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A Super PAC supporting Democrats, Majority PAC, went up with an ad in Virginia hitting Republican Senate candidate George Allen.
“He called programs like Medicare and Social Security a waste,” an announcer says, before almost goading fact checkers. “It’s true. George Allen said: ‘Whatever the government program is -- no matter how essential it is -- it’s a waste.’”
The ad, which a Majority PAC press release says began running Tuesday night, shows Allen making those exact comments and adds, “And that’s exactly the plan George Allen will take to Washington. Slashing Medicare. Cutting Social Security. Eliminating 700,000 jobs. All to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. Why would we send George Allen back to Washington?
But Majority PAC takes Allen out of context.
The clip is taken from a five-minute segment from FOX in 2009. The segment is about waste at the Postal Service and health care. Medicare and Social Security never come up in the conversation.
Allen does make what seems to be a sweeping statement that applies to all federal programs, but the ad draws a direct line to Medicare and Social Security when no discussion in the referenced clip was to either program.
Here’s the video, which is on Allen’s YouTube channel, and a transcript of the first two-and-a-half minutes from the Dec. 22, 2009 show with guest host Charles Payne:
PAYNE: “Well, it’s billions in the red, but still spending your green. US Postal Service caught springing for parties, movies, even booze on taxpayer money. Government watchdog identifying nearly $800,000 in “imprudent spending.” My next guest is concerned that this is just a preview of coming attractions if the government takes over health care. George Allen, former Republican governor of Virginia, joins us now. Wow! This is a—I mean, listen, the post office is losing a lot of money to begin with and yet they can spring for stuff like this?
ALLEN: Yeah, Charles, you know, most Americans recognize that whatever the government program is, no matter how essential it is, it’s a waste. There’s constant waste in it and you know, here they are eating all sort of things – expensive meals and all the rest and here, folks that are working for a living and their money is confiscated in taxes to pay for these sort of things, it’s just galling. In fact, they found they’re having crab cakes and beef wellington, meanwhile we’re all eating cupcakes and beef jerky.
PAYNE: Gollee, I can tell you, I’ve never--, George, I can tell you, I’ve never even had beef wellington before! But tell us, though, now how do you make the connection? Do you think they’re going to do the same thing with this health care?--
ALLEN: Sure—
PAYNE: --it’ll be just one giant pot of money for parties.
ALLEN: Well, I’m not saying they’re going to have parties—
PAYNE: I know—
ALLEN: --they’ll have waste in it. But what are we getting, Charles? Those of us in it. What we’re getting hit with is higher taxes; we’re getting higher premium costs; you’re seeing for the states they have unfunded mandates to it; you’re going to have generally speaking a lower standard of health care while the social engineers and these elites in Washington are imposing this on the American people. It’s something that’s going to be harmful to small business, job growth, and on top of it all of it’s an experiment, health care experiment that’s going to cost $1 trillion that we don’t have and the last thing we need is more debt for these sort of experiments. The people of America need personal responsibility and freedom, not dependency on the government.
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This is hardly the most egregious offense of the campaign.
No one ever said Clinton erased the national debt. What was done was to get us in a position to start paying down the debt. This is something Reagan did not do, he ran up deficits and taxes.
We can sit and spew 24/7 at each other about who is to blame for the deficit. It is altogether pointless.
We elected people who then proceeded to engage in financial lunacy.
We have a POTUS who is willing to do what is needed. What we do not have is a Congress willing to do what is needed.
Pruning the budget alone will not get us where we need to go. We still have Afghanistan to finish with. We still have an economy struggling. Our infrastructure is in increasingly desperate straits. What we need is more income.
We have a 16T debt to pay off. That will not get paid off without increasing taxes.
We must also invest for the future so that incomes increase.
The dirty little secret here is that the govt is subsidizing low wages for corporations, through food stamps, WIC, et al., so that they don't have to pay people a living wage. Minimum wage was worth 10.00 per hour in 1968. It's nothing like that now.
Improve wages and not only will the economy improve, but so will tax receipts.
Educate kids. Pay teachers. Make sure smart kids get the chance to get as much education as possible. Train kids who are better with their hands to the max. Get breakfast programs and after school food programs going so that kids work to potential. You can't wait around for parents to do their job if you want kids to learn. Encourage parents, but understand with many kids the schools are on their own. Resources are needed to make sure we do not throw children away because no one else cares. Make sure kids are getting health care.
Get rid of the scammers across the board-in health care, education, et al. Consumer protection could save a huge fortune in this country.
Fix the infrastructure.
Make sure that everyone has access to health care. This way we can target the few whose illnesses tend to disproportionately use resources and cut costs. No one should die or go bankrupt because of lack of access or bad medical care policy. What we have now is a mess.
These things pay for themselves and then some down the road.
We need to make changes to bankruptcy law so that students and homeowners can renegotiate loans when needed.
Banks have helped themselves. Now the govt needs to be on our side.
