DEMOCRAT HARKIN: LIAR OR JUST STUPID

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Mars) came up with this the other day:

“The debate and fight is not between Democrats and Republicans. It's between some Republicans and their sort of cult fringe as I refer to them out there," Harkin said.

"Democrats are willing to do whatever is necessary to raise the debt ceiling, not for future borrowing but to pay the debts that we racked up in the past. Which, mostly was racked up by a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President in the last 8 years. Yet, they're not willing to pay the bills," Harkin said.”

Some of my friends on the Right are upset by his description of the Tea Party as a “sort of cult fringe”. I say, “Whatever, he’s a liberal, what do you expect?” To them, you either agree or you are evil, not wrong – evil.

What got me was his line about the debt, “Which, mostly was racked up by a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President in the last 8 years.” Here’s a quick timeline of the last eight years.

• July 2003 – Dec. 2006 – Republican House, Senate and President
• Jan. 2007 – Dec. 2008 – Democrat House, Democrat Senate and Republican President
• Jan. 2009 – Dec. 2010 - Democrat House, Democrat Senate and Democrat President
• Jan. 2011 – present - Republican House, Democrat Senate and Democrat President

Additionally, let’s look at look at those terrible Bush years. In terms of the national debt, they were terrible – the debt was DOUBLED in those 8 eight years, from 5.5 to 10.6 trillion dollars. Now, let’s see what the 2 ½ years of the Obama presidency has done. In just under 30% of the time Bush was in office, the debt has gone up 3.7 trillion dollars, or over 66% of the disheartening Bush increase. And although Bush (with two years of Democrat controlled help) did rack up 5 trillion dollars in debt, a quick calculation shows 5 trillion is not a majority of 14.3 trillion.

Obviously, Senator Harkin’s statement is wrong. Senator Harkin has also been in Congress since 1974, so he has an intimate knowledge of what happened in the last eight years. I’ll ask the obvious question:

Is he a liar or just stupid?