| I've never watched the O'Reilly Factor before but since Tivo picked it up for some reason and I noticed O'Reilly bashing former President Clinton for being critical of President Bush in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, I played it. After Clinton bashing (apparently Bush picked him up out of the dumps and gave him credibility by letting him go drum up tsunami relief with his father), O'Reilly's first segment was full of dubious factoids about how poverty has gone down during Bush's reign and how tax revenue is up. I mean how could tax revenue possibly be up after the roaring 90s? Luckily with the Internet here on my lap, fact checking is easy as 1-2-3. Needless to say O'Reilly-Sucks.com had a point by point rebuttal. Unbelievable that people actual listen to him (O'Reilly, that is) and believe what he's saying. Just bizarre. As I said, believe it or not, today was the first time I saw the show. Hopefully it will be the last. It's just not worth my time. Oh, for what it's worth, the rebuttal regarding the issues I mentioned above (courtesy of The Huffington Post*) were:
According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of people living below the poverty line DROPPED from around 15 percent in 1993 to just above 11 percent by the year 2000. That's a 4 percent drop in Clinton's eight years. That number has INCREASED under George W. Bush from around 11.5 percent in 2001 to almost 13 percent by the end of 2004. and The only reason tax revenue under Bush appears to be higher is because it started high at the end of Clinton's term. But since Bush's tax cuts in 2001, tax revenue has steadily declined, with only 2004 seeing an ever-so-slight increase from the year before. So it turned out that O'Reilly was giving Bush credit for the tax revenue generated during his first year in office before everything crashed. OK, now it makes sense. Are people really swallowing the things he says? (I suspect I don't really want to know the answer to that question.)* Yes, I realize the Huffington Post (hmmm wonder who publishs that paper?) and oreilly-sucks.com are hardly unbiased sources however they are using facts backed up by data, not pure bullshit. Anyway at this point, I'd almost like to see Hilary elected president next time just to piss off all those people who hate her so much. Though I'm no Hillary fan, she certainly can't do a worse job. Not overall anyway, though I do have some concerns as to whether or not the 2nd amendment might suffer under her. |