The Lies of the Center for American Progress
In a completely deceitful report, the Center for American Progress Action Fund continued its disinformation campaign covering what the Center appears to believe are presidential election battleground states. This particular report targeted voters in Colorado.
The Center hired avowed communist and conspiracy theorist Van Jones after he was forced to resign as White House “Green Jobs Czar”, the CAP Action Fund is its political arm.
The CAP disinformation campaign involves a series of reports aimed at targeted groups of voters in swing states, attempting to persuade people to vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Here is the first paragraph of this particular report, with emphasis added to highlight the disputed portion:
Behind dramatically different economic visions and a deluge of attack ads, this election comes down to numbers. Many Coloradans—and many families across the United States—are asking what this will mean at the kitchen table. What will be the cost of a second term of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden or a first term led by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)? The answer is that, in concrete and quantifiable ways, a Romney-Ryan presidency would mean higher taxes for the middle class, out-of-pocket health expenses for current seniors, fewer college loans and fewer health care options for young people, and the re-introduction of corporate outsourcing tax loopholes that have sent so many jobs overseas.
Let’s take a look at each of these claims, because as silly as each of them is, someone has to say they’re silly.
- Higher taxes for the middle class
The Romney tax plan is explicitly to lower marginal rates for all earners, including those for middle income earners. He plans to lower tax rates for higher income earners, as well, doing away with deductions to simplify interaction with the government. Romney says he will lead Congress to limit deductions in such a way that lowering rates for upper income earners is revenue-neutral.
The Tax Policy Center study on which the CAP claims are largely based doesn’t contemplate a dynamic economy that grows more when taxation is lower.
The claim that Romney will raise taxes on middle income earners (despite his plan actually lowering them) relies on bitter pessimism that the economy won’t rebound, even, or especially, with lower tax rates. - Out-of-pocket health expenses for current seniors
The Ryan plan, and all other Medicare reform plans supported by the Romney/Ryan campaign, do not apply to current seniors. CAP, and the rest of the Obama campaign machine, are simply lying.
Obamacare, on the other hand, does apply to current seniors. While Obamacare doesn’t cut benefits to seniors directly, it does slash reimbursement rates for doctors, so that they will stop seeing Medicare patients. Seniors will be forced to wait longer and longer to see a doctor. In addition, Obamacare cuts back on Medicare Advantage, one of the more market-based parts of Medicare. The cuts are being illegally masked until after the election.
- Fewer college loans
This is another scare tactic from CAP. Despite the inflationary nature of college loans, Romney has no plans to reduce them.
As part of repealing Obamacare, however, Romney would get rid of the virtual government monopoly on student loans. Before Obamacare nationalized them, such loans were popular, and banks were happy to offer them.
Easy student loans are a primary cause of increased college costs, as schools know they can charge outrageous sums for tuition and innocent students will continue to pay them. The painful, decade-long battle people have repaying their student loans make it difficult to see how saddling people with more of them is a good thing, but neither candidate for President is talking about cutting back on them.
- Fewer health care options for young people
Obamacare forces young people to buy full-ride health insurance in order to make health insurance more affordable for older people. It’s a deception that Obama and Obamacare supporters have perpetrated on young people, telling them they were getting something for nothing when they in fact are being taxed to line the pockets of insurance company executives and government bureaucrats.
Most young people don’t need the kind of full-ride health insurance that they are forced to carry under Obamacare. They are better off with only a catastrophic policy and paying out of pocket for the few health expenses young, healthy people have.
Insurance companies have said they will continue the practice of allowing adult children to be on their parents’ plans whether Obamacare is repealed or not. It turns out that with the hysteria over health insurance, such plans are popular, and whenever something in the marketplace is popular, someone will find a way to provide it at a profit.
- The re-introduction of corporate outsourcing tax loopholes that have sent so many jobs overseas
That is simply invented. There are no tax breaks for outsourcing. There never have been. Tax breaks don’t send jobs overseas: high corporate tax rates and excessive regulation do.If there were such a law giving tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, who voted for it? Who signed it into law? And what is stopping anyone from proposing that such a law be repealed now? The answer to all of those questions is the same: there is no such law.
The CAP report relies on the Tax Policy Center, another left-wing organization, for its basic research. A PDF of the report is available here.
The report goes on and on, listing with fallaciously exact detail the ruinous condition of the economy should Romney be elected and implement his plans, all based on false assumptions and wishful thinking.
Especially when political power is at stake close to an election, unscrupulous people will say anything they can get away with saying to get their allies elected. It’s the job of all citizens to inform themselves and spread the word when lies are told, or the less informed will believe them.
