Even Left Wing PolitiFact Agrees With Sarah Palin: Obama Lies, Freedom Dies

By Gary P Jackson

When you’ve lost PolitiFact …..

Sarah Palin says Barack Obama once said the individual mandate “wasn’t a tax“

Moments after the Supreme Court ruled that it was largely upholding President Barack Obama’s health care law, Republicans zeroed in on the court’s decision to allow the individual mandate because it is enforced through a tax.

One of the Republicans to speak out was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee. After the court’s decision was announced on June 28, 2012, Palin tweeted, “Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.”

We aren’t able to fact-check whether “freedom” is dying, which is solidly in the realm of opinion.

However, we can check her claim that Obama said the individual mandate, a requirement that people buy health insurance or face a tax penalty, “wasn’t a tax.” That was the basis for the court’s decision to uphold the law.

Did Obama say the individual mandate wasn’t a tax?

Given how unpopular taxes are, it’s understandable why Obama would not trumpet the notion that the mandate was a tax. But has he said it was not a tax?

We could find only one example after Obama was president in which he or a top aide explicitly stated that the mandate wasn’t a tax. (When we asked, the Republican National Committee couldn’t come up with any other examples, either.) The one instance came on Sept. 20, 2009, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Here’s an excerpt:

Stephanopoulos: Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?

Obama: Well, hold on a second, George. Here — here’s what’s happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I’ve said is that if you can’t afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn’t be punished for that. That’s just piling on. If, on the other hand, we’re giving tax credits, we’ve set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we’ve driven down the costs, we’ve done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you’ve just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that’s…

Stephanopoulos: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.

Obama: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

Stephanopoulos: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…

Obama: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. … What if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…

Stephanopoulos: I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

Obama: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

Stephanopoulos: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

Obama: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…

Stephanopoulos: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

Obama: I absolutely reject that notion.

Sliced up into brief sound bites, the back-and-forth between Stephanopoulos offers some clear evidence of Obama arguing that the mandate is not a tax, most obviously when he says that the mandate “is absolutely not a tax increase.”

Still, it’s worth noting that Obama made the case that the alternative was worse — that not having an individual mandate would be unfair and inefficient. The absence of an individual mandate, Obama argued, means passing on the costs of treating Americans uninsured to people who are insured, which amounts to a “tax” on those with coverage, even though it may not be literally fit the dictionary definition of a tax. In essence, Obama was brushing off complaints that he was imposing a tax by contending that a “tax” was already in place under the status quo.

Our ruling

Palin is correct that Obama “said (the individual mandate) wasn’t a tax.” It’s right there in the video.

We rate the statement True.

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Sarah Palin: Hey Democrats, What’s The Plan, Man?

By Gary P Jackson

One of the reasons we absolutely love Sarah Palin, and support her so strongly, is the fact she simply doesn’t suffer fools well. She also doesn’t take crap from anyone. Sarah is a street fighter who loves the sting of battle, and when she is on a mission, the last thing anyone with a lick of sense would want to do, is try and stop her from completing that mission.

Sarah has been hammering the Obama regime and his Congress over the upcoming $3.8 TRILLION tax increase, the largest in history. She was attacked by the far left, “Journolist approved” PolitiFact, an outfit known for carrying the water for Obama and the Marxist-progressives. They claimed she was “pants on fire lying.” Sarah took PolitiFact to school, showing them what real fact checking looked like, as you can read here.

Obviously undetered by attacks from the left, Sarah took time from her commercial fishing gig to again ask Obama and his crew: “What’s the plan, man?”

Pants on Fire, Still

A $3.8 trillion tax increase is coming down the pike, folks. America’s tax cuts which can incentivize small businesses to expand and hire more people (thus fulfilling the mission to grow more private sector jobs), or even just to keep our doors open, will expire in four months. That expiration equates to an increase on your tax bill, starting at midnight, December 31.

I’ll keep calling out President Obama and the Democrats until they tell the American people what the plan is to save the incentives – to not allow the mom and pops’ tax cuts to expire. Granted, liberals (including stubborn “fact-checkers” who claim I’m lying about the soon-to-be tax cut expiration) are trying to clobber me for holding them accountable and prodding them toward revealing their intentions (because they’ve had 18 months to publicly propose a plan to stave off the $3.8 trillion tax increase that will soon slam us, but have revealed no plan). If they have a bill to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, let’s see it. Time for them to put up or shut up.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Take the word of the “fact-checkers” at PolitiFact, who, before moving the goal posts in their second dissembling “fact-check” on the Democrats’ tax hikes, wrote in their original “fact-check”:

There are no formal congressional proposals yet to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, so we don’t have precise estimates from official sources like the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Still, there’s a good bit of consensus on what the tax increases would look like, both if lower rates expired only for high earners and also for all incomes.

As Ed Morrissey noted:

And there’s a big problem with this argument, which is that “consensus” means nothing without passing a bill, and especially not without proposing one first. Thanks to Democrats in 2001 and 2003, those bills cutting the tax rates have hard-and-fast sunset provisions that create an expiration date absent of any other action.

