Four Fabulous Fibs From The Scrumtrelescent Mind of Michele Bachmann

After years of being out-deceived by men, women are finally catching up. And leading the charge is Minnesota dynamo Michele Bachmann, obliterating the Lies-Out-The-Ass Ceiling and clearing the way for the rest of America’s female liars to believe that they too can fake it all the way to the top. How much did she fib last night? America’s sharpest political minds have been on the case, and the results are in. So come with me, and we’ll be in a world of pure imagination.

Fib #1

I think if you look at the problem with the economic meltdown, you can trace it right to the federal government, because it was the federal government that demanded that banks and mortgage companies lower platinum-level lending standards to new lows. It was the federal government that pushed the subprime loans.

The Associated Press notes that this is opposite-fact. While the federal government did encourage home ownership, banks were hardly “forced” to do anything; in fact, many of the defaulted home loans that ended up ruining everything weren’t made by banks at all. Rather, they were underwritten by organizations like Countrywide, mortgage companies that were driven to make loans they shouldn’t have because investment banks like Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers couldn’t wait to buy them from the mortgage companies, package them into securities, and sell them off to investors. The collapse was driven by the same pure, unadulterated greed that causes dogs who surreptitiously tear into a 20 pound bag of food to keep eating it until they puke and then eat the puke.

Fib #2

The way that Obamacare runs, there is a board called IPAB. It’s made up of 15 political appointees. These 15 political appointees will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans. I don’t want 15 political appointees to make a health care decision for a beautiful fragile 85-year-old woman who should be making her own decision.

CNN’s fact checkers have verified that this is false. The IPAB board is a thing will exist as part of the Affordable Care Act, yes, but they are explicitly banned from rationing care, increasing premiums or taxes, or changing benefits eligibility, among other things.

Also—a hardy hardy har har irony bonus to Bachmann for insisting that 85 year old women be allowed to make their own health care decisions when she’s so anti-allowing-women to choose how to manage their own uteruses.

Fib #3

We have a big problem today when it comes to Medicare, because we know that nine years from now, the Medicare hospital Part B Trust Fund is going to be dead flat broke.

and

President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and instead everyone will be pushed into Obamacare.

According to the AP, the Part B that Bachmann says is going to run out of money cannot possibly run out of money, as it’s fully funded by premiums. The part that is in danger of falling short on funds is Part A, and that part of medicare will not be able to fully meet its budget starting in 2024, which is 13 years away, not 9. Further, even when Part A is “insolvent,” it will be able to meet 90% of its cost obligations.

If Michele Bachmann considers anything operating at 90% as flat and dead, Lord help one of her 28 kids if they ever got an A- on a test.

Fib #4

But the No. 1 reason that employers say that they aren’t hiring today is Obamacare.

According to CNN, Bachmann got this bit of information from a UBS report released in September that stated that several regulations were discouraging hiring. The Affordable Care Act was among one of the regulations the report cited, since one of the requirements of the Act compels businesses with more than 50 full-time employees to provide those employees with a group health care plan. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are trying to bring on part time people and outsourcing in order to avoid having to provide insurance. Not once in the report did anyone or anything say that the Affordable Care Act was the primary reason employers weren’t hiring.

When contacted by CNN, the report’s lead author remarked that his paper covered only a portion of what was causing the current prolonged recession. I’d also take any bit of research issued by a major financial institution with a grain of salt. As a rule, banks hate regulations, and it wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world for a self-interested for-profit organization to push research promoting their own self interest under the guise that it was best for all Americans everywhere.

At this point, it’s probably safe to say that Michele Bachmann is the Picasso of facts, taking elements from reality and using her brilliant manipulating mind to distort them until it’s almost unrecognizable, unless you stand far away and kind of squint at it for awhile. Oh, yeah. I guess if I tilt my head to the side and dim the lights, I can see how that’s a guy playing a guitar/ a statement on Medicare that’s based on what was once a fact.

Truth Squad: Fact Checking the GOP Debate [CNN]
Editor’s Note: Debate FactCheck [SeattlePI]