National Debt Info-Graphic by President 1945 – 2012

By president, starting with Truman in 1945, this info-graphic shows the growth of the national debt, the growth of the interest on the national debt, the lowest and highest tax rates at the beginning of each president’s term, the average GDP per president and the average unemployment rate during each president’s term.

In addition, at the bottom, the senate and house majorities are included for each president. Red is for the GOP (Republicans) and blue is for the Democrats. This way, anyone may see which party held the majority in one or both houses of Congress during periods where the debt increased the fastest. Starting with Reagan to Obama but not including Obama, the fastest gains were when a Republican was president and the GOP held a majority in one or both houses of Congress.

Using all of the data on this info-graphic, you may discover who holds the most responsibility by president and/or Congress for the growth of the national debt.

Starting with President Carter, pay attention to the growth of the debt in comparison to the changing tax rates and you may discover one of the reasons for the more than $16 Trillion national debt.

Also pay attention to the average unemployment rates of each president and you will learn that as the taxes went down, federal spending went up, and unemployment climbed (on average). Growth of annual GDP also started to drop as taxes dropped. From Truman – Ford, annual GDP averaged 3.85%, but from Carter to G. W. Bush, GDP averaged 2.96%.

Unemployment also went up as taxes went down. Truman to Ford, the average unemployment rate was 5.41% (and that includes the 8.09% under Ford).

From Carter to G. W. Bush, the average unemployment rate increased to 6.17%.

In fact, starting with Reagan, the total debt each president is responsible for includes the interest to December 2012.

– CLICK on INFO-GRAPHIC for LARGER IMAGE! –

* Reagan was responsible for lowering taxes from seventeen brackets to two brackets and those rates appear in G. H. W. Bush’s column

** The G. W. Bush tax cuts appear in President Obama’s column. However, in 2008, his last year in office, it was the worst year for jobs since 1945 and the unemployment rate was 7.2% in December. The total number of jobs lost in 2008 was 2.6 million. In addition, under-employment reached a record high from 715,000 to 8 million people, the highest since such records were first kept in 1955. Source: CNN.com

Then in 2008, G. W. Bush’s last year as president, the average GDP for the 4th quarter dropped to almost a minus10%. Source: Treasury.gov

*** Unemployment reached a high of 10% in October 2009 while GDP retreated to a minus 2.6%. The lowest unemployment rate reached 7.8% in September 2012 (Obama’s presidency does not end until 2016 so we do not have average unemployment for his term or a final average GDP). Source of data: bls.gov

Total GDP growth since 2009 to the first quarter in 2012 has been + 6.8%. Source: Treasury.gov

Data and facts mostly from primary sources:

Note: Deductions are not accounted for

Tax Rate in 1945 under Truman (listed tax rates and brackets apply to all taxpayers with twenty-five tax brackets) – average unemployment during his term was 4.26% while GDP grew + 4.82%. Note: During the Great Depression, unemployment reached as high as almost 25%.

23% on earnings up to $2,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $24,931
50% on earnings of $14,000 to $16,000 – adjusted for inflation $174,517 – 199,499
75% on earnings of $44,000 to $50,000 – adjusted for inflation $174,517 – 199,449
94% on earnings over $200,000 – adjusted for inflation $2,493,107

Tax Rate in 1953 under Eisenhower (married filing separately with twenty-four/twenty-six tax brackets) – average unemployment was 4.89% during his term while GDP grew + 3%.

22.2% on earnings up to $2,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $16,807
53% on earnings of $14,000 to $16,000 – adjusted for inflation $117,652 – 168,882
75% on earnings of $44,000 to $50,000 – adjusted for inflation $369,764 – 420,187
92% on earnings over $200,000 – adjusted for inflation $1,680,746

Tax Rate in 1961 under Kennedy (married filing jointly with twenty-four/twenty-six tax brackets) – average unemployment was 5.97% during his term while GDP grew + 4.65%.

20% on earnings up to $4,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $30,017
50% on earnings of $32,000 to $36,000 – adjusted for inflation $240,139 – 270,156
75% on earnings of $100,000 – 120,000- adjusted for inflation $750,434 – 900,520
91% on earnings over $400,000 – adjusted for inflation $3,001,734

Tax Rate in 1963 under LBJ (married filing jointly with twenty-four/twenty-six tax brackets) –average unemployment was 4.17% during his term while GDP grew + 5.05%.