We are now less than four months away from that expiration date after seven years of seeing it coming, after more than 3 years of Democratic control of Congress, and after eighteen months of the Obama administration. Democrats don’t even have a proposal on the table yet, and the legislative calendar is rapidly shrinking to take action before the expiration date hits. Without action, we will see a $3.8 trillion tax hike across the entire spectrum of earners.

So much for “consensus” without action. PolitiFact is curiously stating that in his 2011 budget, the President mentioned some “plan” to do something about not raising taxes on all Americans. Um, don’t know about you, but I don’t find this general, vague promise of some “plan” all that reassuring.

The Left also “plans” to do something about our out of control deficits and high unemployment, and the President “planned” for his nearly trillion dollar stimulus to keep unemployment under 8%. We’ve seen how successful that “plan” worked out.

The President’s budget “plan” hasn’t worked out so well either. As the economist Bruce Bartlett explained at the time, the President’s budget – including the tax promise – was never much more than a vague statement of intent. Practically speaking, it was dead on arrival. Even Bartlett couldn’t have known how dead, though, because in the end Congress didn’t even succeed in passing a budget, let alone in taking a decision on the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Bottom line: until we see a formal proposal – an actual bill before Congress – then get ready for that $3.8 trillion hit.

(By the way, the Left sure gets wee-wee’d up when they’re called on something like this, eh? And here I am, thousands of miles away from DC out on a commercial fishing boat, working my butt off for my own business, merely asking the Democrat politicos and their liberal friends in the media: “What’s the plan, man?”, and they seem to feel threatened by my question. So, I’ll go back to setting my hooks and watching the halibut take the bait, and when I come back into the boat’s cabin in a few hours, I’ll log back on here to read their reply. I’ll have succeeded if they’re forced to finally reveal to Americans how they plan to increase taxes, and what they intend to do with our money. In the meantime, I’m catching fish.)

– Sarah Palin, in Homer, Alaska

As Sarah points out, while these idiot “fact checkers” as talking noise and claiming she is wrong, their position is unsustainable, because there is NO PLAN. Nothing is written down, and most certainly nothing is waiting in Congress for passage.

Much like Obama did regularly as a Senator in both the Illinois Senate, as well as the U.S. Senate, Congress voted “present” when it came time to pass a budget, thus there is no mechanism to stop this $3.8 TRILLION monster tax increase coming your way. Nothing to stop it at all. The Obama regime was hoping you wouldn’t notice.

Just like the so-called “fact checkers“, Obama and his party are just making it up as they go!

The radical left wants you to just trust them. They say it will all be OK. We all kinda know what happens to those who trust the Marxist-democrats, don’t we! These are people who will lie to you when the truth would work better!

On a side note, one wonders where all of the GOP show ponies are. You know, those “profiles in courage” like Mitt Romney. They’ve all been quite conspicuous by their absence on this, and many other serious issues.

All I can tell you for sure is Victory in November is essential if our Republic is to survive. This is no time to sit around and fret. This is a time to stand up and be counted. Time to get off the couch and into the game!

Sarah Palin is the one who is standing up for us, so in turn, I am standing with Sarah Palin and asking Obama and his Congress: What’s the plan, man?

On Tax Increases Sarah Palin Schools The “Fact-Checkers” On What Real Fact Checking Looks Like

By Gary P Jackson

PolitiFact, a far left group, based out of St Petersburg, Florida, decided to question Sarah Palin’s mention of the up-coming $3.8 TRILLION tax hike courtesy of the Obama regime. As one would expect, Sarah isn’t gonna sit back and let em get away with their nonsense. Instead, Sarah shows this corrupt group of “journalists” or should I say Journolists, what real fact checking looks like:

Fact-checking the Fact-checkers on the $3.8 Trillion Obama Tax Hike

Yesterday, PolitiFact.com fact-checked my statement about the coming $3.8 trillion Obama tax hike – the largest tax increase in history. They did such a bad job of it, however, that I feel compelled to fact-check the fact-checkers.

First of all, they claim that there are Democrat proposals which would “keep the tax cuts for individuals who make less than $200,000 and couples who make less than $250,000.”

Unfortunately for PolitiFact, no such proposal exists. They admit as much, by the way, when they state that “There are no formal congressional proposals yet to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, so we don’t have precise estimates from official sources like the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.” That doesn’t stop them, though, from claiming I “confuse the issue” by “using numbers that assume all the tax cuts are going away. That is not the Democratic plan nor is it President Obama’s plan.”

Plan? What plan? There is no plan. All we have is smoke and mirrors based on an old Obama campaign pledge that if elected, he would exempt families making less than $250,000 a year from “any form of tax increases.” But this pledge was already watered down before he was even elected. First vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden lowered it to $150,000. Then campaign surrogate Gov. Bill Richardson lowered it even further to $120,000.

