Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. ALEC is the heart and soul of the GOP.
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President Barack Obama with Chinese president Xi Jinping.Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
On Tuesday, Jeb Bushproposedto eliminate the Obama administration’s regulation of carbon pollution, and, in keeping with hisself-styled goalof “growth at all cost,” proposes to make any further climate regulation essentially impossible. In any other democracy in the world, a Jeb Bush would be an isolated loon, operating outside the major parties, perhaps carrying on at conferences with fellow cranks, but having no prospects of seeing his vision carried out in government. But the United States is different. Here in America, ideas like Bush’s fit comfortably within one of the two major political parties. Indeed, the greatest barrier to Bush claiming his party’s nomination is the quite possibly justified sense that he is too sober and moderate to suit the GOP.
Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international response to climate change is needed. To the extent that the party is divided on the issue, the gap separates candidates who openly dismiss climate science as a hoax, and those who, shying away from the political risks of blatant ignorance, instead couch their stance in the alleged impossibility of international action.
Anew paperby Sondre Båtstrand studies the climate-change positions of electoral manifestos for the conservative parties in nine democracies, and finds the GOP truly stands apart. Opposition to any mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions, he finds, “is only the case with the U.S. Republican Party, and hence not representative of conservative parties as a party family.” For instance, the Swedish conservative party “stresses the necessity of international cooperation and binding treaties to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with the European Union and emissions trading as essentials.”
Okay, you might say, that’s just Sweden. But all of the other non-American conservative platforms follow similar themes. Germany’s conservative platform declares, “[C]limate change threatens the very foundations of our existence and the chances of development of the next generations.” Canada’s, writesBåtstrand, “presents both past and future measures on climate change. The past measures are regulations on electricity production, research and development on clean energy (including carbon capture and storage), and international cooperation and agreements including support for adaptation in developing countries.” Even coal-rich Australia has a conservative party that endorses action to limit climate change. All of this is to suggest that the influence of the fossil-fuel industry alone cannot explain the right’s brick-wall opposition to any steps to reduce emissions within the United States. Oil in Canada and coal in Australia both account for a far larger share of their countries’ economies (which areless than a tenthas large as the U.S. economy) than any fossil-fuel reserves in the United States.
Nor can a fealty to free-market theory alone explain the change, either. Free-market ideology traditionally recognizes a role for government when it comes to “externalities,” or actions that impose costs on others. Pollution is the most classic case of an externality — a factory whose production pollutes the air, or a local stream, should have to pay the cost. Even F.A. Hayek, in the anti-statist polemicThe Road to Serfdom, conceded, “Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.” Now, Hayek offered this concession to the role of government in the course of advocating for a pricing mechanism for externalities, rather than a crude ban. But he was recognizing that even the purest libertarians must concede the need for collective action of some kind when it comes to things like pollution.
It is also worth noting that the Republican Party used to fit in with the pattern of other international conservative parties. The Nixon administration created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air Act. The first Bush administration passed amendments strengthening it. Both of those presidents are considered, correctly, to be aliens to the conservative movement. The conservative movement has always opposed environmental regulation, and Republican leaders since the first President Bush — the GOP Congress since the era of Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and the current Republican presidential field — have followed conservative thinking. Indeed, administrators of the EPA from previous Republican administrations haveendorsedObama’s climate program, but they lack any influence or even legitimacy within the party today.
Rabid opposition is not the only quality that sets the GOP apart from other major conservative parties. The fervent commitment to supply-side economics is also an almost uniquely American idea. The GOP is the only major democratic party in the world that opposes the principle of universal health insurance. The virulence of anti-government ideology in the United States has no parallel anywhere in the world.