20% on earnings up to $4,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $29,331
50% on earnings of $32,000 to $36,000 – adjusted for inflation $234,645 – 263,976
75% on earnings of $100,000 – 120,000- adjusted for inflation $733,267 – 879,920
91% on earnings over $400,000 – adjusted for inflation $2,933,067

Tax Rate in 1969 under Nixon (married filing jointly with twenty-five/thirty-three tax brackets) – average unemployment was 5.09% during his term while GDP grew + 3%

14% on earnings up to $1,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $6,114
36% on earnings of $24,000 to $28,000 – adjusted for inflation $164,733 – 171,644
53% on earnings of $52,000 – 64,000- adjusted for inflation $317,922 – 391,289
70% on earnings over $200,000 – adjusted for inflation $1,222,777

Tax Rate in 1974 under Ford (married filing jointly with twenty-five/thirty-three tax brackets) – average unemployment was 8.09% during his term while GDP grew +2.6%.

14% on earnings up to $1,000 but not over – adjusted for inflation $4,551
36% on earnings of $24,000 to $28,000 – adjusted for inflation $109,231 – 127,437
53% on earnings of $52,000 – 64,000- adjusted for inflation $236,668 – 291,284
70% on earnings over $200,000 – adjusted for inflation $910,262

Tax Rate in 1977 under Carter (married filing Jointly with twenty-six/thirty-four tax brackets) – average unemployment was 6.54% during his term while GDP grew +3.25%

0% on earnings up to $3,200 but not over – adjusted for inflation $11,848
36% on earnings of $27,200 to $31,200 – adjusted for inflation $100,712 – 115,522
53% on earnings of $55,200 – 67,200- adjusted for inflation $204,385 – 248,817
70% on earnings over $203,200 – adjusted for inflation $752,375

Tax Rate in 1981 under Reagan (married filing jointly with sixteen/seventeen tax brackets) – average unemployment was 7.54% during his term while GDP grew 3.4%

0% on earnings up to $3,400 but not over – adjusted for inflation $8,393
37% on earnings of $29,200 to $35,200 – adjusted for inflation $73,806 – 86,888
54% on earnings of $60,000 – 85,600 – adjusted for inflation $148,105 – 211,297
70% on earnings over $215,400 – adjusted for inflation $531698

Tax Rate in 1989 under G. H. W. Bush (married filing jointly with two tax brackets) – average unemployment was 6.3% during his term while GDP grew 2.17%

15% on earnings up to $30,950 but not over – adjusted for inflation $56,004
28% on earnings over $30,950 – adjusted for inflation $56,004

Tax Rate in 1993 under Clinton (married filing jointly with five tax brackets) – average unemployment was 5.2% during his term while GDP grew 3.88%.

15% on earning up to $36,900 but not over – adjusted for inflation $57,298
39.6% on earnings over $250,000 – adjusted for inflation $388,200

Tax Rate in 2001 under G. W. Bush (married filing jointly with five tax brackets) – average unemployment was 5.27% during his term while GDP grew 2.09%.

15% on earning up to $45,200 but not over – adjusted for inflation $57,267
39.1% on earnings over $297,350 – adjusted for inflation $376,725

Tax Rate in 2009 under President Obama (married filing jointly with six tax brackets) – average unemployment reached a high of 10% in October 2009 while GDP shrunk a minus – 2.6%. The lowest unemployment reached 7.8% in September 2012 (Obama’s presidency does not end until 2016 so we do not have average unemployment or GDP for his term). Source: bls.gov

10% on earnings up to by not over $16,700 – adjusted for inflation $17,466
25% on earnings of $67,900 – 137,050 – adjusted for inflation $71,015 – $143,338
35% on earnings over $372,950 -adjusted for inflation $390,060

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According to Dave Manuel.com, “From 1948 through to 2009, the United States economy has grown by an average of 3.28% per year. … If we exclude Barack Obama due to incomplete data, then the worst performance was turned in by George W. Bush, as the economy grew by an average of 2.09% per year during his time as president.”

“Democrats have occupied the White House in 26 of the 62 years since 1948. Average GDP growth in the country over those 26 years has been 4.01%.

“Republicans have occupied the White House in 36 of the 62 years since 1948. Average GDP growth over those 36 years has been 2.75%.”

Do you know the difference between a primary fact gathering source, the media and an opinionated radio or TV talk show or Blog?

Answer: primary fact gathering sources are where the media, talk shows and Blogs get their facts. A few examples of primary fact gathering sources are the US Treasury, the Bureau of Labor Statists, the Centers for Disease Control, the FBI, the CIA Factbook and the World Bank.

However, then what the public hears may be distorted due to political and/or religious bias or political agenda.