Romney and his entire party are 1% ers ,personally I don,t care if they want to eliminate social security and medicare ,but if done I expect to see a check for my contributions to these services within 6 weeks of that date, I don't care if the poor congressmen have to pay for it out of their own pocket,as it is they who stole it in the first place. for wars tax breaks for millionaires or what ever their contributors wanted them to vote for or introduce in a bill. My opinion is both sides are equally corrupt and at fault for the US debt finances and should be forced to pay for their mistakes.
IE; paying all the funds stolen by them,by any means freeze their bank accounts , audit them all to look for any amount over their salary, if there is consider it a bribe and arrest and prosicute on behalf of all Americans.
Get a neutral investigation team to evaluate congress per member you will find evidence of corruption, but they will never allow an investigation on their own accounts,will they ? I wonder why ? Can we all say thief ?
above clown just had math failure.
The whole GOP are 1%'ers....think it over.
Thank you NBC for your fact-checking on this false Kaine attack ad.
I've never questioned your journalistic integrity.
This is liable and a perfect example how the left will lie cheat and steal to promote their agenda...these are the news media you democrats listen too and the people you vote for...lying A— — scum.
Liable? It is a public figure and therefore the rules do not apply. Nevertheless, the gist of what the man said is that he feels it is a waste. Certainly Romney and Ryan feel so. Remember they have not use for the 47 percent of victims!
THU JUN 07, 2012 AT 05:42 PM PDT
CBO Director Demolishes GOP's Stimulus Myth
byJon PerrFollow
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For months, Mitt Romney and his Republican allies have been falsely claiming that President Obama "made the economy worse." This week, Romney preposterously declared Obama "knowingly slowed down our recovery." And today in Missouri, the Republican nominee doubled-down, charging that the President "slowed the recovery and harmed our economy," a result Romney insisted constituted "a moral failure of tragic proportions."
As it turns out, Thursday would have been a good day for Mitt Romney to stop sniffing glue. Because just 24 hours earlier, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Officeblew the Republican slander out of the water.
As the Washington Post reported, the House Budget Committee heard testimony from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf to answer simple question: did the $787 billion Obama stimulus work? Unfortunately for Republican propagandists, Elmendorf clearly refuted Mitt Romney's claim that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was "the largest one-time careless expenditure of government money in American history."
Not content with that response, Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp tried again. "Where did Washington mess up?" Huelskamp demanded. "Because you're saying most economists think it should've worked. It didn't." As the Post's Lori Montgomery detailed, Elmendorf drove home the point:
Elmendorf's agency released its latest assessment of the stimulus just last week. And as the table below shows, at its peak in 2010 the ARRA added up to 3.3 million jobs, cut unemployment by as much as 1.8 percent and boosted GDP by up to 4.1 percent. (It's also worth noting that the CBO once again confirmed that aid to the states and purchases by the federal government delivers the biggest bang for the buck, while upper income tax cuts provide the least.)
Still, the Romney campaign remains determined to whitewash that message. As one Romney aide described President Obama's stimulus program, "He spent $800 billion of everybody's money. How'd it work out?"
As it turns out, it worked pretty well.
Sadly for the myth makers of Team Romney, the facts and the overwhelming consensus of economists - including John McCain's 2008 brain trust - prove otherwise. President Obama not only did not make the American economy worse; no thanks to obstructionist Republicans in Congress he saved the United States from "Great Depression 2.0" and put the nation on the path to recovery.
The proof starts, but certainly doesn't end with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Despite Republican mythmaking that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "created zero jobs," in November the CBO reported that the stimulus added up to 2.4 million jobs and boosted GDP by as much as 1.9 points in the previous quarter. As The Hill explained, the CBO has found that "President Obama's 2009 stimulus package continues to benefit the struggling economy":
In February, the New York Times assessed the impact of the Obama stimulus and rebutted its Republican critics who looked instead to the UK for inspiration:
Among those economists is Mark Zandi, who in 2008 served as an adviser to Republican John McCain. Federal intervention, he and Princeton economist Alan Blinder argued in August 2010, literally saved the United States from a second Great Depression. In "How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End," Blinder and Zandi's models confirmed the impact of the Obama recovery program and concluded that "laissez faire was not an option":
But their modeling also suggests that the totality of federal efforts to rescue the banking system dating back to the fall of 2008 prevented a catastrophic collapse:
Even Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the CBO and chief economic adviser to John McCain during the 2008 election, acknowledged the impact of the stimulus. Certainly no fan of either Barack Obama or the design of the ARRA, Holtz-Eakin told Ezra Klein that:
Lamentably, we still need to do something. As May's disappointing jobs numbers show, the slowdown in China and the deepening crisis in Europe are already having an impact in the U.S. But the same Senate Republicans who gave the February 2009 stimulus bill only three votesfilibustered President Obama's proposed $447 billion American Jobs Act last October. Nine days later, the GOP blocked $35 billion in aid to states to pay the salaries of teachers, firefighters and police. (Forecasters estimated the AJA stymied by the Republicans could have added up to 1.3 million jobs and 2 points to GDP this year. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney charged on Tuesday that Obama "hasn't put forth a plan to get us working again."
As it turns out, the 600,000 jobs shed by state and local governments since December 2008 not only added as much a full point to the unemployment rate, but meant "the current recovery is the only one that has seen public-sector losses over its first 31 months." Despite that "anti-stimulus," Mitt Romney pretended once again today that "President Obama has expanded government."
