Factcheck.org: Pelosi, Obama overstate their case

Two days ago, I posted an article about Nancy Pelosi and her outrageous claims of accomplishments. Today, Factcheck.org released a similar article, which came to the same conclusion I did.

Here's what Pelosi said in a USA Today article:

We achieved more progress over the last four years for our veterans and military families than any time since the passage of the original GI Bill in 1944. And we did all of this while restoring fiscal discipline to the Congress by making the pay-as-you-go rules the law of the land.

Here's what Factcheck.org had to say:

The fact is the federal government ended fiscal year 2009 with a $1.4 trillion deficit — the highest deficit as a share of the gross domestic product since 1945. And it only dipped slightly to $1.3 trillion in the fiscal year that just ended on Sept. 30.

It is true that Congress restored the pay-as-you-go rule, which requires new spending in certain cases to be offset with new revenue or spending reductions elsewhere. The House adopted a PAYGO rule in 2007, and it became the "law of the land" in 2010 legislation. But the new PAYGO law was part of a larger bill that raised the debt limit by $1.9 trillion — a fact the speaker doesn’t mention.

President Barack Obama signed the PAYGO bill into law on Feb. 12, and it was promptly ignored. The PAYGO law was waived less than two weeks later on Feb. 24, when the Senate voted for $15 billion job creation bill.

Obama also chimed in on his greatness during an interview with 60 Minutes:

We’ve probably done more than any administration over the last 20, 30 years when it comes to increasing veteran spending. Because we’ve got over a million folks who’ve served in Iraq and Afghanistan who’ve come back with post-traumatic stress disorder you know, traumatic brain injury.

Factcheck.org came up with a different set of facts, as I did earlier this week.

That was true last year, but only in terms of raw dollars. Bigger percentage increases took place under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.

Final spending figures for fiscal year 2010 (which ended Sept. 30) show that total spending on all "veterans’ benefits and services" reached $108 billion, an increase of $13 billion over the previous year. That’s the largest one-year increase in that category on record, according to official historical budget figures.

But in percentage terms, the increase amounted to 13.6 percent. And the fact is, spending on this category increased 112 percent during the eight fiscal years for which Bush signed the spending bills, and there were bigger one-year increases in fiscal years 2005 (17.4 percent) and 2008 (16.3 percent).

An oh, let's not ignore his statement about there being over a million "folks" with traumatic brain injury. Hard to believe someone with a Harvard degree would say that. I think I know what he was trying to say, but it didn't come out right. And some people call George Bush a dumb-ass. Hey, Obama, ah, ah, ah, was your teleprompter broken?

Spin it anyway you want, and you are entitled to your own ideas and opinions, but not to your own set of facts. SO QUIT LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!