Thursday, October 18, 2012

Myth Of The Day



The last time a Georgia politician sought help in developing bi-partisan solutions to tackle the big problems, it was 2008 and Newt Gingrich. A few months later, I attended the first American Solutions bi-partisan hootenanny and enjoyed the conciliatory tones of a key speaker - Sean Hannity. A few years later, the emails I regularly received from Newt's folks were of a decidedly less than conciliatory "Democrats and Obama are evil" flavor.

Funny how movements want you to sign up to solve things eventually evolve into mailing lists for whatever purpose the money changers and polemicist deem worthy.

Now, here comes former 9th District candidate and radio personality Martha Zoller with something called fixthedebt.org. Martha is very serious about about taming our debt, to the point she challenges us to work together, "no matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat".

To underline her "concern", Zoller says the Federal debt is "Currently at $16 trillion, and with no signs of slowing". (italics mine)

Of course, this is false.

Take a look at the above chart. After peaking at just over $1.4 trillion in 2009, except for a plateauing in 2011, the deficit has gradually reduced. 2012 is estimated at just over $1.0 trillion; the lowest it has been since President Obama was inaugurated.

This is how myths (and mailing lists) are created.

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