No, President Obama has not expanded government. He has not "made the economy worse." And as the CBO's Doug Elmendorf made very clear to disappointed House Republicans yesterday, the stimulus was not a failure.
* Crossposted at Perrspectives *
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO JON PERR ON THU JUN 07, 2012 AT 05:42 PM PDT.
ALSO REPUBLISHED BY COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT.
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While you're "fact checking", perhaps you need to examine all the lies that Paul Ryan has told. It would fill a small book. In my 69 years, I've never seen a candidate for POTUS and VPOTUS tell so many outright lies. Moreover, I've never seen a candidate for President refuse to make more than one year of tax returns public, refuse to say what his plans are for social security and medicare. (He said if I told you what my plans were, I'd lose) He also refused to tell what his specific tax plans were as well as make public his past business dealings and his off shore and swiss bank accounts. This man reminds me of another Republican who was out of touch with Americans and was a secretive man. His name was Richard Millhouse Nixon. I will not vote for a pig in a poke as the country term says. I want someone who is open and honest and connects with the American people. Neither Romney or Ryan fit that bill.
you put your money in medicare, a government run program, instead of buying insurance outside the govenrment. you paid into social security, instead of taking your money out of the counry of not depending on the government to give it back to you. you are haters. johnny depps did the same thing. his money in in the caymon islands, although your president has to prove this income is here in the us. get a grip. you invested in the govenment, like the post office. put you investment outside the government, in prive equity and state controlled mandates. those haters that didn't, suck off. the 47% i don't want your vote. 100% minus 47is still 53%. i always win at 53%. you invested in a government run program. ask the postal serice what they think of a government that required a company to pay into retirement and medical care for those not hire yet. this program is going down as with all government sponsored programs. your governmetn run programs can't do for you what you can do for yourself.
let's look at bernarke report of this day. we will provide trillions in paper without the backing of gold to support our payment. your grandchildren will pay $46,000. each. write your check today. clinton wants a job for his wife. bernarke wants his job. teachers are out of work, firemen and police are out of work.
the president wants his job. who would vote for a person with no military experience in the middle of several wars. who would vote for a president who is a teach of constitution law and upserps the constitution. remember, all laws not in the constitution are empowered to the states. get your state lawyers to enact state laws. get out of the government telling me i can marry a girl when i am a girl, that i get free birth control when the men have no birth control. get the government out of our lives. put your social security into anything non governmetn and your medical out of the government control. they we can truly be free citizens. the 47% who want the government in your lives. good luck.
the cbo should be president of the us. you act like a lawyer had any economics classes he passed. get a grip. the president of colleges and their professors give the advice and then you give a president an award for their work. the wars are with the generals and the marines but the president did this or that. this lawyer who taught constitutional law and have upserped the constitution on numerous ocassions, should be disbarred. this from a person familiar with the law. his wife a lawyer also, i don't see any laws given by her. her biggest event is having a husband who, while in church, nontheless, say girls should marry girls. give birth control free to women. nothing for the men. these monkeys can's be real men. michelle, should leave this queer loving, woman hating abusers and reinstate her license for women. all she can do is talk about fat assed women who can't shop and do no exercise. i bet if i had a personal chef and an exercise trainer, i could do better myself. people are starving while you are in africa. maybe you and oprah can start a commune with your husband as the leader of the free africa.
if you give your social security, medical insurance to the government for them to control, good luck. don't cry to those that took our monies out of this country, bought our insurance privately. do not rely on social security for our retirement. need the number for a good investment advisor. are you the 47% that i don't care what you think or how you vote, i am the 53%. do the math. invest in the goverment of the u.s. and you will lose everything.
Domenico, good job in fact checking Democrat super pac, Majority Pac. They were caught lying, trying to scare seniors to get votes. They have no integrity hopefully the people of Virginia are smart enough to realize what BS these liberals spread.
Where's Feisty (Fishy): Does she have a problem with the truth? Or is she just hiding, being incapable of coming up with an inane line or two?
Its pathetic listening to the Republicans with their racism and outright lies now they are realizing that Mittens and his band of clowns have turned what was a winnable election into a three stooges sketch.And Rick321779 shouldn't you be keeping quiet about national debts and George W Bush considering he is the man who nearly brought this country to financial ruin. 5 trillion of the national debt was his tax cuts alone plus two unnecessary wars the list goes on and our children will be paying for Bush's mistakes. Maybe after the election is over the Republicans will realize they will never win a presidential election by promising to take from 99% of the country and giving it to the wealthiest 1%. And when their belief that the loud passionate minority of haters,birthers,racists, and factional zealots like the Tea party will magically transform into an electoral majority doesn't happen maybe they will cast the radicals from their party otherwise they are going the way of the dinosaur.
If Mittens can take Obama OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTING JOHN MCCAIN and run it like it was President Obama commenting on his own policies, there is no right winger IN THIS ENTIRE COUNTRY who can ever complain about an out of context quote, ever again.
Sauce for the goose, kiddies. You wanna play rough? Don't whine when it bites YOUR butt.
They set the rules for the game.