The US Treasury reports that, “From 2009 to the present, federal revenues relative to the economy have been at their lowest levels in 60 years.

However, “Growth in the U.S. has outpaced that of other advanced economies (Germany, Euro area, Japan and UK) affected by the global financial crisis.

“Total GDP growth since 2009 to the first quarter in 2012 was + 6.8%.” But in the fourth quarter of 2008, G. W. Bush’s last year as president, average GDP was almost a minus10%.

Then by the 3rd quarter of 2009, GDP had returned to growth instead of loss and has stayed in the growth area since then. Source: Treasury.gov

Each President’s share of the US National Debt

The series of posts on the National Debt keeps growing. I spent months researching the topic in an attempt to understand its history and evolution.

My first draft of this series of seven posts was at least three-times longer than the final copy. It is confusing enough, so I cut.

However, this morning I awoke wanting to know how much of the national debt each president and his congress was responsible for.

The reason I do not blame just the presidents is because each president submits the annual budget to Congress and Congress may add to or subtract from what the president requests. Then Congress must vote to enact the budget and the president signs it into law. Then there is the mandatory part of the budget and the discretionary portion. The president and Congress, without cooperation, cannot do much about the mandatory section of the budget such as Social Security.

For the sake of simplicity, I did not attempt to do the math to discover the exact amount each president (except G.W. Bush and Obama) is responsible for beyond his term in office, because if President Truman is responsible for $8.6 Billion of today’s $16.3509 Trillion national debt, then he is also responsible for the annual interest on that $8.6 Billion and the interest compounded annually on that interest for sixty years. If someone wants to figure that out, be my guest. But first, you would have to know what the interest rate was for each year of those sixty years after Truman left office and the interest seems to change every three months.

For example, I found a post at Intellectual Take Out.org on the interest rates of the national debt starting in 1970 (you may notice that the interest rate has been as high as 14% and as low as 0.1%. At the end of 2010, the interest was 1.7%).

Each President’s (and his Congress) share of the National Debt

Truman’s share of the National Debt was $8.6 Billion.
Eisenhower’s share was $5.6 Billion.
Kennedys share was $3.3 Billion.
LBJ’s share was $9.3 Billion.
Nixon’s share was $54.6 Billion.
Ford’s share was $48.4 Billion.
Carter’s share was $168.8 Billion.
Reagan’s share was $2.2376 Trillion.
G. H. W. Bush’s share was $1.143 Trillion.
Clinton’s share was $74 Billion.
G. W. Bush’s share was $6.3002 Trillion.
Obama’s share is currently about $2 Trillion.

THE DETAILS OF THE RESEARCH:

When Harry Truman became president (1945 – 1952), the National Debt from World War II was $260.1 Billion. The Interest on the debt during Truman’s term as president was $32.6 Billion. Truman was responsible for about $8.6 Billion of that interest.

The National debt Eisenhower (1953 – 1960) inherited from President Truman in 1953 was $266 Billion—an increase of $5.9 Billion. During Eisenhower’s term as president the interest on the debt was $44.8 Billion. Eisenhower was responsible for about $5.6 Billion.

The debt Kennedy (1961 – 1963) inherited from Eisenhower in 1961 was $292.6 Billion—an increase of $26.6 Billion. The interest on the debt during Kennedy’s years as president was $14.4 Billion.

The debt LBJ (1963 – 1968) inherited from Kennedy after his assassination in 1963 was $310.3 Billion—an increase of $17.7 Billion. The interest on the debt during LBJ’s years as president was $55.3 Billion. LBJ was responsible for about $9.1 Billion.

The debt Nixon (1969 – 1973) inherited from LBJ in 1969 was $365.8 Billion—an increase of $55.5 Billion. The interest during his term was $74.7 Billion. Nixon is responsible for about $11.2 Billion.

The debt Ford (1974 – 1976) inherited from Nixon in 1971 was $483.9 Billion—an increase of $118.1 Billion. The interest during his term was $70.9 Billion. Ford is responsible for $6.7 Billion.

The debt Carter (1977 – 1980) inherited from Ford in 1977 was $706.4 Billion—an increase of $222.5 Billion. The interest during his term was $160.5 Billion. Carter is responsible for about $40.9 Billion.

The debt Reagan (1981 – 1988) inherited from Carter in 1981 was $994.8 Billion—an increase of $188.4 Billion. The interest during his term was $910.6 Billion, and Reagan was responsible for about $360.2 Billion.

The debt G. H. W. Bush (1989 – 1992) inherited from Reagan in 1989 was $2.878 Trillion—an increase of $1.8832 Trillion. The interest during his term was $747 Billion, and he was responsible for about $71 Billion.

