Lies, Part Tres

Even More Lies My President Told Me

JAN 2020 (most recent)

• “ We ended the war on American energy. The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere on Earth.” Repeated more than 60 times

The claim that a “revolution in energy” began under or is a result of Trump administration action is a lie. We (The United States) have led the world in natural gas production since 2009 (who was President?) Similarly, crude oil production has increased markedly since 2010, reaching record levels in August 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If there was a “war on American energy” it surely wasn’t waged by either of the two preceding administrations!

In September 2018, United States oil production surpassed both Russia and Saudi Arabia as the largest global crude oil producer. It is expected to hold that position, according to predictions from the International Energy Agency.

Now, the real issue re: American energy which Trump probably intended to reference, and which relates to his campaign gibberish related to “clean, beautiful, coal.” Production of coal, a major pollutant and carcinogen producer when burned, has sunk to less than half of 2008 levels and has seen very little increase under the Trump administration, which would seem to contradict said claims.

Yes, US carbon-based, non-coal energy production has reached an all- time high…almost entirely under the Obama administration. Some “war”, huh?

JAN 2020 (and other instances)

• “And the new bulb, I don't know if you see it, it’s on there. It’s a hazardous waste. When that bulb ends, you're supposed to take it to a certain dump and gingerly put it in because it’s loaded up with gasses.”

Trump is singling out those curly-cue compact fluorescent looking (CFL) bulbs, bulbs, which do contain mercury, like all fluorescent lights and tend to have harsher color quality. But Trump’s complaint is out of date. The intent of the law he refers to is to encourage energy savings. A CFL bulb saves an estimated $47 over the life of the bulb compared to an incandescent bulb producing similar light levels. So, Trump has singled out CFL bulbs, which by 2019 accounted for only about 5% of all sales of the classic pear-shaped bulbs.

In doing so, he ignores light-emitting diode, (LED) bulbs which are now the dominant environmentally friendly technology. They have no safety risks and provide comparable light at a cheaper lifetime cost than incandescents. This is vintage Trump, attacking a piece of environmental legislation for two specious reasons. The first, it’s an EPA based regulation which he hates in any form, largely because some such regulations make his corporate fan base be more environmentally responsible. Second, It’s an Obama era law.

• “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest in Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.”

Well, yeah, the first sentence is true. The second sentence, however, is irrelevant, since the statistics are pre-Trump. Typically (see “oil production”) Trump again erroneously claims credit for gains made before he took office, and, appropriately, in the process earning a rebuke from the American Cancer Society.

The American Cancer Society’s chief executive, Gary Reedy, said in a responding statement, “The mortality trends reflected in our current report, including the largest drop in overall cancer mortality ever recorded from 2016 to 2017, reflect prevention, early detection and treatment advances that occurred in prior years.” What he doesn’t say, but is equally true, is that like oil production, gas prices and a host of other statistics, the President has nothing, nada, zilch to do with it. In fact, if crediting the President were appropriate, the largest single-year decline ever reported, when the rate fell 2.2 percent, occurred from 2016 to 2017, before Trump was inaugurated! It’s almost as if DaVinci were American, Trump would take credit for the Mona Lisa.

• “Right to Try. You know about Right to Try, right? They've been trying to get it for 44 years, Right to Try....Many people are being saved.” Repeated 33 times

This is a bit more obscure, and even its mention will be news to most Americans. The gist of “Right to Try” is that there has been an ongoing effort to allow non-FDA approved (but having passed Phase One testing) drugs to be used in cases where there is no other viable drug option and the patient wishes to be allowed this one last hope. Sounds good, right? I include this because even when stating a factual issue, Trump seems driven to gross exaggeration if not outright lying.

Right to Try wasn't a “44 year” protracted battle — the legislative idea emerged in 2013, never to get out of the House because of a Republican majority! (Trump typically falsely claims it was a 45-year or 50-year battle.) It was, however opposed by many health care providers and insurers. Unmentioned in all the hoo-hah is that the FDA already approves 99 percent of requests for access to similar unapproved drugs, but some supporters thought these policies (red tape) were too restrictive. Contrary to Trump's claims of “lives being saved,” only two patients have been treated under the act, and it is much too soon to tell whether it has saved any lives. Also, the bill was sponsored in the House by a Democratic Congressman (Trump “forgot” that part.)

A Trifecta of misinformation:

• “We're actually taking in more revenue now than we did when we had the higher taxes because the economy's doing so well.”
• “We had the greatest tax cut in the history of our country.”
• “We've cut your taxes like at a level that nobody could even think possible.”

(Repeated in similar form at least 184 times)

Essentially everything Trump says here is wrong.
Revenue hasn’t increased because of the tax cut or because of the economy. Revenue was estimated to keep going up, because the tax cut merely slowed the growth of revenue, it did not reduce it. However, revenue estimates have slightly declined for 2019 and 2020 since the passage of the tax cut. And revenue growth has markedly decreased down in the period after the tax cut, compared with the period before it. (this data is: Pre-corona)

As to the “greatest tax cut ever” (or similar misinformation) Trump’s tax cut amounts to just under 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product. President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut in 1981, was 2.89 percent of GDP. (yeah, that’s three times as large!) Trump’s tax cut is only the eighth largest tax cut — and even smaller than two tax cuts passed under Barack Obama.

