PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ becomes Democrats’ central talking point

by Howard Portnoy
August 13, 2012

Hot Air - Even if you are no fan of so-called fact checks (yo!), you probably have some awareness that PolitiFact made the Democratic Party’s claim that passage of the Ryan plan by the House was a “vote to end Medicare” the “Lie of the Year” for 2011. “PolitiFact,” its writers noted on Dec. 20, 2011, “debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.”

So, what is the message being put out now by leading Democrats? Here’s the text of an email from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that went out at 11 a.m. Saturday:

By picking Representative Paul Ryan, Governor Romney has doubled down on his commitment to gut Social Security and end Medicare as we know it. Romney’s choice demonstrates that catering to the Tea Party and the far-right is more important to him that standing up for the middle class.

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did her part on Sunday, rushing down from New Hampshire to appear on FOX News Sunday to perpetuate the myth that the Ryan plan guts Medicare, while refusing to answer any of the questions raised by host John Roberts on the negative impact of Obamacare on current entitlements.

The Obama campaign, itself, wasted no time adding several pages to its website branding the GOP ticket as “the Go Back team” and accusing Ryan of ending Medicare as we know it:

Paul Ryan’s extreme budget would end Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher program which would increase seniors’ health costs by $6,350 a year. Ryan has also proposed a plan that would have privatized Social Security, subjecting seniors’ retirement security to the whims of the stock market.

It is clear that the Democrats intend to keep the fact checkers at the Tampa Bay Times, which produces the PolitiFact site, busy. It is equally clear that they are underestimating the ability of “the Go Back team” to turn the tables on Obama. And all the Romney-Ryan ticket needs to do is tell the truth. They can point to the latest scoring of Obamacare by the Congressional Budget Office, which reveals that Obama’s signature legislation would cost about $2 trillion over its real first decade (2014 through 2023), while remarkably leaving 30 million people uninsured. The law would also, according to the report, siphon an amount approaching $1 trillion (from 2014 through 2023) from Medicare, thereby making a mockery of Obama’s claims against the Ryan budget.