By Stephen Moore, via The Daily Caller News Foundation | March 12, 2024
It’s a good thing Joe Biden wasn’t strapped to a polygraph machine while giving his State of the Union speech on Thursday, because his results would have come back about as clean as O.J. Simpson’s.
That was especially true when he recited a lot of tall tales — and some whoppers — while touting his administration’s alleged successes.
Here is a list my top five half-truths and in some cases outright fabrications:
“We’ve already cut the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion.”
This isn’t just a little bit false, it’s an extraordinary and audacious misstatement of fact. The baseline deficit over 10 years, as measured when Biden came into office versus the latest forecast, shows nearly $6 trillion added to the debt since Biden arrived on the scene.
So how does a $6 trillion addition of red ink possibly equate to a $1.7 trillion reduction in the deficit? Someone didn’t pass his basic math exam in high school. It’s disheartening that Biden and his speech writers thought they could get away with this one.
“We will make the rich pay their fair share.”
The top 1% of American tax filers now pay an all-time record high 46% of taxes. This is according to Biden’s own Internal Revenue Service. If they paid an equal share of their income, they would be paying closer to 26% — not 46%.
Does Biden think the rich should pay ALL the taxes? This also doesn’t include the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes paid by the businesses they created.
“I inherited an economy [from Trump] that was on the brink…”
Actually, the economy grew by – ready for this? — 33% in the third quarter of 2020 and 4.0% in the 4th quarter of 2020. The economy was in a full-scale COVID recovery when Biden came into office.
Oh, and inflation then was 1.4% not the 5.5% average rate under Biden. Average gas prices were $2.17 per gallon — around $1 a gallon lower than today.
“Fifteen million new jobs created in three years.”
This is an intentional attempt to distort reality. It IS true that 15 million Americans are working today than in 2020.
What ISN’T true is that these are “new” jobs. Some are. But most aren’t. In fact two of every three jobs that have been “created” under Biden were simply jobs that went away during COVID and then came back after COVID was over and blue states FINALLY reopened their businesses. This distortion would be like comparing the number of jobs on a Sunday and then taking credit for all the people going back to work on Monday.
Comparing the first three years of the Trump administration versus Biden’s first three years, the rate of NEW job creation was higher under Trump.
“Inflation keeps coming down [and] … mortgage rates will come down as well.”
No one — not even Joe Biden — can tell the future, so maybe rates will come down, or maybe they will rise. But we do know what already HAS happened with mortgage rates under Biden. They’ve more than doubled. When Joe came into office the rate was 2.9% and it averaged about 3.5% under former President Donald Trump’s presidency.
Under Biden the rate skyrocketed to 8% and now nationally it stands at 7.1%. As a consequence, the average mortgage payment on a 30 mortgage for a median value home has risen from $1,900 a month to above $3,000 today.
Under the Biden plan some homebuyers will receive a $400 a month taxpayer subsidy on their mortgage.
They are STILL at least $700 a month worse off under Biden policies. Biden is the enemy, not the friend, of the dream of homeownership.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow with the Heritage Foundation and chief economist with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the Economy.”
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