I'm watching a new video of FOX News' Glenn Beck that's going around, and as usual he acts like a bit of a nut. But what's so disturbing is that this video is a perfect example of how Beck, and FOX generally, lie to their audience. Let me walk you through it.
1. Beck cites CBO (the Congressional Budget Office, an independent non-partisan congressional agency that is not tainted by politics) numbers to show that the stimulus cost more than the President Obama thought it would. On the order of 800 and some billion instead of 780 billion or so. Okay, fair enough.
2. Beck goes on to mock the President for mentioning examples of jobs saved by the stimulus. Beck clearly implies that the stimulus has helped, at most, a handful of people, but otherwise it's been pretty useless.
Beck's proof? A recent CBS poll showing that only 6% of Americans believe that the stimulus created any jobs. Beck goes on to compare this to the number of people who think Elvis is alive, or that we never really landed on the moon.
Now, note what Beck did. He took a survey showing that people didn't BELIEVE the stimulus created jobs, and used that as proof that the stimulus actually did NOT create any jobs. In fact, 6% of the American people may not believe the stimulus created any jobs because they're not away of the truth. It's possible. And in fact, if you look at the independent studies of the stimulus, done by folks like CBO - the folks Glenn Beck quotes a responsible source - you'll find that the stimulus has done wonders for employment over the past year. In fact:
Among people who know what they're talking about, the fact that the stimulus has been successful isn't even controversial anymore. The leading economic research firms -- IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers, and Moody's Economy.com -- estimate that the effort has already created as many as 1.8 million jobs, and will create about 2.5 million jobs when all is said and done. As far as the independent Congressional Budget Office is concerned, those are conservative estimates -- the CBO believes the stimulus is already responsible for as many as 2.4 million jobs.Or just check out the Wall Street Journal, they reported on the CBO study too.
Watch the video. Beck is certainly a great entertainer. But he's also one hell of a liar. He clearly suggests that the fact that the American people don't realize the stimulus has worked means that is has NOT worked. And now we know, from the very people Glenn Beck cites as his money experts, that this is a flat out lie. The man just lies, so long as it permits him to take a cheap shot at Democrats. Do your own research on the topic. He lied.
