Politicians
always promise new things to the people, most recently it was “free”
healthcare, other times it may be price ceilings or controlling supply to keep
prices low. However some politicians are just as good of actors as the
Hollywood celebrities, especially President Obama, who makes his living off of
looking into the camera and selling a speech that he most likely did not write,
straight from the teleprompter. You may argue that this is irrelevant but it’s
much easier to deceive the American public when you are not using your own
words. This comfort of President Obama looking into the camera creates a
feeling that he is connecting with you personally, and I can only wonder as to
how many votes he secured solely based off of this. What’s the key for these
politicians? Proper word-usage.
President
Obama is famous for this one: investment. It’s not increased spending because
those words have a negative connotation, nobody wants to “increase spending”
when the government is quickly racking up a large debt. Another one Mr. Obama
loves to use is “increase revenue” which is merely a sly way of saying raising
taxes. Frank Luntz, a Fox News pollster said one that Republicans dropped the
ball on was “Drill baby, drill!” He points out that this too has a negative
association, with dirty black oil oozing out of the ground. Instead, he says
they should have used the term “energy exploration.” Unfortunately, there exist
very few politicians left who say what they mean and mean what they say.
President
Obama, at the most recent State of the Union address, claimed: “We’ve already
agreed to more than two trillion dollars in cuts and savings.” Wow! That’s
great! The current federal budget is roughly four trillion, so that means
cutting government in half, that’s fantastic, this guy is like freaking
Jefferson! Well unfortunately, that’s not even close to the truth. He says he
has agreed to two trillion in cuts, but that only means two trillion in
proposed increases, not in real cuts. To quote Dan Mitchell from the Cato
Institute, “…what if I came to you and said, I’ve been on a diet for the last
month and I’ve gained ten pounds! Isn’t that great? You would say, woah, what
are you talking about? And I said no, no, I was going to gain fifteen pounds,
but I only gained ten, therefore my diet is successful.” This is the exact type
of manipulation of words with which politicians have become so adept, and the
media eats it up, and regurgitates it to the mindless public.
Another
manipulation occurs when a president tries to pass new legislation or start a
new war that will increase spending. For example, the Bush administration
projected the war in Iraq to cost between 50-60 billion dollars, so far the
cost totals over 800 billion dollars. When Medicare was created in 1990, the
government projected a 9 billion dollar cost, whereas the actual cost thus far
is about $67 billion. According to Dan Mitchell, this is because politicians
“low-ball” numbers and/or do not account for the change in demand for the
government hand-out, which is of course intentional. The Congressional Budget
Office (CBO), which keeps track of the federal government’s spending,
originally gave Obamacare a price-tag of $940 billion over ten years. Which,
according to Obama, pales in comparison with the money spent overseas in
Afghanistan and Iraq (because you know, two wrong make a right, especially if
the Republicans wrong is worse). However, the CBO just announced that the new
healthcare law would now cost 1.76 trillion over the ten years, a small
miscalculation of—you know, a mere $820 billion.
Politicians
will continually employ these techniques, whether it’s to push for an
unfavorable war or conflict, or whether it’s to jam legislation through
Congress. Next time you hear a politician talk about new “investments” or “revenue
increases”, shake your head, and remember that you can always write him/her
nasty e-mails telling him/her what a scam-artist he/she is.
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