John Boehner lies, the media villagers let him

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The feckless Beltway media villagers continue to let the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, get away with his lies without calling him out on it.

Speaking to Scott Pelley of CBS News last week, Boehner said no tax increases could be part of any bipartisan compromise to avoid the sequester because:

"The president got his tax hikes in January. The federal government will have more revenue this year than any year in our history. It's time to tackle spending. Period."

"Potted Plant" Pelley just let that go, I have to assume because he does not know the facts. For that we have to turn to Jon Perr, Boehner Misleadingly Claims Tax Revenue at a Record High:

Now, the $2.7 trillion in fiscal year 2013 revenue recently forecast by the Congressional Budget Office is, by a small margin, Uncle Sam's largest haul when measured in current dollars. But as a percentage of the total American economy (see chart below), federal tax revenues remain well below historical averages.

Cbo_tax_revenue_0213

The handy CBO chart paints a pretty clear picture of Boehner's whitewashing. At less than 17 percent of U.S. GDP, federal revenue for FY 2013 is near historically lows. But that is an improvement over 2010, when the disastrous recession combined with the continuing drain from the Bush tax cuts slashed federal receipts to the 15 percent level not seen since the early 1950's. Meanwhile, the costs of two wars, emergency recovery measures including TARP and the stimulus, and counter-cyclical demand for food stamps, unemployment benefits and health care pushed Washington's spending to levels not seen since Ronald Reagan's first term. (It's worth noting that federal spending is almost flat since Barack Obama first took the oath of office, while the annual deficit has declined.) Contrary to Republican mythology that "tax cuts pay for themselves," it took five years for the Treasury to recover from the Bush tax cuts of 2001.

That last point is made clearer when taking inflation into account.

Cbo_forecast_chart_0213

Measured in constant 2005 dollars, Uncle Sam will only pocket $2.25 trillion this year. That figure is not only lower than the previous peak in 2007. It's below the $2.3 trillion in tax revenue collected in 2000 during Bill Clinton's final year in office. (In the chart above, actual data through 2012 comes from the Office of Management and Budget. For the following decade, the forecast is based on CBO numbers using its projected inflation of 2.2 to 2.3 percent.)

[T]he overwhelming consensus of economists including the Federal Reserve and the nonpartisan CBO remains that this is not "the time to tackle spending." While John Boehner this week admitted "I do not" have a sense of how many jobs will be lost as a result of the sequester," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf was very clear in his recent testimony before Congress:

"The sequester alone will reduce GDP growth this year by 0.6 percentage points, lowering GDP at the end of the year by that 0.6 percent. We think that would reduce the level of employment at the end of the year by about 750,000 jobs."

Pretending Uncle Sam is having his best-ever tax haul won't change that.

John Boehner: Worst. Speaker. Ever.

UPDATE: PolitiFact on John Boehner’s claim that Obama and Democrats have “no plan” to replace the sequester: “Pants on fire.” The Democratic plan received a majority 51 votes in the Senate — but as always,  the Republicans filibustered it, requiring a 60-vote supermajority for passage. This is where hilarity ensues:

Boehner's spokesman explained to PolitiFact why it’s accurate to claim Dems don’t have a plan:

“A plan must demonstrate it has the ability to pass a chamber of Congress to be worth anything. We’ve twice passed a plan. We’re still waiting for the Senate to pass something, anything.”

This again demonstrates that Boehner does not understand the most basic fundamentals of legislation. Bills passed in the 112th Congress are irrelevant and immaterial after sine die. The Congress, where all tax and spending bills must originate – U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 7 — has not passed any bill in the 113th Congress. PolitiFact should do a separate "pants on fire" for this repeated lie.