Joe Conason: Testing Next Year’s Lies Today

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091111_testing_next_years_lies_today/

Testing Next Year’s Lies Today

Posted on Nov 11, 2009

By Joe Conason


Within hours after the House of Representatives approved health care reform by a narrow margin, Republicans predicted retribution at the polls next fall. They promised to make every Democrat regret that historic vote as the first step toward the reversal of power in Washington. And as the current debate has proved, they aren’t going to let honesty become an obstacle.

For a preview of coming attractions, simply turn on the Fox News Channel or any right-wing radio talker, where the falsehoods of the 2010 midterm campaign are being field-tested today.

You can watch Dick Morris blather about the “death panels” that will terminate your mother and father while illegal immigrants are provided lavish care, and about how you will be put in jail for failing to purchase health insurance. You can hear Karl Rove complain that we will “beggar ourselves” by adding more than $1.4 trillion to the federal debt. You can listen to Frank Luntz claim that voters disdain reform because of “the cost to the deficit.”

These gentlemen have little expertise in health or economics, but much experience in distracting, misinforming and sometimes frightening the public. Aside from talking on television, that is their job. How little do they know—and how much do they simply fabricate?

It is safe to assume that Morris knows very well there are no death panels in any of the health reform bills; that those bills expressly forbid coverage of illegal immigrants; and that none of them includes any provision to incarcerate citizens who lack insurance coverage. It is also reasonable to assume, based solely on the fiscal record of the Bush administration in which he served, that Rove never worries about budget deficits, government waste or gross corruption unless Democrats are in charge.

As for Luntz, he specializes in political prophecies that are self-fulfilling. When he says voters are infuriated by the cost of health care reform, for instance, that merely indicates he is trying to make them feel that way. He will succeed—all three will succeed—only by drawing attention away from actual facts and figures.

So perhaps voters ought to listen instead to the Congressional Budget Office, which by contrast has earned a reputation for candor, accuracy and nonpartisan truthfulness. After painstaking analysis, the CBO estimated that the House health care reform bill, known as the Affordable Health Care for America Act, would reduce the federal deficit by about $109 billion during the first 10 years after it takes effect. To repeat: The bill passed by the House Democrats on the evening of Saturday, Nov. 7, “would yield a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091111_testing_next_years_lies_today/

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. The GOP lies. Yeah, I got that

And yet even with a Dem controlled Congress and White House, Rush Limbaugh is still allowed to blather on Armed Forces Radio.

[babylonsister]

2. That bothers me, too, but I imagine he blathers because someone

listens to him and wants to hear his 'learned' opinions.