The debt Clinton (1993 – 2000) inherited from G. H. W. Bush in 1993 was $4.351 Trillion—an increase of $1.474 Trillion. The interest during his four year term was $1.6097 Trillion, and he was responsible for about $201 Billion.

The debt G. W. Bush (2001- 2008) inherited from Clinton in 2001 was $5.7699 Billion—an increase of $1.419 Trillion. The interest during his term was $1.291 Trillion, and he was responsible for about $234 Billion.

The debt Obama (2009 – ) inherited from G. W. Bush in 2009 was $11.8759 Billion—an increase of $6.106 Trillion. The interest during Obama’s first term in office was $833.0 Billion, and he is responsible for about $86.3 Billion.

In December 2012, at the end of President Obama’s first term, the National Debt had increased to $16.3509 Trillion—an increase of $4.475 Trillion.

However, President Obama inherited two wars. To be fair, the cost of those wars since he has been in office was subtracted from the total that he contributed to the national debt along with the interest that goes with the cost of the wars. Obama also inherited the 2007-08 global financial crises, and TARP funds were approved during G. W. Bush’s presidency so that amount was also added to Bush.

In 2009, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost $155.1 Billion.
In 2010, the cost was $171.0 Billion.
In 2011, the cost was $170.7 Billion.

G. W. Bush’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) of October 2008 started out at $700 Billion but was reduced to $475 Billion by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Act in July 2010, and President Obama signed it into federal law.

In addition, Fact Check.org says, “The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.

“That includes spending for the bank-bailout legislation approved by President Bush. Annual increases in amounts actually spent since fiscal 2009 have been relatively modest. In fact, spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year is running slightly below the same period last year, and below projections.

“Obama can be fairly assigned responsibility for a maximum of $203 billion in additional spending for that year. (2009).

“It can be argued that the total should be lower. Economist Daniel J. Mitchell of the libertarian CATO Institute — who once served on the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee — has put the figure at $140 billion.

Total spending for G. W. Bush’s last two budget years was $2.9825 Trillion for 2008 and $3.5177 Trillion for 2009 (President Bush requested $2.7 Trillion, but Congress enacted $3.518 Trillion).

For 2010, President Obama requested $3.552 Trillion, and Congress enacted $3.721 Trillion. For Revenue, Obama requested $2.381 Trillion, and Congress enacted $2.165 Trillion,

In 2011, Obama requested $3.834 Trillion, and Congress enacted $3.630 Trillion. For Revenue, Obama requested $2.567 Trillion, and Congress enacted $2.314 Trillion.

In 2012, Obama requested $3.729 Trillion, and Congress enacted $3.796 Trillion. For Revenue, Obama requested $2.627 Trillion, and Congress enacted $2.469 Trillion.

In conclusion, President Obama requested $667 Billion in revenues that Congress did not enact and Congress spent $32 billion more than Obama requested for 2010 – 2012. One could argue that Congress was responsible for $699 Billion in spending for those years—not President Obama.

Who do you think contributed the most to the National Debt?

Note: The primary source for government spending was US Government Spending.com and the US Government Printing Office

Start with The Evolution of the National Burden – Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

The Accuracy of Nate Silver’s Predictions

Nate Silver is paid to write for The New York Times, but he doesn’t favor Republicans or Democrats in his predictions, because he predicts both Republican and Democratic winners in each state and in the national elections

^{– see what conservatives have to say about Nate Silver –

This video was published October 30, 2012.}

Nate Silver’s forecast this morning has Obama winning 307 Electoral College votes to Romney’s 231 and this prediction is based on statistics collected from every political poll in America, and there are a lot of them from the local, state and national levels. Silver also has Obama winning the popular vote 50.5% to 48.3%.

In 2008, he correctly predicted the winners of all 35 Senate races and the presidential results in 49 out of 50 states. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by 1%.

In 2008, Silver projected electoral vote totals of 349 (based on a probabilistic projection) or 353 (based on fixed projections of each state).

Obama won with 365 Electoral College votes. Silver’s predictions matched the actual results everywhere except in Indiana and the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska, which awards an electoral vote separately from the rest of the state.

In 2010, Silver predicted 36 of the winners in 37 of the gubernatorial races—97.3% accuracy rate.

For the U.S. Senate Race of 2010, Silver predicted 6 of the 7 Republican winners—85.7% accuracy rate.

For the U.S. House of Representatives, Silver predicted 53 of the 63 wins by Republicans—84.1% accuracy rate.

