Eric Cantor tells a lot of falsehoods and makes a lot of highly misleading statements. The following are just the top 12 in the last 24 hours on his Twitter feed alone (not even counting his many falsehoods and misleading statements made on TV, on radio, etc.). Enjoy! Or not.
1. “Imposing net neutrality requirements would shackle broadband industry w/ anti-competitive, job-killing regulations” BLATANTLY FALSE (there’s nothing “job-killing” about net neutrality, that’s utterly ridiculous)
2. “Federal spending is out of control; we will begin the new GOP Majority by cutting our own Congressional operating budgets” WILDLY MISLEADING (define “out of control”; in fact, most economists believed the “stimulus” should have been far larger than it was)
3. “For too long, families and small businesses across America tightened their belts while the federal government continued its spending spree.” WILDLY MISLEADING (yes, families are tightening their belts, thanks to the Republican Great Recession, but that has absolutely no relationship – if anything, it has an inverse relationship – to what the federal government should be doing)
4. “This self-imposed cut to our own operating budgets in the House will save American taxpayers more than $35 million right away” WILDLY MISLEADING (First of all, $35 million is absolutely nothing in $3.5 TRILLION federal budget; second of all, let’s see if they really do it; third of all, will they really apply that $35 million to deficit reduction? highly doubtful)
5. “The federal government spending spree will stop with the new Republican Majority” HIGHLY MISLEADING (Again, most economists feel that the government should have spent more on “stimulus” and investment than it did. More to the point, the biggest causes of the deficit are: a) the Bush tax cuts, which Republicans just voted to extend; b) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Republicans have supported; and c) spiraling health care costs, which Republicans have absolutely no plan to deal with)
6. “This is going to be a results-driven Congress.” EXTREMELY UNLIKELY (It’s already started out with a bunch of made-for-TV gimmicks, like voting to “repeal” health care reform, reading the Constitution out loud, etc. How is that “results-driven?”)
7. “Government for too long has operated under the flawed assumption that growing bigger & controlling more is necessarily better” WILDLY MISLEADING (Who made that argument? In fact, government for too long has operated under supply siders and Republicans who believed in tax cuts for the wealthy, wars that aren’t paid for, and deficits as far as the eye can see.)
8. “Our new Majority stands for a different, better way: a government that controls less & spends less, but accomplishes more” FALSE (As in most things in life, you get more with more, less with less. Cantor’s full of crap.)
9. “The new Majority will be about ‘cut-and-grow’: cut spending & job-killing government regulations, grow the economy & private-sector jobs” FALSE (Provide real evidence for any of this, particularly the supposed “job-killing government regulations.” The fact is, the economy grew like gangbusters under Bill Clinton, did horribly under Bush and the Republicans. Case closed.)
10. “Over the coming weeks we will pass a repeal of last year’s health care bill to remove the strain on job creators” WILDLY MISLEADING (The House can pass anything it wants, it doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere. This vote will be pure political theater, nothing more.)
11. “We will cut spending in the current fiscal year back down to 2008 pre-bailout levels” FALSE (The chances of that happening are not 0.1%, not 0.0000001%, they are absolute ZERO. Not happening. Also, it’s worth pointing out that most of the spending in 2009-2010 was one-time “stimulus” spending that is already over with, so how can it be “cut?”)
12. “We will also identify & eliminate job-killing regulations that are impeding capital formation in America” WILDLY MISLEADING (Specific examples of these supposed “job-killing regulations” and supposed impediments to “capital formation in America?” Nope, didn’t think so.)
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