A few months after the inauguration, even that last promise disappeared in a puff of smoke. When asked to reaffirm the White House’s commitment to the campaign promise of no tax increases for families earning less than $250,000, Obama’s spin doctor David Axelrod declared the President had “no interest in drawing lines in the sand.”

The truth is that as of today, Democrats haven’t taken any action to extend any part of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for any income group – and in this case doing nothing equals hitting American taxpayers with a massive $3.8 trillion tax increase.

What we do know for certain is that the White House is more than willing to raise taxes on families with incomes of less than $250,000. Democrat Senator Max Baucus admitted as much during the debate about Obamacare when he stated that “One other point that I think it’s very important to make is that it is true that in certain cases, the taxes will go up for some Americans who might be making less than $200,000.”

PolitiFact doesn’t dispute the $3.8 trillion estimate of the cost of repeal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. It admits that “Palin’s estimate of $3.8 trillion over 10 years is within a reasonable range, if you’re talking about all taxpayers.” And yet somehow it continues to argue that I’m wrong, based on a proposal it admits doesn’t exist which in turn is based on a phantom campaign pledge which Democrats have already broken anyway. I call that a “Pants on Fire” statement.

To prevent PolitiFact from making similar mistakes in future, it would be helpful if the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership finally mustered the courage to table their plans to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out. You can argue in favor of a multi-trillion dollar tax hike in an age of economic uncertainty and mass unemployment, and we’ll argue for fiscal sanity combined with serious spending cuts. I for one look forward to such a debate.

In the meantime I suggest the St. Petersburg Times hires a few extra staff to fact-check its fact-checkers. It might help it prevent being caught with its “pants on fire” again in the future.

– Sarah Palin

Let’s face it, THIS is why we love Sarah Palin. She never lets these liars get away with it.

One of the most frustrating things about Geroge Bush, who we also loved dearly, was the fact he never fought back, never defended himself when attacked by the vile and corrupt media, on behalf of the Marxist-democrats. The establishment Republicans still have this problem. They will let the radical left tell lies all day long, and either remain silent and afraid, or sometimes even agree, to a point. This allows the lie to fester, grow, and in the mind of many, become fact. It’s pathetic.

Sarah Palin doesn’t put up with it. Sarah understands that we are at war. We are at war with the Obama regime and the rest of the radical left for the very soul of this nation! Sadly, this is a war were are losing, because of the timidity of the establishment Republicans. These go-along-get-along squishes are nothing more than enablers to the radical Marxist-progressives who have taken over control of the democrat party. When the going gets rough, they lay down their arms.

Not Sarah Palin. She and a handful of real leaders are fighting back hard. More importantly, Sarah is working to elect like minded leaers all around the country to make sure America survives the Obama regime, and gets back on the right track.

BTW, for those that wanna buy into the radical left’s assertions that Sarah is wrong, you might want to look into the latest bit out of D.C..

The Marxist-democrats, knowing the $3.8 TRILLION tax hike that is coming will pretty much insure they will be the minority party, and out of power for a generation, are now working on a deal that would exempt “blue” states from the effects of the largest tax increase in history. New York Congressman Jerry Nadler and four other New York Marxist-democrats are working on this plan.

One irony of the tax increase that arrives on January 1 is that the it will hit residents of high-income, Democratic-leaning states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York the hardest. This is a problem for pro-tax Democrats.

Enter New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, who wants to exempt his own six-figure constituents from the tax hike he supports. Mr. Nadler’s bill would “require the IRS to adjust tax brackets proportionally in regions where the average cost of living is higher than the national average.”

In other words, the various tax brackets would apply to residents in certain regions at higher income levels versus other parts of the country. A family with an income of $50,000 or even $1 million in Manhattan would pay less federal income tax than a family with the same earnings in Omaha. The bill is called the Tax Equity Act, but a more accurate title would be the Blue State Tax Preference Act.

Mark Heminway at the Washington Examiner has more here.

Thisnk this is crazy? Remember ObamaCare and the votes leading up to it? Remember the “Cornhusker Kick-back” and the “Louisana Purchase“? Those were special carve-outs that basically exempted members of certain politicians’ electorate from the devastating effects of ObamaCare.

This is how these people think. They don’t care how destructive their policies are, unless it effects their ability to get re-elected, and then, rather than shelf their ridiculous and dangerous ideas, they just make THEIR people exempt from them!

Why do you think the Obama regime worked to get his unon thugs exempted from so many of the recent laws passed that will destroy business? Unions own Obama. They are his constituency.

All of this is why the upcooming primaries are so important, and we must elect Conservatives over establishment type Republicans. This is also why November is essential to the survival of the Republic. We must defeat every Marxist-democrat in every election, at every level, or our Republic will die.

Thankfully, while the GOP establishment show ponies are silent, Sarah Palin is helping us take the fight straight to the Marxists. She is unafraid. She has the cojones many on our side lack.

We stand with her. Where do you stand? It is a time for choosing.