Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 01:56 am
John Boehner gave a press conference today that was so full of crap that even the ever clueless CNN was forced to fact check and call out his latest fiscal cliff BS.
Here is the video of Boehner:
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Boehner armed with a shiny new chart, put together by no-numbers guy Paul Ryan, tried to fool America into not raising taxes on the wealthy while gutting Social Security and Medicare.
The Speaker said, “Unfortunately, the White House is so unserious about cutting spending that it appears willing to slow-walk any agreement and walk our economy right up to the fiscal cliff. Doing that puts jobs in our country in danger, it jeopardizes a golden opportunity to make 2013 the year that we enact fundamental tax reform and entitlement reform to begin to solve our country’s debt problem and, frankly, revenue problem. As you can see from this chart, real revenue growth is critically important as long as real cuts in spending if we’re going to resolve our long-term fiscal problem.”
Rep. Boehner continued, “As I said five weeks ago, the election wasn’t a mandate to raise tax rates on small businesses. It was a mandate for both parties to work together to take on the big challenges that our country is facing. Republicans are ready and eager to do just that. We made a reasonable offer, it’s now up to the White House to show us how they’re going to cut spending and give us the balanced agreement that the president has talked about for weeks.”
Right after Boehner finished speaking CNN went to Ali Velshi, who immediately fact checked the Speaker of the House and his dashing chart.
Video from Media Matters:
Velshi said,
It’s inaccurate. It really troubles me that he’s doing this. And he’s depending on a lot of inaccurate facts and it really trouble me that he’s doing this…hat he’s saying is — I’ve said it before, Ernst & Young needs to be very careful about allowing its name to be used for things like this because there is just nobody who corroborates this study. It doesn’t transfer. Because — everybody talks about small business as the engine of growth in this country.
Let’s set the record straight. Small business does not create more jobs than big business does in this country. End of story. It is a myth that we’ve started to believe. Small businesses create more of the new jobs in this country under normal circumstances than large businesses do. Because large businesses layoff tons of people and hire tons of people. Small businesses are more consistent. That is not to say we shouldn’t support small businesses. There is a myth that somehow — here is the other thing. The percentage of small businesses, which transfer their wealth through their personal income and hence have to pay income taxes, who would be affected by this increase —is a very small percent of businesses. And within that, the number of those that are actual real employers is yet substantially smaller. Most of those types of businesses are self- employed. They are partnerships, law firms, rock stars. They are not employers. So there is just no way you can get to that math that 700,000 people will be put out of work by an increase by the top 2 percent.
Fact checking? CNN? Really? Where has this been for the past three years? The same network that crawled into bed with the tea party, and watched their ratings nosedive, has now decided that they want to join the rest of us on planet Earth who have absolutely no idea what Republicans are talking about half of the time.
It’s amazing what getting a new boss is already doing to a network that had gotten way to comfortable with only getting ratings when a natural disaster strikes or an A list celebrity dies.
This could be sign of real change at CNN, but more likely it is proof positive that John Boehner is swimming so deep in the sewer that even utterly clueless by design CNN can’t ignore how completely full of bull Boehner is on this issue.
Just when Boehner thought things couldn’t get worse along comes the 97 lb weakling of cable news (CNN) to kick sand into his face. Boeher is so completely full of it that not even a colorful chart and talking points based on a widely debunked study can save him.
It is time for Boehner to pack it in, give Obama what he wants, and wash away his sorrows with a nice liquid Christmas. The longer they drag this drama out, the worse it gets for Boehner and the Republicans.
When even CNN gets it, the Republicans are super screwed.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