What should be of far more concern to all of us, is that individual and some other pass-through tax cuts (see below) fade over time, terminating after tax year 2025, and become net tax increases starting in 2027, while the corporate tax cuts are permanent. “Pass-through” taxes typically relate to small business partnerships and LLCs, in other words, not large corporate entities (like the Trump Organization), whose tax cuts (unless we regain sanity) are to be permanent.

Putting the lie to all three statements: No, we are not “taking in more revenue”, It isn’t the historically “greatest” or “largest” tax cut, and yes, several have “thought it possible (and done it) on larger scales.”

• “President Obama left us 142 federal judges. Think of that. Who would think that's possible? One hundred and forty-two federal judges. So, we want to thank you very much, President Obama. Thank you. I mean, normally, when you leave office, you leave none.”

Ask Mitch McConnell, whose refusal to consider Judge nominees in the senate is the real reason there were 103 vacancies on the federal courts when Trump took office -- not through Obama's lack of effort. Senate Republicans simply refused to move on his nominations.

The 114th Senate not only confirmed far fewer judges than its recent other-party predecessors, but it stopped confirming them at a much earlier point. By the numbers: in the final two years of second term, while Senate confirmations for Reagan, Clinton, and Bush43 averaged well above 20%, the Senate confirmed just 4% of Obama Federal Judge nominees.

Mitch McConnell now is quoted thus: “There’s nothing we can do …that’s more important … than confirming judges as rapidly as we get them.” Obviously, he has had conversion experience after even refusing to consider two actually qualified Obama nominees to fill the spot with which Cavanaugh was eventually gifted. Blaming Obama for McConnell’s intransigence? Typical Trump.

I only add this because as a former teacher it is troubling.

• "We are supporting job training and we are supporting vocational schools, right? Vocational schools. You know, I said to the guys, I said these community colleges, they are wonderful, but nobody knows really what a community college is.” (Yes, Donald, many of us actually do know!)
• “So, we need vocational schools. Now, they call them, a lot of times, community colleges. I don’t think it’s an accurate definition.” (No, you moron, it isn’t because they’re two separate entities!)

What an ignorant horse’s arse! Vocational schools and community colleges are two different types of schools. I get that some may not know that, but I’d really like to think that the President, prior to speaking on education, a topic on which, apparently, both he and his soap heiress EdSec are abysmally ignorant, would learn enough about the subject to not come across as simply stupid.

• “We've achieved more in this month alone than almost any President has achieved in eight years in office, if you think about it -- if you think what we've done.”

Trump, here, is referring to the USMCA trade agreement, discussed in a previous blog. It is, as shown previously, at best a revision/rewrite/update of the Bush 41 NAFTA, with inserts from the TPP pact, from which he withdrew us from since it was an Obama initiative.

If Trump's biggest accomplishment in any month was passage of the USMCA trade deal, which simply revises key parts of NAFTA, it's ludicrous to claim this revision of an existing trade deal exceeds what many previous presidents have done over the course of their full terms. (FDR (New Deal) anyone? Jefferson (LA Purchase)? Ike, JFK (Cold War)?

And finally, simply because it so well illustrates the ease with which lies drop trippingly from the man’s lips, as well as the galactic scope his ego:

• “I don't know if you know this, but probably 10 years ago, I was honored. I was the man of the year by, I think, somebody, whoever. I was the man of the year in Michigan. Can you believe it? Long time. That was long before I ever decided to do this. (run for President)” Repeated 6 times

No Donald, no one “knows this” because it’s bullshit! Trump claims he won Michigan’s “man of the year” award. But there’s zero evidence this is true. The closest any investigator has come to identifying the place and time of said claim is that it appears Trump is referring to a 2013 dinner hosted by a Michigan county Republican Party organization, which presented him with token gifts — including a statuette of Abraham Lincoln. But a former Republican congressman who organized and hosted the dinner said Trump was not given an award and the group has never named a “man of the year.” Nevertheless, as of August, Trump had made this false claim seven times over three years. How needy can this poor schlub be? This is consistent, of course with his insistence that “his” Nobel prize was stolen by someone else”

• "I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, (ed: always with the “deal” schtick) I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something to do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war; I've saved a couple of them."

By way of explanation of this rambling blather: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Africa's youngest head of government. came into office in April 2018 after months of anti-government protests forced his predecessor to resign. He has been praised for introducing a series of reforms to Ethiopia, previously a tightly controlled, almost totalitarian, nation. These reforms included freeing thousands of opposition activists from jail, allowing exiled dissidents to return home, allowing the media to operate freely and appointing women to prominent positions. In October last year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - the only head of state to win the prize since Trump was elected in 2016.

The Reality here is that the UAR and Saudis were the principals who brokered the settlement and US involvement was minimal, if even of any effect. Incidentally, Trump has also publicly said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to convince North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un to give up nuclear weapons. (He hasn’t).

So, until the next edition…