Image from the "Republicans: Grand Old Party" Facebook page. Click to enlarge image.
This Donald Trump quote has been floating around Facebook lately, usually posted by opponents of Obamacare who say some variation of, “Wow, The Donald really nails it!” The bloviating ignoramus apparently spewed these words back in February, but they didn’t go viral until after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the health care reform law. What amazes me is that anyone would still take Trump seriously after his amazing run of idiocy and lies. Trump may be a joke to most people, but he is an official supporter of, fundraiser for, and adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Romney himself has proven to be a world-class liar, so perhaps he welcomes Trump’s dishonesty. If Romney takes him seriously, we should examine what Trump says. In a perfect world, no one should have to debunk this much Trump-crap, but people actually believe it–so debunk we must.
In his defense, I guess Trump would be making a good point–if anything in this quote were remotely close to the truth. In fact, the paragraph is just one lie after another. I’m not sure which of Trump’s ghostwriters came up with this turd party wrapped up in a crap festival, but it’s a complete sewer system. I counted 12 violations of the Ninth Commandment just at first glance. That’s a lot of false witness!
The good news is that evil liberal web browsers like mine come with a search feature. The truth about Obamacare is actually pretty easy to find. This will be a fairly long post compared with much of what we see on Twitter and Facebook, but Trump gives us quite a few lies to deal with. Fortunately, we all know how to read, don’t we?
Let’s take the lies one at a time:
- No one is forced to purchase “Obamacare.” (Obamacare is a set of common sense regulations of the health insurance industry. It’s not some separate product that anyone has to buy.) The individual mandate “fine” would only be levied against people who can afford health insurance but purposely don’t buy it because they want to gamble that they won’t get sick but then freeload off the rest of us when they do get sick. If they’re too poor to afford health insurance on their own, they can get subsidies to help purchase insurance or they can get Medicaid.
- Obamacare actually makes health insurance available to more than 30 million uninsured people (not 10 million, a number Trump must have pulled out of his famously weird hair), ensuring that nearly everyone in America will have affordable access to health care for the first time in history.
- The legislation actually does have provisions and funding for training new doctors.
- The 16,000 new IRS agents will mostly work to hand out tax credits and advise individuals and businesses, not be some sinister army to enforce Obamacare.
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Image: VeracityStew.com
There’s no evidence that any congressional committee chair ever said he didn’t understand the law. And the members of Congress who voted for the law, assisted by their staff members, did actually read and understand it. That’s their job. And for all the complaints about how long the bill is, the truth is that it’s about the same length as a Harry Potter novel.
Trump himself either hasn’t read the legislation or he has read it and is purposely lying about it because his comments bear no resemblance to the actual law. And, by the way, has Trump read every word of every legal document for each of his four bankruptcies? Of course not, but he has a staff to help him read and understand the documents that show what a multiple failure he has been in the business world. - Members of Congress didn’t exempt themselves from the law. This is one of the biggest “zombie-lies” about Obamacare that has been thoroughly debunked. Why ignorant people continue to believe it is a complete mystery (although perhaps people like Trump getting frequent airtime on Fox News to push their lies might have something to do with it).
- Obama quit smoking two years ago–and besides, so what? Does smoking make him unqualified to develop a plan to address the nation’s health care issues? If that were the case, human chimney John Boehner would be disqualified from the task as well.
- The Secretary of Health and Human Services has primary responsibilities for administering Obamacare, not the Treasury Secretary. That’s common knowledge–although Trump seems immune to common knowledge. The president’s birth certificate has been available on the internet for years, but Trump seems unable to find it.
- Many benefits of Obamacare have already taken effect. And some of the taxes to help fund portions of Obamacare (which are all aimed at upper-income people and corporations making big profits in the health care industry–not the middle class) haven’t kicked in yet.
- Social security and Medicare are far from bankrupt, despite the cries of right-wingers across the nation. Social security is solvent through 2038. Medicare is solvent until 2024. In fact, Obamacare actually helps save Medicare funding.
- The Surgeon General also doesn’t oversee Obamacare, as mentioned earlier–the Secretary of Health and Human Services does. And the Surgeon General may not be skinny, but, where I come from, only an obnoxious jerk would berate a woman for her weight, let alone assume that makes her unqualified as a medical person.
- The United States isn’t broke. In fact, our nation has the most resources of any nation on earth.
The caption on Trump’s photo above reads, “Think about it …” Okay, I did. Trump is a liar, a jerk, and an idiot.
John Sheirer is an educator and the author of the Veracity Press book “Tales of a Real American Liberal.”
About John Sheirer
I believe on this one that the author has about as many lies in this article as trump had in his statement. I call it a tie.
LOL. That’s hilarious JG Newton that would attempt to claim such a thing when you consider how many references and citations are included in all the Trump lies. And the author is a respect professor and published author who is not likely to resort to “lies” to share a message. You have us confused with Fox News.
Not even a decent attempt at conservative trolling. Where did you get your training?
This is sad but funny. The writer makes a statement and then proves his statement wrong in the next sentence.