– broadcast October 24, 2012 –

Silver’s prediction early this morning favors Obama 86.6% to Romney’s 13.4%. Silver bases his predictions on computed mathematical formulas and the results change daily. He does not base his predictions on a hunch or his own feelings. This is not an emotional, gut-driven biased response.

If Silver is close a third time, he will become a legend. By next Wednesday, we will know.

Discover Spinning Numbers to Manipulate Opinions

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Ranking Romney and Obama: who is the better candidate?

One way to learn more about a candidate is to see how well he or she is doing in the polls for the state where he was born and grew up and/or the state where he served as an elected state and/or US official.

Mitt Romney was born and raised in Michigan where his father served as governor (1963-1969). Because his father was the 43rd governor of Michigan, one would think the state’s voters would favor the son.

However, in Michigan, Obama holds a 4 point lead in the polls and 48.8% of voters say they will vote for him compared to 44.8% that say they will vote for Romney.

Then Mitt Romney was the governor of Massachusetts (2003 – 2007), but Romney is losing the state to Obama. As a newly elected governor in 2003, Romney had a 61% approval rating but by 2007, that approval rating dropped to 34%. In addition, in 1994, when Romney ran for the US Senate in Massachusetts against Edward Kennedy, he had trouble establishing consistent positions. For example, his views on abortion kept shifting—something we have witnessed in the presidential election.

Fifty-six percent of voters in Massachusetts say they will vote for Obama but only 39.7% say they will vote for Romney.

Historically, states tend to favor presidential candidates that served or lived there, so why has Massachusetts abandoned Romney?

Now, how about Obama’s home states of Illinois and Hawaii?

In Illinois, where Obama served as a State Senator (1997-2004), than a US Senator (2005-2008), his average in the polls is 15 points ahead of Romney and 50.5% of voters say they will vote for Obama but only 35.5% say they will vote for Romney.

In Hawaii, where Obama was born and then later raised by his grandparents, his average lead in the polls is 30 points above Romney and 60.5% say they will cast votes for him while only 31% say they will vote for Romney.

If we must choose between two candidates by voting for the lesser of two evils, what is the best way to discover who is the lesser of two evil? I think one answer is knowing who exaggerates and/or uses false statements the least.

Final Malarkey Score from all Four Debates Combined

Romney and Ryan = 37 or 70%

Obama and Biden = 16 or 30%

In the 1st presidential debate, Fact Check.org caught Romney spouting malarkey almost twice the number of times Obama’s made exaggerated and/or false claims. Fact Check.org listed nine for Romney and five for Obama.

In the vice presidential debate, Ryan, Romney’s running mate, was caught by Fact Check.org spouting malarkey eleven times, and I found two more boosting Ryan’s use of malarkey to thirteen. Biden was only called out for three claims that were malarkey.

In the 2nd Presidential debate, Romney was called out by Fact Check.org for eleven examples of malarkey (exaggerations and/or false statements) compared to Obama’s three uses of malarkey.

In the 3rd and last presidential debate, Romney again won the malarkey contest by making six misleading and/or false statements to Obama’s four.

In conclusion, what is it that Romney has going for him to explain why he is running almost equal to Obama in the polls?

Is it the fact that Romney and Ryan have exaggerated and used false statements 233% more than Obama and Biden?

Has it been proven that politicians that exaggerate and lie more always win?

You may be surprised to learn that it worked for Thomas Jefferson in 1800 when he ran for president against John Adams. The key difference between the two politicians was that Jefferson hired a hatchet man named James Callendar to do his smearing for him. Adams, on the other hand, considered himself above such tactics.

To Jefferson’s credit, Callendar proved incredibly effective, convincing many Americans that Adams desperately wanted to attack France. Although the claim was completely untrue, voters bought it, and Jefferson stole the election. Source: Founding Father’s dirty campaign-cnn.com

My final question: Will Romney steal the 2012 election based or malarkey, or will the lesser of two evils win?

Discover these posts if you have not seen them:

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Malarkey for the third Presidential Debate of 2012

Once again, I turned to Fact Check.org to compile a score and discover the candidate who spouted the most malarkey and the winner (or should I say loser) was Romney. However, this time it was by a slim margin: Romney’s malarkey score 55.5% to Obama’s 44.4%.

Over the years as GOP candidates have continued to win the political malarkey competition, I’ve often wondered when the Democrats were going to wake up and learn to fight fire with fire. The turning point may have been in the third presidential debate as you will learn.

As always, I urge you to read the cited details on Fact Check.org.

The full transcript of the third presidential debate.

