According to various fact-checking websites, President Joe Biden deviated from the truth multiple times during Tuesday’s State of the Union speech.
The Washington Post refuted thirteen of the president’s assertions.
Biden asserted, “In the last two years, my administration cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction in American history.”
“Biden misleadingly claims to have lowered the deficit by a huge amount even though his policies have added significantly to the national debt. How is this possible? Welcome to federal budget magic,” wrote The Post.
The Post later reported that government deficits were likely to drop with the cessation of pandemic aid and to reach $3.31 trillion between fiscal years 2021 and 2022. Instead, deficits were $4.15 trillion, suggesting Biden contributed about $850 billion to the national debt.
“One hundred percent of the deficit reduction, on net, was the result of waning COVID relief,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told FactCheck.org.
“All said, the decline in the deficit over the past fiscal year is more than entirely the result of waning COVID relief and not of historic deficit reduction by President Biden as the White House claims. In fact, the president’s actions to date have increased deficits by $4.8 trillion through 2031,” the group wrote.
The Puppet in Chief misleads the nation again.
Job Creation?
Deficit reduction?
The GOP stance on Social Security and Medicare?
“Speech went over like a lead spy balloon”.
Republicans tear into Biden's 'lies' as he repeats misleading claims https://t.co/tz991Z0JJL via @MailOnline— REINHARDT 🇺🇸 (@kurtreinhardt77) February 8, 2023
Among the thirteen factual inaccuracies cited by the Post was his assertion that “Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s a majority. … Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy.”
The Post said that “[n]ot even the person who wrote the plan that Biden referenced says he supports a ‘sunset’ of the old-age programs.”
The Post also carried a statement from Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott, who has supported the notion that all government expenditures must be examined and renewed every five years in order to manage spending.
More on this story via The Western Journal:
“No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years,” Scott said. “I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.”
Over at FactCheck.org, Biden’s job growth claims drew a frown. CONTINUE READING…