1. We are not forced to purchase healthcare: then states ” The individual mandate “fine” would only be levied against people can afford health insurance but purposely don’t buy it”. That would be forcing forcing them top pay
2. The 30 milli on number includes illegal aliens and is actually closer to 40 million. Trump was giving the president the benefit of the doubt since the president had to
Lie and say I t wouldn’t cover illegals
3. Providing training for new doctors is not quite the same as providing for new doctors. The significance being that the best doctors, aside from those who do not need money lol already are deciding not to accept govt paid Medicare because they can’t afford to and still pay the mounds of debt incurred by going to medical school in the first place. But good thing the Bill will provide”training ” lol. I’m sure the govt training will do the trick.
Anyway you get the idea. Its to I annoying to type this whole response out on my phone add this sore is not very mobile friendly and the cursor is flying all over the place. I’m no huge trump fan and frankly I couldn’t find validation that he even said this. But the quote its indeed factually correct.
Oh, Georgiboy…. you must live in Texas where they recently banned critical thinking.
But good on you for defending someone like Donald Trump. You’re on the right side of history with that choice. (sarcasm)
Stew Steve,
Just curious because I am trying to figure out what I think about all of this… Can you refute the 3 points Georgiboy made in his post? Or are you just going to make a few more snide, sarcastic remarks because you actually recognize he is correct?
If you do have some valid rebuttals to his points, I would love to hear them.
Well, Kat, it’s not all that sarcastic, but more restrained respectability, that I refuse to point out the obvious, and that which has already been stated and documented in the article. The author made the point clearly and with easy-to-use references.
Your obviously prepared/coached defense of Georgiboy is akin to trolling and spamming. But we understand.
Mature debate is welcomed. Your Fox News education is not.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own set of facts.
Thx.
Perhaps I came across a little too harshly in my comment. I actually was not attempting to debate with either of you; rather, I was truly interested in reading your rebuttals to his remarks. I, in fact, agree with the majority of the points YOU made in this article, but felt Georgiboy made a few valid points as well that I was hoping you might address for other readers to continue their “mature” thought process through this issue. I am not sure where you got your very quick assessment of my comment as a “coached defense” of Georgiboy, or of my personal education as one merely formed by the opinions of Fox News contributors. Quick assumptions, and unfortunately very far from the truth.
Again, I am the publisher, NOT THE author of the article.
The author of the article probably hasn’t commented, because as I mentioned above in a few places, there is no case for rebuttal since (a) the references and facts are already in the article; and (b) Georgiboy’s “questions” are based on misinformation and slanted interpretation of the facts. We don’t rebut such things. We’ve learned that there’s no arguing with someone that will — in the face of facts and research — cling to their own “truth.”
Just a comment on point 12 that states, “The United States isn’t broke. In fact, our nation has the most resources of any nation on earth.”
Our national debt is more than $16 trillion. That is how much the United States has borrowed, and how much we have to pay interest on. To put $16 trillion in perspective, our national debt is larger than the total economies of China, the United Kingdom, and Australia combined. And under current policies, our national debt will continue to grow by billions every year.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the national debt held by the public will grow by at least $2 trillion over the next decade.
In 2010, the United States accumulated over $3.5 billion in new debt each and every day. That’s more than $2 million per minute.
A Snapshot of our National Debt:
o The Treasury Department estimates that our debt to China is approximately $1.16 trillion. That is nearly $15,000 in debt for the average American family.
o Over the last year, the government borrowed approximately $2.5 million every minute. That’s the equivalent of 8,244 flat screen HDTVs it cannot afford.
o According to the January 2010 Congressional Budget Office report, the federal budget deficit in 2009 was $1.4 trillion (9.9% of GDP). The 2010 deficit was approximately $1.3 trillion (9.1% of GDP). These are the largest deficits relative to GDP since 1945.
o About $4.6 trillion of the total debt is money that the government has borrowed from itself, by writing IOUs for huge sums taken from Social Security and Medicare surpluses.
o In July of 2009, the United States paid more than $19 billion in interest on the public debt [$19,812,486,187.83, Office of the Public Debt]. In 2009, according to the CBO, $187 billion of taxpayer funds were used just to pay interest on the debt—not to pay off the debt, just to pay interest on it.
o Every American worker’s share of the national debt is more than $90,000.
o According to the Department of the Treasury, foreign holders of our national debt are owed a combined total of about $4.5 trillion (June 2011).
o As reported by the Treasury Department, the top ten countries and entities holding U.S. debt are: Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Oil Exporters, Caribbean Banking Centers, Brazil, Hong Kong, Russia, Luxembourg, and Taiwan.
I think I would call that Broke, except that our wonderful, stupid Federal Reserve Bank can just print more money whenever it feels like with nothing to back it up, which in turns devalues the dollar more and more.
Oh yeah, Social Security HAS NO MONEY IN IT, just a bunch of IOU’s because our government took it all and spent it on something else that we didn’t need. Personally, I think we should do what our Declaration of Independence said, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
START OVER