And so the “moderate” Republican climate position is that action is pointless, since countries like China will never reduce their own emissions. (No evidence of Chinese behavior seems capable of altering this conviction, which serves the handy function of justifying the desired conservative outcome without leaning too heavily on anti-science kookery.) The more right-wing position within the party — endorsed by the party’sleading presidential candidateand the chairmen of the science committees inboth houses— is that thousands of climate scientists worldwide havesecretly coordinated a massive hoax. And then the even more conservative position, advocated by the second-leading candidate in the polls, holds not only that climate science is a massive hoax, but so areevolution and the big bang. The “moderate” candidates are still, by international standards, rabid extremists. It is the nature of long-standing arrangements to dull our sense of the peculiar, to make the bizarre seem ordinary. From a global standpoint, the entire Republican Party has lost its collective mind.
The great 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes has been widely quoted as saying, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Sadly, in their quest to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the wealthiest members of society, today's Republicans have held the opposite position – as the evidence has piled up against them, they continue spreading the same myths. Here are six simple facts about the economy that Republicans just can't seem to accept:
1. The Minimum Wage Doesn't Kill Jobs.
The Republican story on the minimum wage takes the inordinately complex interactions of the market and makes them absurdly simple. Raise the price of labor through a minimum wage, they claim, and employers will hire fewer workers. But that's not how it works. In the early Nineties, David Card and Alan Krueger found "no evidence that the rise in New Jersey's minimum wage reduced employment at fast-food restaurants in the state." Since then, international, national and state-level studies have replicated these findings – most recently in a study by three Berkeley economists. Catherine Ruetschlin, a policy analyst at Demos, has argued that a higher minimum wage would actually "boost the national economy" by giving workers more money to spend on goods and services. The most comprehensive meta-study of the minimum wage examined 64 studies and found "little or no evidence" that a higher minimum wage reduces employment. There is however, evidence that a higher minimum wage lifts people out of poverty. Raise away!
2. The Stimulus Created Millions of Jobs.
In the aftermath of the 2007 recession, President Obama invested in a massive stimulus. The Republican belief that markets are always good and government is always bad led them to argue that diverting resources to the public sector this way would have disastrous results. They were wrong: The stimulus worked, with the most reliable studies finding that it created millions of jobs. The fact that government stimulus works – long denied by Republicans (at least, when Democrats are in office) – is a consensus among economists, with only 4 percent arguing that unemployment would have been lower without the stimulus and only 12 percent arguing that the costs outweigh the benefits.
3. Taxing The Rich Doesn't Hurt Economic Growth.
Republicans believe that the wealthy are the vehicles of economic growth. Starting with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, they tried cutting taxes on the rich in order to unleash latent economic potential. But even the relatively conservative Martin Feldstein has acknowledged that investment is driven by demand, not supply; if there are viable investments to be made, they will be made regardless of tax rates, and if there are no investments to be made, cutting taxes is merely pushing on a string. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two of the eminent economists of inequality, find no correlation between marginal tax rates and economic growth.
In fact, what hurts economic growth most isn't high taxes – it's inequality. Two recent IMF papers confirm what Keynesian economists like Joseph Stiglitz have long argued: Inequality reduces the incomes of the middle class, and therefore demand, which in turn stunts growth. To understand why, imagine running a car dealership. Would you prefer if 1 person in your time owned 99% of the wealth and the rest of the population had nothing, or if wealth was distributed more equally, so that more people could purchase your cars?
Every other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has far lower levels of inequality than the United States. Since there are no economic benefits of inequality, why hasn't the right conceded the argument? Because it's based on class interest, not empirical evidence.
4. Global Warming is Caused by Humans.
Even as global warming is linked to more and more extreme weather events, more than 56 percent of Republicans in the current congress deny man-made global warming. In fact, the infamous Lutz memo shows that Republicans have actually created a concerted campaign to undermine the science of global warming. In the leaked memo, Frank Lutz, a Republican consultant, argues that, "The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science."
