Lies about Obama’s Jobs Bill Proliferate

President Obama has introduced his recommendation for a jobs bill (tax the rich and start a jobs stimulus), and the Republicans have countered with theirs (deregulate and de-tax the rich). Now the false accusations begin.

One that has flown around the Internet like a forest fire comes from last week’s blog post provided by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). He starts with statistics on poverty: “an astounding one in six Americans are living in poverty.” Cantor wouldn’t find this “astounding” if he had watched the numbers rapidly rising since the Republicans declared war on the bottom 80 percent of the nation’s people.

Cantor continues with what he perceives to be Obama’s response to this crisis: “to demand a tax on donations to soup kitchens and other charities that help people desperately in need. The president’s proposal will impact approximately 40 percent of all the tax deductible contributions, and essentially penalize soup kitchens, hospitals and churches that provide essential services to those who need them most.”

Where did Cantor go wrong in his assertion? First, the proposed limit of deductions to 28 percent would be for only those couples making over $250,000 or singles making over $200,000. This change would affect only 2.9 percent of households.

Second, charitable contributions from that 2.9 percent of the households to “soup kitchens” are probably very minimal.

Cantor has recently received press for his refusal to provide emergency monies for people suffering from natural disasters unless “those monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere.” Looking at his history, we know that these “savings” will come from eliminating Medicare, Pell Grants, USDA free and reduced fee school lunch programs, WIC, ADFC, Section 8 rental assistance, and $600 billion from Medicaid and CHIP, which will leave millions of adults and children uninsured. Cuts from Cantor and most other conservatives promote not only poverty and hunger but also poor health and education. He was also willing to crash the country last summer during the deficit-raising talks if he didn’t get his own way.

If wealthy people are interested in helping the poor, they will probably continue their contributions even without the tax break. Examples are Warren Buffet, third richest person in the world who has pledged to give 99 percent of his wealth to charity, and Bill Gates, second richest person in the world who has donated over $16 billion to charity. On the other hand Pat Robertson, the wealthiest Evangelical Christian in the world, has donated almost nothing in his entire career and uses slave labor in a diamond mine in Africa. (He also said divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease was justified, but that’s another story.)

There’s sure to be lots of talk about Obama’s new jobs program at the next debate among the Republican presidential candidates on this Thursday at 9:00 pm (ET) in Orlando. Fox, Google, and the Florida Republican Party are sponsoring this event. I’ll be very surprised if there are any surprises.