A BIT OF TRUTH

So Rush lied again today. Nothing new there but this one was so big, such a whopper that I simply can't ignore it. Not to mention that he did it within 15 minutes of starting his show and announcing that he is 99.7% accurate. He does that a lot. While I don't have the time or inclination to prove that a lie I'll start with a real overt one. I can't quote him exactly but what he did say was that President Obama has raised the National Debt more in three years then the last three presidents combined. Of course that simply isn't true and anyone just partially aware of reality and having more then a few dozen brain cells would immediately know he was wrong. So, for all you Rush listeners I'll demonstrate exactly how wrong he is.

The last three Presidents were George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George H.W. Bush (source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents ).

Since the President is sworn and his term starts January 20 I will use those dates. That would mean I need to check out the day George H.W. Bush took office (January 20, 1989) to the day Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009.

My resource for the debt is http://www.treasurydirect.gov/ that offers a program to find the debt to the penny. Unfortunately it doesn't have a starting point in 1989 to use the direct calculation so the best I could do was November 29, 1989. Then it was $2,857,430,960,187.32. When Obama took office the debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08 So, the last three presidents increased the debt $7,769,446,088,725.68 (actually a bit more since Bush got a pass for 8 months).

Today the debt is $15,585,576,040,333.70. That makes the current administration liable for $4,958,698,991,420.62 substantially less then the $7,769,446,088,725.68 Rush claims. That number is staggering, the burden is horrendous, and many factors play in to those numbers. But I'm not here to analyze that right now. I'm just proving Rush is a liar. It is, after all, totally and undeniably 100% not true that Obama increased the debt more then the last three presidents combined. (Side note: if I went strictly by the 3 year claim he made it would be less since on January 20, 2012 the debt was $15,236,271,879,792.78 but that's not necessary since I proved Rush wrong anyway).

After he or one of his staff members read this Rush may very well try and cover his butt by once again diverting attention and manufacturing some other lies but I'll cut him off at the knees right now. George H.W. Bush presided over a 46% increase in four years. William J. Clinton saw about a 30% increase over eight years, and George W. Bush ran up an increase of over 100% in his eight years. So far, Barack Obama has seen an increase of 32% in just under four years. Good thing he left out Reagan who also doubled the debt in his eight years.

Just the facts, just the truth.