In truth, the science of global warming is not up for debate. James Powell finds that over a one year period, 2,258 articles on global warming were published by 9,136 authors. Of those, only one, from the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rejected man-made global warming. That one article was likely motivated by the Russian government's interest in exploiting arctic shale. Another, even more comprehensive study, examining 11,944 studies over a 10-year period, finds that 97 percent of scientists accepted the scientific consensus that man-made global warming is occurring.
This is not an abstract academic debate. The effects of climate change will be devastating, and poor countries will be hurt the worst. We've already seen the results. Studies have linked global warming to Hurricane Sandy, droughts and other extreme weather events. More importantly, doing nothing will end up being far more expensive than acting now. One study suggests it could wipe out 3.2% of global GDP annually.
5. The Affordable Care Act is Working
President Obama's centrist healthcare bill was informed by federalism (delegating power to the states) and proven technocratic reforms (like a board to help doctors discern which treatments would be most cost-effective). Republicans, undeterred, decried it as Soviet-style communism based on "death panels" – never mind the fact that the old system, which rationed care based on income, is the one that left tens of thousands of uninsured people to die.
It's worth noting that every time the CBO estimates how much Obamacare will cost, the number gets lower. Odd how we've never heard Republicans say that.
6. Rich people are no better than the rest of us.
Politicians on the right like to pretend that having money is a sign of hard work and morality – and that not having money is a sign of laziness. This story is contradicted by human experience and many religious traditions (Jesus tells a graphic story about a rich man who refused to help the poor burning in hell). But it's also contradicted by the facts – more and more rich people are getting their money through inheritances, and science shows that they are no more benevolent than others.
More and more, the wealthy in America are second or third generation. For instance, the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, own more wealth than the poorest 40 million Americans. Thomas Philippon and Ariell Reshef have found that 30 to 50 percent of the wage difference between the financial sector and the rest of the private sector was due to unearned "rent," or money they gained through manipulating markets. Josh Bivens and Larry Mishel found the same thing for CEOs – their increased pay hasn't been correlated to performance.
If rich people haven't really earned their money, are they at least doing any good with it? Studies find that the wealthy actually give less to charity as a proportion of their income than middle-class Americans, even though they can afford more. Worse, they use their supposed philanthropy to avoid taxes and finance pet projects. Research by Paul Piff finds that the wealthy are far more likely to exhibit narcissistic tendencies. "The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people," Piff recently told New Yorkmagazine. "It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes."
It's no secret that politicians tend to use exaggerated political rhetoric to get people to vote for them.
In recent decades, Republicans in particular have repeatedly made very ominous predictions about the horrors that will result from Democratic policies while painting a very rosy picture of what will result from Republican policies.
Now that we have the luxury of looking back over the years to examine those predictions and policies, I've listed 21 specific examples. After each item I've included links where you can verify this information and I encourage you to do your own research to verify all of this yourself.
1. In the 1960s, Republicans wrongly claimed that passage of Medicare would be the end of capitalism.
California Governor Ronald Reagan even proclaimed Medicare would lead to the death of freedom in America.
Of course they were wrong. Since the passage of Medicare, capitalism has thrived in America and millions of elderly Americans have had longer, healthier lives and greater personal freedom. Medicare remains the most popular form of health insurance in the United States.
2. In 1993, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.5%, Republicans predicted a recession, increased unemployment and a growing budget deficit.
They weren't just wrong; the results were exactly the opposite of everything they predicted. After that tax increase went into effect, the country experienced the seven best years of economic growth in history.
Twenty-two million new jobs were created
Unemployment dropped below 4%
The poverty rate went down for 7 straight years
The budget deficit was eliminated
America enjoyed a growing budget surplus which economists projected would pay off our national debt in 20 years.
3. In 2001, when George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, Republicans predicted record job growth, increased budget surplus and nationwide prosperity.
Once again, the prosperity they promised never quite happened. In fact we saw the exact opposite occur.
