Slippery Tricks of the Political Trade

Here’s a perfect example of how the Republican leadership deliberately misleads and misinforms the American public.

In an interview with Christine Amanpour on CNN, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement:

“We’ve increased, under [the Obama] administration, spending 35 percent in two-and-a-half years. We need to go in a different direction …”

But here’s the thing: When Obama took office, having promised more transparancy in government, he directed that the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars be included in the federal budget. George W. Bush, on the other hand, had kept the cost of those wars off the books … so all those billions didn't appear as a part of his budget.

So you see, it only appears that Obama’s budget has increased by a huge amount. And that means when McConnell or John Boehner or Eric Cantor stand up and with a straight face tell their conservative base that Obama has increased the federal budget by 35 percent, they are ... all together now ... LYING!

We can only hope that one of these fine days, serious-minded, rational Republicans will come to realize that their leadership speaks to them as if they are lazy or stupid or both. Until that happens, how the hell can we have any kind of meaningful debate in this country?

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