It’s Not a Lie if You Believe IT

“…[I]t’s not a lie if you believe it.” – The George Costanza character on “Seinfeld.”

That false premise may or may not apply to a man whose enfeebled mental state makes it difficult to know what he does or doesn’t believe anymore. But President(ish) Joe Biden’s grasp of the “truth” – and his willingness to tell it – has always been tenuous. Biden has been a fabulist his entire public life.

During his brief White House tenure, Biden has broken promises, given false assurances and lied to America.

In May, Biden announced that the Centers for Disease Control was “no longer recommending that fully-vaccinated people…wear masks.” Mere months later, he urged vaccinated people to mask up again. Then, after telling the nation that vaccination mandates were unnecessary, later ordered, under penalty of fines, government contractors and businesses employing 100-plus to mandate COVID vaccinations for employees.

In August, Biden said: “We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.”

But, the same day, Pentagon Press Secretary Jack Kirby said: “We know that Al-Qaeda is a presence, as well as ISIS, in Afghanistan and we’ve talked about that for quite some time.”

Biden said his military advisers “unanimously” argued against leaving an American force in Afghanistan, a claim proven false by the unanimous congressional testimonies of America’s top general in the region, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Biden’s Defense Secretary.

Joe Biden lied, and people died.

In arguably the worst falsehood of all, Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats are promoting the notion that a gargantuan $3.5 trillion spending bill full of left-wing policy preferences and special interest spending “costs zero dollars,” that it won’t add “a single dollar” to the deficit and national debt. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi piled on: “It’s not about a dollar amount, the dollar amount, as the president said, is zero. This bill will be paid for.”

“Zero” is silly conjecture. In fact, it’s a lie more colossal than the spending Biden and Democrats seek. House Democrats know it’s false, otherwise they would submit the bill to the Congressional Budget Office to score its impact on the deficit and debt. They have rejected that – or any – objective analysis.

Falsely claiming that past tax rate reductions were gifts to “the wealthiest 1 percent,” Joe Biden and his party in Congress blather incessantly about making “large corporations” and “the wealthy” pay their “fair share” to support their lie that the “bill will be paid for.”

Biden and the Democrats’ characterization of prior rate reductions having benefitted the wealthy to the exclusion of others in our society is both dishonest and divisive.

Since every taxpayer gets to keep more of their earnings, taxpayers in every bracket benefit from income tax rate reductions. Of course, proportionally, the people who pay the most taxes keep more money. That’s also true of the tax rate on capital gains and ordinary dividends.

But, it’s where and how that money is invested that matters.

In healthy equity and other financial markets that pay dividends and/or generate capital gains, businesses, their employees, suppliers and contractors, institutions and their investors, pension funds, and individual investors all benefit.

Only scale differentiates the wealthy from most of the rest of us. The investor class includes every American who has an IRA, a 401K, owns some stock, is vested in a managed pension fund, holds a mutual fund, or has some bond holdings – in other words, most working Americans and retirees.

There are millions of seniors, smaller investors in lower risk bonds, who depend upon the return of ordinary dividends for retirement income. Raising tax rates on dividends will negatively affect these people as well.

Furthermore, increasing corporate tax rates will add pass-through costs to the already-inflated prices for goods and services, including the food, energy and housing we all need.

Everyone will pay. But Joe Biden, congressional Democrats and their media enablers won’t tell you any of that.

There are lies of omission – intentionally withholding important information – as well as commission – intentionally giving false information.

Joe Biden’s tax and spending policy objectives number among the former. He’s committed far too many of the latter to list comprehensively.

https://www.pottsmerc.com/2021/10/04/jerry-shenk-its-not-a-lie-if-you-believe-it/