After the Bush tax cuts were enacted:
The budget surplus immediately disappeared
Less than 3 million net jobs were added during Bush’s 8 years
The poverty rate began climbing again
We experienced two recessions along with the greatest collapse of our financial system since the Great Depression
The budget deficit eventually grew to $1.4 trillion by the time Bush left office
In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.
4. In 1993, when the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were passed, Republicans predicted increasing rates of crime and murder.
Thankfully just the opposite happened. From the 1970s, through the early 1990s violent crime had been increasing steadily. After 1993, however, the violent crime and overall murder rates suddenly began to drop. This decline continued for more than ten years.
What could have precipitated such a sudden and prolonged drop in the crime rate beginning in 1993? That’s the year Congress passed the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Law, which mandated background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.
Despite Republican predictions to the contrary, the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were followed by the most dramatic reduction in violent crime since the FBI started keeping statistics.
The two graphs below show the rates of murder and violent crime in the US over a span of 35 years based on the actual numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports web site. Notice how the crime rate dropped suddenly after the 1993 Brady Law and Assault Weapons Ban were passed .
These charts show the rate of murder and violent crime over 35 years based on numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime reports.
See the video of President Bush discussing the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.
5. Republicans predicted that we would find Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction even though UN weapons inspectors said that those weapons didn't exist.
The Bush administration continued to insist the WMDs would be found even when the CIA said some of the evidence was questionable.
As we all know, the WMDs predicted by the Bush administration did not exist and Saddam had not resumed his nuclear weapons program as they claimed. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney ultimately had to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
6. Prior to going to war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld optimistically predicted the Iraq war might last “six days, six weeks, I doubt six months”.
What's more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.
They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted 8 long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites which took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. What’s more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.
The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.
Why Torture Does Not Work
My Tortured Decision - NYTimes.com Former F.B.I. agent who questioned Abu Zubaydah in 2002 says the "enhanced Interrogation" methods did not work.
7. Republicans said waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” are not torture and are necessary in fighting Islamic extremism.
In reality, waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation which inflict pain, suffering or fear of death are outlawed by US law, the US Constitution and international treaties. Japanese soldiers after World War II were prosecuted by the United States for war crimes because of their use of waterboarding on American POWs.
Professional interrogators have known for decades that torture is the most ineffective and unreliable method of getting accurate information. People being tortured say anything to get the torture to end but will not likely tell the truth.
An FBI interrogator named Ali Soufan was able to get al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to reveal crucial information without the use of torture. When CIA interrogators started using waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, Zubaydah stopped cooperating and gave his interrogators false information.
Far from being necessary in the fight against terrorism, torture is completely unreliable and counter-productive in obtaining useful information.
8. In 2008, Republicans said that if we elect a Democratic president, we would be hit by Al Qaeda again, perhaps worse than the attack on 9/11.
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated that electing a Democrat as president would all but guarantee that there would be another major attack on America by Al Qaeda.
Cheney and other Republicans were, thankfully, completely wrong. Since Obama became president, we have had zero deaths on U.S. soil from Al Qaeda attacks and we succeeded in killing Bin Laden along with dozens of other high ranking Al Qaeda leaders.
Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around.
9. In 2009, Republicans predicted that the economic stimulus package would only make the recession worse and cause more unemployment.
The results show they couldn't have been more wrong. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ended the recession after only a few months. Although 750,000 people were losing their jobs each month when Obama took office, after the Recovery Act was passed the rate of job loss immediately decreased each month and within a year the economy showed positive job growth.
Considering the severity of the 2008 economic collapse and the total opposition by Republicans to do anything at all to stimulate the economy, it is remarkable that the US economy recovered as quickly as it did.
10. Most Republicans said that President Obama should be impeached because of the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
Their own investigations, however, have proved them wrong. Every Congressional inquiry, including those by the Republican led House Intelligence Committee, have concluded the Obama administration did nothing wrong regarding Benghazi, that there was no “stand down” order given and that neither the President nor anyone in his administration lied about it.
