Biggest lie about Gingrich now being spread.

[edhopper]

Heard this from three different RW talking heads.

That his leadership helped balance the budget in the 90s.
No The budget was balanced by Bill Clinton and the Democrats in 1994, before Gingrich and the Repukes took the House, without one, single Repub vote. Gingrich did nothing!

[surfdog]

1. Agreed

The nation was moving that way , Gingrich just jumped on moving train , and took credit for the whole trip

[edhopper]

2. As far as his Contract with America BS.

If you look at the 94 election you can put most of the Repuke gains into redistricting in places like Texas thanks to Repuke legislatures. And remember the Rebukes all, to a man, opposed the Balanced Budget Act of 94 because it raised taxes for the wealthy. The budget was balanced in spit of Newt, not because of anything he did.

[WCGreen]

24. I love that there are a whole lot of congress people who signed that pledge

to quit after five terms that are still serving...

But of course the Dem's didn't make that an issue...

[CTyankee]

26. And Joe Scarborough takes credit for it at least once a week on MJ and NO ONE on his

show calls bullshit on him!

I don't understand that!

[pennylane100]

3. I think another biggest lie is that he is a member of the human race.

[niyad]

19. that was my first thought, as well

[HopeHoops]

4. Gingrinch also broke up the USSR and the Berlin wall, and invented Silly Putty.

If FOX starts claiming those three things, the idiots who watch it will believe them.

[edhopper]

5. You heard that wrong

He is a big as the Berlin Wall and made of Silly Putty.
If you want a laugh, read his statements about why DC National was renamed for Ronnie Raygun. It defies logic.

[HopeHoops]

6. I always assumed it was named for Reagan because it was the most disfunctional one.

I've since decided that Newark, NJ is more disfunctional so it is a prime candidate to be named after the shrub.

[edhopper]

8. Good one

He said, since Raygun single handedly defeated the Soviets, he made flying safer fore the free world and deserves the Airport in his name. I kid you not.

[HopeHoops]

12. Levi jeans had more to do with the demise of the USSR than Reagan did.

That's not a joke, either. They couldn't keep the rest of the world out of the closet culture they wanted - and that will be the demise of N. Korea too.

[edhopper]

14. And that is the fantasy world that Gingrich and the

Repukes live in. Unfortunately the entire MSM has bought into is and beautified Saint Ronnie.

[GeorgeGist]

27. I think it was Afghanistan.

But maybe I've forgotten my history.

[HopeHoops]

28. The war undermined the government. Western culture undermined the heavy hand.

[kentuck]

7. When Newt and the Repubs took over in 1995...

Bill Clinton and the Democrats had already cut the deficit by about 40% without a single Republican vote.

[former9thward]

9. Factcheck.org disagrees with you.

There were four years of balanced budgets, 1998-2002. http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

[Moosepoop]

10. No, it doesn't.

You may be confusing "federal budget" with "federal deficit."

The federal budget was, indeed, balanced beginning in 1994 and continuing through 2001.

In addition, the federal deficit was erased from 1998-2002 (arguably, as the alternative accrual method of accounting would have the deficit erased for only three of those years).

Check the info at your link again, it's all plainly spelled out and reflected in the graph there.

[former9thward]

11. I don't think you know what the word "deficit" means.

The only years where there was a deficit reduction were 98-02. Other years the deficit increased. Bu definition it can only increase when the budget is not balanced. A balanced budget and an increase in the deficit can not happen at the same time.

[DCBob]

13. Moosepoop is correct.. (love that username!)

The graph shows total accumulated federal deficit... it began to decrease in 93-94 due to a surplus in the budget.

[former9thward]

15. No you are not reading the graph properly.

The graph is not total accumulated federal deficit at all. It is a graph by year showing whether we had a deficit that year or a surplus. A surplus means the budget was balanced. There was no surplus in 93-94. During those years the budget began to decrease the amount by which it was out of balance.

Since you refuse to believe factcheck how about Time? "The balanced-budget acts of 1990 and 1997 helped reverse this unprecedented level of peacetime spending, and in 1998 the U.S. recorded its first budget surplus in nearly 20 years."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1919169,00.html#ixzz1kscRkfcE

[DCBob]

17. I stand corrected. The text in the article says "total deficit" so its a bit misleading.

But yes I believe you are correct. Thanks for the clarification.

[bhikkhu]

16. Gingrich had nothing to do with that

...he was booted out by his own party (ok, he resigned to deny them the honor) before the budget balancing took place. And in any case, the repugs were solidly against most of the measures Clinton advocated, which led to an actual balanced budget.

Anyone who was paying attention at the time recalls it as a tooth-and-nail fight over every little line in the budget, with Clinton on the side of restraint and the repugs on the side of spending. They like to pose otherwise, but they've always been the real spending problem. And Newt had nothing to do with it, one way or another.

[edhopper]

18. And let's see if anyonein the MSM

calls him and his frontmen on this bullshit.

[JHB]

21. "So Newt raised taxes?" is the natural riposte

[kentuck]

22. Yep.

[The Wielding Truth]

23. Why is this what everyone thinks? Do you have a resource?

[GeorgeGist]

25. Teabaggers like to suck.

Whatcha gonna do?