Romney:

1. It is not technically true that our “Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917″—a repeated claim made by Romney and Ryan during the VP debate.

2. Romney was wrong when he said Obama went on an apology tour of the Middle East and criticized America. The evidence clearly shows that Obama did not do this.

3. Romney claimed responsibility for the success of Massachusetts’ fourth and eighth graders who tested first in the nation in reading and math after he became governor. But that was wrong—Massachusetts students had tested at the top or near it before Romney took office.

4. Romney exaggerated the size of the federal debt held by the public and/or foreign countries such as China that he also mentioned in the second debate.

In fact, on April 10, 2012, foreign holdings of US Treasury Securities as of January 2012 increased to $5.048 Trillion (only 31.55%) with China reducing its share to $1.1595 Trillion (7.24%). The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Russia. In addition, the US government owes itself $4.6 Trillion (28.75%). Source: Statistics Brain.com

5. Romney was wrong when he claimed that in the 2000 presidential debate there was no mention of terrorism, because Al Gore did make one mention of terrorism in the third debate with G. W. Bush on October 17, 2000.

6. I’m going to add number SIX because Fact Check.org missed this example of malarkey that they seem to have missed every time it has been used in every debate.

Even Obama seems to have missed this one. Romney keeps saying that 23 million Americans are unemployed and looking for work. Twenty-three million is a huge exaggeration when the Bureau of Labor Statistic of the U.S. Department of Labor reported on October 5, 2012 that “The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September.” In addition, “the unemployment rates for adult men (7.3 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), and whites (7.0 percent) declined over the month.

“The unemployment rates for teenagers (23.7 percent), blacks (13.4 percent), and Hispanics (9.9 percent) were little changed. The jobless rate for Asians, at 4.8 percent (not seasonally adjusted), fell over the year.” Source: bls.org

Even if we add in the 2.5 million persons that are not counted as unemployed because they did not look for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey, we still do not come up with 23 million.

And we could add the 802,000 discouraged workers that gave up because they believe no jobs are available for them and Romney’s continued claim of 23 million looking for work still doesn’t add up. If Romney included this number, he was wrong, because these people are not looking for work.

It is obvious to me that Romney’s repeated claim of 23 million unemployed is to mislead adult voters to believe the economic situation is much worse than it is—almost a hundred percent worse.

Obama:

1. Obama claimed that during the 2008 campaign Romney said “we should ask Pakistan for permission” before going into that country to kill or capture terrorists. That was not true.

2. Obama went too far when he accused Romney of not telling the truth about Obama’s position on leaving a residual force of U.S. troops in Iraq. Obama was partly correct but did not clarify the details of this disagreement.

3. Obama was wrong when he insisted over and over that Romney never advocated “help” or “government assistance” for automakers if they went through bankruptcy.

4. Obama claimed that Romney once called Russia, not al Qaeda, the “biggest geopolitical threat facing America.” This was wrong. Romney said a Nuclear Iran was America’s greatest threat.

Conclusion: The final score, once my #6 was added, was 60% for Romney and 40% for Obama.

See the previous posts about the use of malarkey in the Presidential and VP debates:

Malarkey

The Malarkey Score for the 2nd Presidential Debate

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

The Malarkey Score for the 2nd Presidential Debate

Who won the Malarkey contest in the second presidential debate?

My wife and I think that President Obama deliberately tanked the first debate. Here is why we think this. It’s a popular plot for film and novels that a character starts out looking as if he or she is going to fail and/or lose because the odds are against him or her, and then he or she turns it around and comes back like a Rocky Balboa. Many Americans love to see an underdog take a beating as the victim of a bully, and then stand up and fight back to win later when the odds seem stacked against him or her. An example of this is the classic It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey that is popular around the Christmas and New Year holidays. Then there is Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

There is a bully in both of these films, and the winner of the malarkey contest will reveal who the bully is in this Post’s plot.

Fact Check.org said, “The second Obama-Romney debate was heated, confrontational and full of claims that sometimes didn’t match the facts.”

After I compared the claims that did not match facts, Romney’s score was 367% higher than Obama’s. This means that Romney won the spitting contest for malarkey, but lost to his vice presidential running mate who scored 433% for the use of malarkey in the VP debate.

As usual, I wanted to compare the claims of each candidate that did not match the facts. However, it wasn’t easy keeping score this time, and I had to avoid the Summary and focus on the more detailed Analysis at Fact Check.org. If a candidate said something that was correct, it will not appear in this comparison. If you want to see more details with links to cited sources, I recommend clicking Fact Check.org.