Each and every Republican investigation has reached this same conclusion but Republicans continue to exploit this tragedy for political gain.
11. Republicans said we must deregulate businesses so they can be more profitable and we will all enjoy the wealth created by deregulation.
This theory failed back in the 1980s when the Reagan administration deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. All the S&Ls collapsed and it cost taxpayers billions of dollars to bail them out.
They were proven wrong again in 2008 when years of deregulation of the financial industry resulted in the worst financial collapse and recession since the Great Depression. Taxpayers had to spend nearly a trillion dollars to bail out these large corporations.
Instead of spreading the wealth around, deregulation cost millions of jobs and created economic turmoil that took the country years to recover from.
Senator Mitch McConnell claimed Obamacare would cost the economy 2 million jobs.
12. Republicans predicted that Obamacare would hurt the economy and kill jobs.
As you may have guessed, they were wrong. 2014 was the first full year that Obamacare was in effect. During that year the United States saw the fastest rate of job creation in 14 years and the best rate of economic growth in over ten years. More jobs were created in 2014 than in any year of the Bush presidency.
Not only did Obamacare not harm the economy, it coincided with the best economic expansion in a dozen years.
Gas prices have dropped dramatically during 2013 and 2014.
13. Republicans said if President Obama is reelected, the price of gasoline would rise to $5.45 a gallon by January 2015.
In fact, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, said if Obama were reelected, the price of gas would reach $6.60 a gallon. Newt Gingrich, who was running for president in 2012, said Obama’s energy policies, EPA regulations, and failure to approve the XL pipeline would result in $10.00 a gallon gasoline.
Of course these predictions were laughably wrong. Instead of $5.45 per gallon or $10.00 per gallon, the price of gas in January, 2015, was $1.89, less than half of the all-time high of $4.15 a gallon under President Bush.
14. Republicans said President Obama would be terrible for the economy.
Although he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, President Obama has presided over the longest continuous period of uninterrupted job growth in American history. More jobs have been created under President Obama than under both Bush Presidents combined. The stock market has repeatedly set new records during Obama's presidency.
Although he inherited a much worse recession than the one Ronald Reagan dealt with, Obama ended that recession and turned around our economy in half the time it took Reagan.
During his first 6 full years in office, our economy had a net increase of 6.6 million new jobs. That takes into account over 4 million jobs that were lost during Obama's first year when he was trying to pull us out of the Bush Recession. From January 2010 through summer of 2015 our economy created 12 million new jobs.
Despite Republican attempts to stop all progress, President Obama has overseen the greatest economic turnaround in over 75 years without any help from Republicans.
This chart shows the unemployment rate through 2013 and 2014 based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
15. Republicans predicted that President Obama’s tax increase on the top 1% in 2013 would kill jobs, increase the deficit and cause another recession.
You guessed it. Just the opposite happened. In the two years from January 1, 2013 when that tax increase went into effect, through January, 2015, unemployment dropped from 7.9% to 5.6%, an average of more than 200,000 new jobs were created per month, Wall Street set new record highs and the budget deficit was cut in half.
Over 5.7 million new jobs were created in that 2 year period. That's more jobs created in two years than were created during the combined 12 years of both Bush presidencies.
16. Republicans said President Obama would raise taxes sky high.
It never happened. For over 95% of Americans, income taxes are the same or lower than they were before Obama was elected. The only people whose income taxes have increased are those who make more than $400,000 per year, and their taxes increased only 3%.
For most Americans, taxes are still lower now than they were under Reagan.
Poverty rates in the United States Click this link to go to the Census Bureau's web site on poverty rates. You can look up the poverty rate for any year you choose.
17. Republicans have long promised that “trickle-down economics”, is the best way to stimulate the economy.
Trickle-down economics is the practice of giving more money to the very wealthy so they can reinvest it, causing a "trickle-down" effect that creates jobs and stimulates growth. According to this theory, any tax increase on the wealthy will hurt the economy and cause another recession.
