez so. Waaaaaaaaaa.”

Speaks volumes.

Boehner could very well end up being wrong, as could the CBO. Nobody knows yet. And it doesn’t matter if Boehner has sex with animals, that doesn’t make his statement a lie, since it’s only what he believes. The term “side” seems to indicate two positions, there are more than two positions on any subject. The position of truth is the one to be on.

Look, the point isn’t whether Boner or the CBO is “right.” The point is that in order to do the nation’s business and pass meaningful laws, they have to do so in an informed way, and not just by wild guesses. So they all agreed that they would have these non-partisan professionals look at every potential act and “grade” it’s influence on this nation’s budget.

And just like the example with your boss and you signing a contract to cut your pay by 50% next week, a non-partisan grader would look at that and say “Your revenues are going to be down next by 50% absent any other changes.”

That’s NOT controversial. That’s WHAT the CBO does. They take whatever law or sometimes potential law and grade it’s affect on the budget. And when the two parties AGREE beforehand that this will be the arbiter of things, but then ONE party wants to change the definition of things at the first sign of numbers it doesn’t like, then that speaks volumes about the fact that this party is NOT bargaining in good faith.

FWIW, I’m with you 100% on this specific bill, I hope they repeal it (not gonna happen though, they’re gonna put on a show like they will, but it won’t be repealed until it’s repealed by the courts). But pointing out the lying and hypocrisy of one of the parties to an agreed upon deal is what this post was about.

If you and I agreed to let Jon Walker grade our newest contract that had me paying you $1,000 next week, and Jon Walker came out and said next week your revenues would increase $1,000, then you’d be a lying hypocrite to then say “Bullshit Jon, we don’t know for sure, hell, OldFatGuy might pay me $2,000 next week.”

The post was about agreements made by parties and then when they don’t like the results of those agreements, they try and obfuscate and lie their way out of them.

And BTW, the position of truth is the one to be on. Damn straight.

The point of my response to the post is that Boehner didn’t lie. He may well have reneged on a prior agreement, I don’t know. But even if he did, the statement he made isn’t a lie. Walker’s post is illogical, counter-factual and misleading. If he wants to castigate Boehner for not living up to an agreement, swell. But that’s not what Walker did.

So the healthcare law wasn’t revenue neutral as advertised. It appparently would provide more in revenue (reduced Medicare and increased taxes) then it would cost for subsidies, and repealing it would cost.