Republicans have been masterful in going on virtually any media outlet to lie about actually caring about the deficit, but no one is calling them out on it.
There is a constant refrain from conservatives that President Obama has not laid out a plan to make cuts in spending to address the deficit. Friday was just the latest version of it, but it’s nearly constant on all media outlets.
Is the media’s collective memory so bad that they can’t remember back just a year ago…or even a week?
Obama tried to sweeten the man-made fiscal cliff “crisis” with chained Consumer Price Index, or “chained CPI,” on Social Security and was rejected. Not by those in his own party who were rightly upset that he was offering an unnecessary concession, but by Republicans who didn’t think it was enough.
As if that is too much to remember, during the last man-made hostage negotiation on the debt ceiling, Obama offered a $4.1 trillion dollar “grand bargain” that Speaker John Boehner walked away from. Again, his proposal would have had Democrats howling with rage had it passed, but Republicans could have taken it. Instead, it would have been seen as a win for Obama at a time he was up for re-election–and they couldn’t have that. In addition, it wasn’t an ideologically pure win for Tea Party “conservatives” so, no deal.
As we head into this next “man-made” fiscal crisis, Republicans are saying that Obama is unwilling to cut spending, which is made up out of whole cloth and divorced from reality, but the media is all playing along.
Obama keeps saying he wants a balanced approach, and he keeps offering options, but Republicans won’t accept anything less than effectively dismantling the social safety net and zero taxes on the rich and corporations, therefore, Obama is “unwilling” to make tough decisions.
Republicans hold up the Ryan budget as their offer to cut spending, as if it won’t explode the deficit. Once again, they are lying and nobody seems to want to point it out.
Just remember as we head into this next “crisis,” which is totally manufactured by right wing Republicans who helped create this huge debt problem though unpaid spending on two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, Medicare part D and policies that created the worst economy since the Great Depression, you can tell when they are lying; their lips will be moving.
Rich Stockwell