Romney’s Malarkey Score

1. Romney was wrong when he claimed Obama waited 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi and act of terror. In fact, Obama said in the Rose Garden speech the day of the attack that “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation …”

2. Romney changed his campaign statement about cutting taxes for the wealthy, and when Obama pointed this out, Romney tone and the substance of his reply did not match what he has been saying on the campaign trail. Obama was correct.

3. Romney was wrong when he said “the middle class will see $4,000 per year in higher taxes as a result of Obama’s fiscal policies. It seems that Romney was quoting an opinionated AEI blogger and, in fact, there is no proof this will happen.

4. Romney was wrong about women’s jobs. He said “in the last four years, women have lost 580,000 jobs” under President Obama. But that loss was really 93,000, making Romney’s exaggerated false-claim six times higher. Fact Check.com then mentions that in the last four months of the Bush presidency, 833,000 women lost jobs and the large majority of women’s job were lost before Obama was sworn in as president.

5. When Obama claimed Romney said he would let Detroit (the auto industry) go bankrupt and a million more jobs would have been lost, Romney defended himself saying that he meant he was against a government bailout but for a managed bankruptcy. However, a Congressional Research Service Report said that without U.S. Government assistance, GM would not have been able to survive the bankruptcy. I cannot call this a lie or false or an exaggerations but it may indicate that Romney was ignorant about the danger of the US losing its auto industry. Something I haven’t heard mentioned yet is the fact that the US auto industry is vital to the defense of the United States in case of a conventional war. During World War II, the US auto industry was a crucial factor in turning out more weapons than Nazi Germany and Japan.

6. Romney has made confusing and conflicting statements about Pell Grants for college students. Fact Check.org shows that Romney does not seem to have a fixed position on this issue, but pretends that he does.

7. Romney made the misleading claim (an inflated exaggeration that ignores many facts) that “gasoline prices have gone up $2,000.” … “But the $2,000 figure is greatly inflated because gasoline prices were much higher during most of 2008 than they were at the moment Obama was sworn in.”

8. Romney claimed that Obama “doubled” the deficit. Romney was wrong. Obama inherited a projected $1.2 trillion deficit when he took office and the deficits remained high. However, what Fact Check.org does not say is that Obama had no choice. Revenues from taxes were down and could not be increased without raising taxes, while the cost of running the government increased 20%. In fact, Obama did not “double” the deficit with new, carless spending programs as Romney inferred. For example, many programs such as Social Security and Medicare are mandated by law and cannot be changed without cooperation from Congress.

9. Romney accused Obama of saying “NO” to an oil pipeline from Canada, which isn’t entirely accurate making this one a false claim. In fact, no final decision has been made yet on this pipeline and the project stands a good chance of being approved early in 2013.

10. Romney claimed health insurance premiums have gone up by $2,500. Fact Check.org says, “Not True.”

11. Romney claimed, as he has in many campaign speeches across the country, that Obama “said that by now we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent.” This is a false claim. In fact, Romney is referring to a speculative report issued at the beginning of Obama’s presidency projecting the lower unemployment rate. It was a prediction—not a promise.

Obama’s Malarkey Score

1. Obama was wrong when he claimed that Romney called Arizona’s 2010 immigration enforcement law “a model for the nation”.

2. Obama misquoted something Romney said about renewable energy.

3. Obama claimed he would return tax rates for the richest Americans to where they had been under President Clinton. However, according to the numbers, these rich people will actually pay more in federal taxes under Obama’s proposed rates than they did under Clinton.

Note: For anyone that wants to discover more Malarkey for each candidate, I have provided this link to a written transcript of the debate and there is the embedded video in this post of the complete debate. However, for Malarkey to count, there must be evidence equal to the quality of evidence that Fact Check.org uses to support what is reported on its site.

See my posts about the First 2012 Presidential Debate and Two days after the first 2012 Presidential Debate.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Malarkey

The word that is the title for this post sums up most of Mitt Romney’s campaign for president of the US. And Vice President Joe Biden, if you didn’t notice, used the term in his debate with Ryan three times.

Vera H-C Chan writing for The Ticket explained the loaded message behind Biden’s use of ‘malarkey’.

Chan wrote, “‘Malarkey,’ as Merriam-Webster defines it, is ‘insincere or foolish talk.’ It’s a dismissive word to use, with avuncular overtones, and you’d use it to deem something as silliness, bunkum, hogwash—verging on nonsense, you (and a thesaurus) might even say.”

I read that many viewers of the debate turned to the Internet to discover what ‘malarkey’ meant, but I didn’t have to turn to the Internet thanks to my Irish heritage through my father. Lofthouse is a common name in England and Ireland—not Germany as many may think when first hearing my last name.

