TexasBred
Well-known member
This was a letter to the editor in today's Waco Tribune newspaper. What's wrong with it.
Letters in the Trib abound from people who have chosen to ignore facts on everything from global warming to deficits to Obamacare. In a recent letter, we were told that under President Obama "the federal deficit just keeps getting bigger." The General Accounting Office official tables show the following: In 2001, when President George W. Bush took office, the debt was 1.2 percent of GDP, with a $128.2 billion surplus. When Obama took office in 2009, that surplus had (under Bush) become a deficit of 1.412 trillion, with the federal debt at 9.8 percent of GDP. Under Obama, the deficit has fallen to $679 billion (4.1 percent of GDP) and it is projected to be at $648.8 billion at the end of this year.
Jimmy Kimmel recently conducted an amusing survey of people who were asked whether they preferred the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare. Overwhelmingly, people stated that they definitely liked the ACA, especially that their health insurers were required to spend a minimum of 80 percent of their premiums on actual health care, that they could keep their children on their policy until age 26 and that they could not be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or dropped if they became seriously ill.
Many who praised the ACA stated, however, that they hated Obamacare, though when asked why, they generally could not say. A few stated that it is a "job killer" despite the fact that the economy has had job growth every single month since the law passed. When told that the ACA is in fact Obamacare, they refused to believe it.
We live in a society in which facts are increasingly ignored, either because people don't want their preconceptions disturbed or because they are confused by misinformation from cable news and Internet hoaxes. A country in which people simply believe what they want to believe instead of questioning the assertions of politicians or pundits is not a democracy; it is a collection of warring cults whose leaders brainwash and control their oblivious disciples
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Gail Boyd, Woodway