Again, this theory has been thoroughly disproven. The huge tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans enacted by George W. Bush did not result in great job creation or a robust economy. In fact, our economy took the worst nosedive since the Great Depression.
Conversely, the tax increases on the wealthiest 1% passed by Presidents Clinton and Obama were followed by strong job growth, shrinking budget deficits and lower unemployment rates. During the 8 years after President Clinton raised taxes on the top 1%, the poverty rate went down. After Bush enacted Trickle-down economic policies, the poverty rate began rising again.
18. In 2012, Republicans predicted that failure to approve the Keystone Pipeline would send the price of gasoline sky high and large numbers of jobs would be l
Even though the Keystone Pipeline was not approved, the price of gasoline continued to drop below $1.90 per gallon, millions of new jobs were created and unemployment dropped from 8% to 5.4% by early 2015.
The most optimistic predictions say that the Keystone Pipeline would only create a few dozen long term jobs and would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline.
19. Republicans insist that their policies create more jobs than Democrats and claim Democratic policies are “job killers”.
History, however, has proven them wrong. According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the last 3 Republican presidents there were a total of 21 million new jobs created during their combined 20 years in office (Reagan - 16 million, George H. W. Bush - 2 million, George W. Bush – 3 million).
However, under the last 3 Democratic presidents there were a total of 38 million new jobs created during their combined 18 years in office (Carter – 10 million, Clinton – 22 million, Obama – 6 million).
So the last three Democratic presidents have seen the creation of nearly twice as many jobs in 18 years as the last three Republican presidents did in 20.
20. Republicans claim that raising the minimum wage would kill jobs and hurt the economy.
There is far more evidence to the contrary. Cities and states that have higher minimum wages tend to have better rates of job creation and economic growth.
Detailed analyses show that job losses due to increases in the minimum wage are almost negligible compared to the economic benefits of higher wages.
Previous increases in the minimum wage have never resulted in the dire consequences that Republicans have predicted.
Republicans have accused President Obama of "cutting defense spending to the bone". This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument.
21. Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of wanting to cut defense spending to the bone and leave us defenseless against our enemies.
History has repeatedly proven them wrong. Under Democratic presidents and Congresses the United States still spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined.
Republicans frequently insist on spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't even want in order to benefit the multi-billion dollar defense contractors. Democrats who criticize this unnecessary spending, are accused of trying to cut defense spending to the bone.
These links below give more information about our military spending on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want or need.
Just for fun, here's a lightning round of more things Republicans have been wrong about.
Republicans said that Obamacare would have “Death Panels” to decide who would live and who would die. Wrong. No such death panels were ever proposed and nothing of the kind ever happened.
They said the 2009 laws to improve automobile fuel efficiency standards would kill the US auto industry. Wrong. The new standards were followed by a resurgence of the US auto industry enabling them to hire back tens of thousands of workers.
They said environmental protection laws requiring companies to clean up their pollution would create undue burden and kill businesses. Nope, it never happened.
They said Ebola would spread across the country because President Obama allowed American Ebola patients to be treated in the US. The outbreak never happened. Only 3 people contracted Ebola in the US and all 3 survived the disease.
They said President Obama would open our borders to illegal immigrants. Wow, were they wrong. Under Obama we set new records for most illegal immigrants stopped at the border and sent home.
Please don’t take my word for any of this. I encourage you to fact-check everything in this article.
While someone could no doubt find instances where Democrats engage in over-the-top rhetoric, nothing compares to the consistently false and erroneous claims made by the GOP in recent years.
When a political party has been so dismally wrong about nearly everything over the past 30 years, that party should lose all credibility.
My hope is that in the future, when Americans hear Republicans make predictions about Democratic policies that are doomed to failure, we will remember the fact that they have been utterly wrong about virtually everything they've predicted in recent years.
