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Bush
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Leaving aside some of Bush's truly nutball twists of mind (like the idea that Egypt
is about to show the way to democracy in the Middle East; never mind
that they're currently under "emergency rule," criminalizing dissent
and allowing indefinite detention, and have been for the last twenty-four years)...
Let's
look at just a few of the hard-and-fast, indisputable lies from last
night's bullfest. (All Bush quotes from the official transcript,
republished here.)
Josh Marshall caught this one first:
Our
society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not
have foreseen. In today's world, people are living longer and
therefore drawing benefits longer - and those benefits are scheduled to
rise dramatically over the next few decades.
Unquestionably false.
In
1934... the actuaries predicted that the proportion of Americans over
65 -- then only 5.4 percent -- would rise to 12.65 percent in 1990... They were just a tad high; the
actual figure would be 12.49 percent. [Emphasis added.]
Bush glossed a lot of details, but he did give at least one plain, specific fact on the numbers... I quote:
By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt.
Horseshit. According to the Congressional Budget Office's authoritative numbers (.pdf document), updated just last Monday: if absolutely nothing changes, benefits aren't even projected to begin declining until 2053, at which point (prepare to quake in mortal terror):
CBO finds that the benefits paid will be 22 percent lower than the scheduled benefits.
Bankrupt?
Bankrupt? Bullshit. Even something as mainstream as CNN's Money
section is now running a "Reality Check" article, politely saying Bush
"may have overstated Social Security's problems," given that (in the
exact words of the head numbers guy at the GAO) "the program will never
go bust."
On crime, Bush told another whopper, distorting his own record wildly
with a new proposal completely at odds with his administration's actual
policy (a tactic he used repeatedly; I'm just using this one as an
example):
Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs.
Fascinating, given that (as noted by ThinkProgress.org's liveblog of the speech) Bush has actually proposed a 40% cut in federal juvenile crime prevention funds, and has overseen an overall 44% reduction in anti-gang funds since 2002.
Foreign policy? More lies:
We are cooperating with 60 governments
in the Proliferation Security Initiative, to detect and stop the
transit of dangerous materials.
Another big fat one. ThinkProgress.org:
The administration has undermined the legitimacy of the Proliferation Security Initiative
by refusing to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea. This treaty has been ratified by 145 nations, including the other
members of the Proliferation Security Initiative (who insist that it
provides the only legitimate international framework for the
initiative). Even Republican Senator Richard Lugar
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