Fact-checkers hit Bachmann over claim that $105B hidden in healthcare reform
Wednesday, March 09, 2011 at 11:31 am
- 7 Comments
Rep. Michele Bachmann hit the cable news circuit this week alleging that the Affordable Care Act contained $105 billion in “hidden” spending. She dubbed the revelation a “bombshell” and announced the news on Meet the Press, Fox’s Sean Hannity show, Fox’s “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren and WCCO’s Sunday Morning with Esme Murphy over the last few days. Politifact found Bachmann’s claim to be “barely true,” but the Washington Post disagreed, giving Bachmann four of its “Pinocchios.”
Politifact said it was “deluged” with suggestions that the Pulitzer Prize–winning fact-checker rate Bachmann’s statements, and when it did, it found her claims to be barely true. Here’s why:
We added up the spending Bachmann was referring to and got $104 billion — very close to her number. Where our analysis diverges is her claim that the spending was “secret.”
We concluded that Bachmann has a point if you look at at the amount of media coverage the appropriations and transfers inspired. There was hardly any. However, she went further than that, charging that the provisions were passed “secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress.” And that was not accurate.
The spending provisions were in the plain language of the bill; they did not vary dramatically from past congressional practice; and the bill was made public for 72 hours before the vote. On balance, we rated Bachmann’s statement Barely True.
The Washington Post, however, found Bachmann’s claims to be very false, giving her four out of four “Pinocchios,” a reference to the chronically lying puppet of children’s story fame.
“There is no ‘bombshell’ except Bachmann’s bombast,” wrote the Post. “She is correct that Congress already has appropriated some spending in future years, but her claim that this money was ‘hidden’ does not have credibility. The money for these programs was clearly described and analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office before the legislation was voted into law.”
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter7 Comments
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 11:55 am
Truth is relative for fundamentalists. And facts are whatever will further the insidious, manipulative conversion of free thinking individuals to the literalists myth based world view and self serving econo-politics. Just say no to the Dark Ages.
Praise Jebus, God hates honesty, Amen.
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 12:02 pm
leave it to bachman to keep stirring the pot
and doesn’t have her facts correct ,,, as usual
in the real world its called lying
in the political world a misstatement
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 12:10 pm
A LIE is a LIE no matter what!!
Bachmann is the example of a politician who has made LYING her Trademark. “It IS because I say so!”
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 1:09 pm
What part of the 9th commandment does she not yet understand?
Maybe Rev. Huckabee can explain it to her. Whoops! Maybe not!
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 5:53 pm
“and the bill was made public for 72 hours before the vote.”
Maybe if she wasn’t flitting here and there across the US and the globe she’d have time to sit and read the bill. Yes it was a large bill but she’s a tax attorney for cry-eye, she should be used to pouring over complex documents in a prescribed amount of time.
Comment posted March 9, 2011 @ 8:05 pm
He He He He He He Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha !!! NOOOO!! It’s not like Right Wing Christian Nut BALLS lie!! Oh my God!! If Michelle said it it MUST BE TRUE!! He he He He He He He He He Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha….Minnesota should be EMBARRASSED that they elected such a NUT BALL..
Comment posted March 14, 2011 @ 11:36 am
It’s not a “mis-statement” when you go on NBC/Meet The Press and Fox TV with a printed sign with $105 billion written on it and proceed to lie to viewers that the President of the United States is a “gangster..deceived the American people….hid this sum..lied. Needs to give back the money & apologize.”
That’s a pre-meditated, prepared and intentional LIE!
Minnesota, this woman is an embarrassment to politics, womanhood and your great state. Why do you keep on voting for her?
She owes Obama an apology.
Oh, by the way, the “amended” health reform bill, incorporating changes, was posted 72hrs before the vote – - the full bill had been available on line for weeks….how can you have forgotten Obama’s televised meeting with the Republicans and Eric Cantor came in with the bill in hand to protest its length!! Does anyone really think a complex, multi-layered bill which addressed a complex & dysfunctional national health care system, and which needed to be 100% comprehensible to enable consistent interpretation/execution, should have been dumbed down into minimum possible pages? That’s such a specious, stupid argument.
I wish we could go back to the days when the Republican party was made up of intelligent grownups who worked hard on the nation’s needs & issues….this bunch don’t want to read, think, debate properly…they just want to ram their anti-populist, anti-women’s health, anti-public education, anti-American middle-class, anti-unions, anti-civil rights, anti-gays, anti-women’s rights, anti-modernization of US infrastructure, anti-unemployed, anti-poor, anti-jobs, anti-economic growth, anti-pollution, anti-clean energy, anti-Wall St regulation, anti-safe food manufacturing, pro-big corporations, pro-wealthy Americans, pro-oil, pro-Koch Industries, pro-offshoring US jobs..ideological agenda. I feel I can say “anti”….because these are all the bills they voted against,
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
