If there’s one thing House Republicans and President Barack Obama can agree on, it’s that they both distort the truth about the new budget plan.

 

According to FactCheck.org of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, GOP leaders and the White House have both put out misleading or false budgetary information.

 

For example, Obama has claimed that his budget proposal will cause the national debt to stop growing by 2015. However, his calculation doesn’t include payments on the national debt, which were $198 billion last year and are rising.

 

Obama also insists discretionary spending is only 12% of the budget. False again. FactCheck.org says it’s 36%.

 

House Republicans aren’t any better with painting a truthful picture about the budget. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House budget committee, keeps claiming that Obama has increased domestic discretionary spending by 84% over the last two years. Such spending is really up only 27% during the period in question, and that includes the temporary stimulus funds.

 

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has been wrong in claiming Obama has added 200,000 federal workers, when the actual number is 58,000.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Budget Spin: Obama and Republicans Give Different—And Less-Than-Factual—Takes on the President's 2012 Budget (FactCheck.org)