“Federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years.”
The words are those of President Downgrade Obama, speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa in late May. False, deceptive, untrue, evasive, dishonest, misleading, or just plain wrong. Those are only some of the terms that the president’s statement brings to mind. The fact that his spending record has been destructive to our fiscal health doesn’t give him license to invent a new record.
The Columbus Dispatch has an editorial today calling the president’s claims “magical arithmetic.” That is more generous than we are inclined to be.
The facts are plain. This President has increased the national debt by 41 percent to $16 trillion. He’s added about $5 or $6 trillion to the total, give or take a few nickels and dimes.
The Columbus Dispatch is not the only media outlet to have noticed the President’s creative bookkeeping. The Washington Post awarded him “three Pinocchios” for his statements. Why not four? It turns out that the words “at,” “in” and “the” were true.
See the facts for yourself:
Of course, if I had to run on a record like Obama’s, I would probably have to lie about it, too.