After the first use of ‘malarkey,’ Raddatz asked what ‘bunch of stuff’ meant and Biden replied, “We Irish call it malarkey.”

If you are interested, here is a link to a printed transcript of the debate. Why look? Because it is easy to be distracted and miss details when watching TV or listening to radio. And if you don’t want to read it, I have embedded the video of the entire debate with this post so you may watch it as many times as you want to. After all, the same issues (and ‘malarkey’) that were debated between Romney and President Obama were repeated between Biden and Ryan.

But what it is that Ryan claimed (repeating many of the same claims that Romney made in the first Presidential debate) during the only vice-presidential debate that is malarkey?

To discover that answer, I turned to Fact Check.org. Before I go on, I want to mention that the Republican Party has done a ‘bunch of stuff’ on Fact Check.org to cast doubts on the results they report. When your political party, the GOP, lies more than the competition, it stands to reason that the results will skew against you and you will attempt to discredit the source.

However, if you click on the link and read the fact checking of the VP debate at Fact Check.org, scroll to the end and notice the sources used. Each source—I counted thirty-seven—has a link for anyone to back check what is reported on this site. Unlike politicians, Fact Check.org hides nothing and attempts no ‘malarkey’.

Fact Check used such terms as exaggeration, not true, wrong and false to describe each example of ‘malarkey’. The Fact Check.org piece starts with a ‘Summary’, and then a much more detailed ‘Analysis’ of each example of ‘malarkey’ follows.

I do not want to copy and paste what Fact Check.org reported, but I will provide a comparative score from the Summary.

Ryan: wrong, wrong, not true, misquoted, not quite, false claim, off-base, collection of misstatements: not true; no, they haven’t; maybe—and a misleading claim.

Biden: exaggerated, misquoted Romney, and again misrepresented the findings of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

The high score reveals the most ‘malarkey’. Ryan’s score was ELEVEN (actually it is THIRTEEN as you shall see) and Biden’s score was THREE. If you divide three into THIRTEEN, we discover that the GOP’s Romney and Ryan used ‘malarkey’ 433 percent more than the Obama and Biden campaign did in this one debate.

In addition, there is a HUGE difference between Ryan’s USE OF WRONG (twice), NOT TRUE (twice), and a FALSE CLAIM in comparison to Biden’s use of ONE EXAGGERATION, ONE MISQUOTE and ONE MISREPRESENTED FACT.

I left out one of Ryan’s misleading claims of Hillary Clinton calling Assad “a different leader” and “a reformer”. It is true that she did say this in an interview, but she was only reporting what a few congressmen had told her after a congressional visit to Syria to gather facts well before the civil war in Syria broke out. What Ryan did not report was that later Hillary made it clear that President Obama’s administration did not say or agree with what those few congressmen had reported—something Ryan left out of his misleading claim—another use of ‘malarkey’.

Then there is ‘malarkey’ that Fact Check.org did not mention. In an attempt to paint President Obama weak on defense, and I’m sure conservatives will grab this “malarkey” and continue to use it, Ryan said, “If these cuts go through, our Navy will be the smallest—the smallest it has been since before World War I.”

Think about this fact being used to paint Obama weak on defense. In World War I, all military transport to Europe for troops, weapons and supplies was done mostly by the US Navy.

Who moves the most US troops, equipment and supplies today?

Answer: the US Air Force. America is the only country in the world with the capability of moving armies in days to any spot on the planet—not in weeks or months—that is because of an air force that is 663% larger than Russia’s air force and 352% larger than China’s.

In addition, the United States has the largest Navy in the world with twelve aircraft carriers (with two more under construction—sixteen other naval ships are also under construction) and 3,700 operational naval aircraft.

Global Firepower.com lists 2,385 ships in the US Navy (counting ships held in reserve in case of a conventional global war). But, how long has it been since the United States fought a war with another major naval power?

The answer to that question is easy: sixty-seven years—the end of World War II in 1945.

Russia, listed as the second most powerful nation militarily has 233 naval ships with only one aircraft carrier, and China, listed third, has 972 ships in her navy with one used, Russian aircraft carrier that is more than twenty-years old. In fact, there are ten countries with aircraft carriers in service—two countries have two and seven each have one carrier.

The US Air Force has 18,234 total aircraft, Russia has 2,749 and China 5,176 military aircraft. Need I say more about this example of Ryan’s use of malarkey?

See the Post about the First Presidential Debate and/or the one Two Days after that Debate

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”