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yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
Sat Feb 25, 2017, 11:19 AM Feb 2017

Trump tweets: Media not reporting national debt decrease

Take a "fact" and twist it like a pretzel.

Source: The Hill, by Elliot Smilowitz

The tweet:




*****

Trump's numbers appear to be from a Treasury Department website that lists total outstanding public debt on a day-by-day basis. Pro-Trump conservative blog Gateway Pundit cited the website's numbers in a post Thursday touting Trump and blasting Obama.

Less than a month after his inauguration in 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an economic stimulus package costing $831 billion. The law, a response to the economic recession a year before, was primarily focused on saving jobs and creating new jobs.

The New York Times wrote in February 2009 that Obama banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush had been using to make deficit projections look smaller, in an effort at transparency. The move had the effect of making spending appear to balloon to a larger degree than was true.

*****

Trump’s tweet came less than an hour after former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, appearing on Fox News, said the national debt fell $12 billion. Reporters have noted that Trump often seems to tweet about a new topic shortly after a cable news segment features it.

Read it all at: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/321150-trump-tweets-media-not-reporting-national-debt-decrease

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progree

(10,864 posts)
4. Thanks to Pacifist Patriot in another thread -- citing the Washington Post:
Sat Feb 25, 2017, 11:48 AM
Feb 2017
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028707073#post2

"Comparing Jan. 20 to Feb. 20 of each year, the figures are more like $15 billion and $212 billion. This generally isn't a metric used to evaluate presidents, since they have little influence on the first months of their presidencies. Obama, for example, inherited the financial crisis, and signed a stimulus package that went into effect in mid-February. Anyway, this difference stemmed not from public debt but from intragovernmental holdings. And there is one sense in which the media talked about this: Herman Cain mentioned it on Fox News shortly before Trump's tweet."

I love their Twitter Add-on that fact checks his bullshit and provides broader context!


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I'd add that there is considerable month to month fluctuation in the debt change numbers, including months with debt reduction even though the debt increase for the year is in the hundreds of millions.

Ilsa

(61,675 posts)
5. How convenient for him to point out that Obama
Sat Feb 25, 2017, 12:04 PM
Feb 2017

Faced a huge recession, almost a depression, where bank credit was starting to dry up. That $200 bil saved our economy.

yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
8. The rightwing takes a "fact" or an association of "facts" and...
Sat Feb 25, 2017, 12:13 PM
Feb 2017

creates a twisted narrative to fit their agenda.

Truth and understanding often requires more than 140 characters - but it is perfect for "their base."

Mr. Ected

(9,670 posts)
7. He owns every stinking penny of the debt
Sat Feb 25, 2017, 12:12 PM
Feb 2017

Just like Obama did (among Teabaggers) when he was sworn in in 2009. The Felon in Chief wants credit for things he didn't do; he deserves full blame for everything then as well.

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