What Passes for Civility and Adult Conversation in the Democrat Caucus

Dems Resort to Scare Tactics Rather Than Offer Solutions for America’s Debt Crisis

Speaking to the House Republican retreat last January, President Obama pledged in 2010 that attempts to save Medicare/Medicaid from fiscal crisis would fail if one political party reflexively accused the other of “trying to hurt our senior citizens” when proposals to save the programs are introduced:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “I raise that because we’re not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, ‘Well, you know, that’s — the other party’s being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z.’ …

“That’s why I say if we’re going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can’t start off by figuring out, A, who’s to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks At House Republican Retreat, Baltimore, MD, 1/29/10)

But since the release of the House GOP budget plan Tuesday morning, Obama and other Democrats have engaged in exactly the kind of scare tactics the president criticized. Democrats have already managed to level all sorts of hyperbolic and dishonest charges within just two days of the budget’s release. Here are some of the greatest hits:

SOON-TO-BE DNC CHAIR, REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ (D-FL): “This plan would literally be a death trap for seniors.” (Jeff Poor, “Incoming DNC Chair Wasserman-Schultz: Paul Ryan Budger Proposal A ‘Death Trap for Seniors’,” The Daily Caller, 4/6/2011)

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: RYAN PLAN FAILS “FAIRNESS TEST.” “The White House rejected Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) ‘Path to Prosperity’budget blueprint for fiscal 2012 Tuesday, arguing that it unfairly guarantees the prosperity of wealthy millionaires while overburdening seniors and the poor.” (Susan Crabtree, “White House: Ryan Plan Doesn’t Pass the Fairness Test,”Talking Points Memo DC, 4/5/2011)

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD), RANKING MEMBER ON HOUSE BUDGET CMTE: “As for Medicaid, the budget ‘rips apart the safety net’ for poor and older people, he added.” (Ricardo Alfonso-Zaldivar and Alan Fram, “Paul Ryan Budget Approved by House Panel,” Associated Press, 4/6/2011)

REP. MIKE HONDA (D-CA): “In an attack on seniors, Ryan’s plan, which The Wall Street Journal reports would essentially end Medicare, increases costs for seniors and reduces benefit. … In an attack on working families, Ryan protects America’s wealthiest 2 percent and corporations by reducing their fair share of taxes.” (Rep. Mike Honda, “OPINION: GOP Budget Is Balanced on Seniors and Lower Income Americans,” San Jose Mercury News, 4/6/2011)

REP. ALLYSON SCHWARTZ (D-PA):  ” ‘It’s unconscionable that Republicans are abandoning our seniors, including our sickest and most frail seniors, for a political cause‘ of reducing the size of government, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., said.” (Ricardo Alfonso-Zaldivar and Alan Fram, “Paul Ryan Budget Approved by House Panel,” Associated Press, 4/6/2011)

Nonetheless, Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi took pains to emphasize yesterday that Democrats will place little emphasis on offering a serious alternative to the Ryan plan, and instead will focus “90 percent” of their energy on demagoguing it:

PELOSI: DEMOCRATS MUST “SNUFF OUT” GOP BUDGET. “Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the leading Democrat on the Budget Committee, will introduce an alternative plan on Thursday. But Pelosi said the focus for Democrats moving forward will be more on pointing out the bad in Ryan’s budget than advocating for Van Hollen’s.

“‘I think that 90 percent of our focus has to be on putting the spotlight on the bad things that are in their budget,’ she said.” …

“‘This has to be done in a matter of days,’ she said. ‘This thing has to be snuffed out.‘” …

“They would end Medicare for seniors.‘” (Elise Foley, “Pelosi: Ryan Budget Plan Must Be ‘Snuffed Out’,” The Huffington Post, 4/6/2011)

This pattern of wild and absurd caricatures follows remarks from Pelosi accusing the House GOP FY ’11 budget proposals of starving 6 million seniors—an exaggeration which earned Pelosi four Pinocchios from The Washington Post‘s Fact-Checker for her “absurd math”:

PELOSI: SAYS 6 MILLION SENIORS WILL BE “DEPRIVED OF MEALS”: “In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground 3 million seniors not receiving meals? I don’t think so. We’ve got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don’t think the American people want any one of those 6 million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it.” (Glen Kessler, “Nancy Pelosi’s Absurd Math on Senior Citizens Losing their Meals,” The Washington Post, 4/7/2011)

FACT-CHECK: FALSE CHARGE “RANKS HIGH ON THIS YEAR’S LIST OF BLOVIATED BLUSTER”: “In a city with overheated rhetoric, Pelosi’s statement ranks high on this year’s list of bloviated bluster. It’s bad enough that she repeatedly mixed up 6 million meals and 6 million people — and made no effort to correct the record after her statement was reported in the media. But the figure she used appears to have been invented itself, with little basis in fact.” (Glen Kessler, “Nancy Pelosi’s Absurd Math on Senior Citizens Losing their Meals,” The Washington Post, 4/7/2011)

Meanwhile, poll numbers increasingly show high public disapproval for the Obama-Democrat approach to ongoing national deficits. When will Democrats stop their dishonest scare tactics and get serious about America’s spending problem?:

GALLUP: 61 PERCENT DISAPPROVE OF OBAMA ON BUDGET DEFICIT; JUST 33 PERCENT APPROVE. (Jeffrey M. Jones, “Obama Still Fares Better on Foreign Than On Domestic Issues,” Gallup, 4/1/2011)

QUINNIPIAC: 64 PERCENT DISAPPROVAL OF OBAMA ON BUDGET DEFICIT, INCLUDING 71 PERCENT OF INDEPENDENTS and 32 PERCENT OF DEMOCRATS. (“Obama Gets Lowest Approval, Reelect Score Ever, Quinnipiac National University Survey Finds,” Quinnipiac University, 3/30/2011)

CNN: INDEPENDENTS PREFER GOP APPROACH TO BUDGET 49 PERCENT TO 34 PERCENT. (CNN Opinion Poll Research, 3/28/2011)