As we check PolitiFact we see our own Speaker of the House, Ohio's own John "Orange Julius" Boehner can't seem to help himself when it comes to lying about health care reform.
Republicans and Democrats alike marked the recent anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s passage.
The White House issued a report listing benefits the bill had brought to Ohioans, like free wellness visits, mammograms and colonoscopies for Medicare beneficiaries, while Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner issued statements that said it destroys jobs and should be repealed.
"In the coming weeks, you’ll see more votes and more hearings in the House to take this law apart, step by step," Boehner promised in a press release and video disseminated to reporters on March 23 . "That includes repealing the law’s mandatory spending slush funds."
Boehner expounded more on the health care "slush fund" theme in a video released the previous week.
"Let’s look at Obamacare," Boehner said in the March 14 video. "Its authors went to great lengths to protect their government takeover of health care from anyone attempting to repeal it. They funneled federal bureaucrats billions of taxpayer dollars to implement this job-crushing health care law. This isn't just some startup money that fell into the wrong hands. It's a series of slush funds, set up to stay on the books automatically, with little or no oversight."
So what did PolitiFact find about OJ's "Obamacare slush fund" nonsense?
The health care bill provides several pools of money that the HHS Secretary can disburse for purposes designated by the legislation. Is it appropriate to call them "slush funds?" The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "slush fund" as "an unregulated fund often used for illicit purposes." The money vexing Republicans is designated for programs specifically defined by the law, which hardly makes them illicit and unregulated. Congress also has the power to oversee the bill’s implementation, and Republicans have held several hearings on the subject already this year.
Boehner may object to the latitude the health care bill gives HHS. But as speaker, his words carry a lot of weight, and he should choose them wisely. His "slush fund" label is not only inaccurate, but ridiculous. On the Truth-O-Meter, that rates a Pants on Fire.
Oops. And hey, it seems America's newest Tea Party darling has trouble with truth too.
"Let's look at the number one. Number one," Bachmann said. "That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.
Too bad Bachmann doesn't know how to count.
Bachmann's press office did not return our call, so we are relegated to playing the "perhaps she meant" game to test whether there is a sense in which she might be accurate.
Perhaps she meant permits since the moratorium, not since Obama administration came into office, as she said. (There were hundreds issued pre-gulf oil spill).
Perhaps she meant just deepwater drilling, not shallow water drilling. There have been 39 shallow-water permits for new wells since June 2010. And many more before that.
Perhaps she meant to exclude permits issued for projects that were under way prior to the oil spill (and which had to come back and meet the new, modified standards). Five of the six new well permits were underway prior to the moratorium.
Perhaps she meant not permits, but exploration plans. The first exploration plan since the oil spill was approved last week.
Perhaps.
But that's not what she said.
She said: "One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office." It's not even close, and the claim is ridiculously false. Pants-On-Fire.
At least someone is calling Republicans out on their constant lies. But they only seem to be rewarded for it.
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