In a recent tweet, Michelle Bachmann’s campaign wrote:
Lesson in economic recovery: Consider Canada. No stimulus & unemployment is 20% lower than US.
Uh, guys – we did have a stimulus. We passed stimulus in 2009 as part of the budget, at practically the same time that the USA did: $40 billion in spending and $20 billion in tax cuts for a total of $60 billion in stimulus spending and cuts. Now, our budget was only $274 billion CDN in expenditures, so that $60 billion represented about 22% of our overall budget, whereas the USA’s stimulus of $900 billion measured against its expenditures of $3.5 trillion USD represented about 26% of its budget, so percentagewise our stimulus was a bit smaller than yours, granted – but then again, thanks to strict banking regulations that most of the world didn’t have, we didn’t take nearly the hit that the United States did from the financial collapse of 2008.
So basically Michelle Bachmann is wrong. I know, you’re having trouble processing such an idea! But that is in fact the case.
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17 users responded in this post
Be careful what you say about her or her coven might cast a hex on you.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I can’t really believe what you’re saying. Michelle Bachmann and her impeccable team don’t make mistakes.. In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen scrupulous-less liberals like you change reality to suit your so-called facts. It’s your lies that are killing Canada! Killing it like a popular character in an Andrew Hussie story- slaughtered for laughs with the head removed for further jokes. Fie on you all. Fie I say!
You know, every time I see a comment like that on something like a CBC news article or so on, I wonder what is wrong with the people who wrote them- what drives them to sound like an economist Snidely Whiplash. Answer- it’s so much fun! Spouting meaningless hyperbole like that is a great enjoyment, even if it is all bullshit.
She’s never bothered with using facts before…so why start now?
I’m not sure I can recover from this blow to my psyche.
Really it’s a double whammy: not only is sweet Michelle (ma belle) wrong, but American politicians are using Canada to score cheap political points! Egads!
Now, now, MGK — there’s no need to hide the pain. We true blue ‘Mericans understand how much you suffer under the yoke of your oppressive health care and Miss Michelle and Sister Sarah are fixing a plan to liberate the whole lot of you, count on that.
I’m starting to think she’s actually crazy, like Coke and Pepsi taste the same crazy. If the people that the Republican party has given us for the upcoming election are the best they got, the end is very fucking nigh.
You’re *starting* to think she’s crazy? That woman has pinwheel eyes and a cuckoo bird coming out of her head!
Also, apparently our unemployment rate is negative 11 per cent.
Ncallahan is right–you’ve obviously cracked under the strain of having to wait years for medical care, even when you’re hemorrhaging, because socialist medicine is like that.
@Cookie.. I could totally see the cuckoo bird coming out of the top of her head.
Reich wing politics fall into one of two categories: Social Paranoia and Economic Abuse.
Social Paranoia invokes fear and makes people care less about each other.
Economic Abuse (including the Libertarian view of ‘Economic Wealth Equals Social Worth’) only makes sense when people stop caring about each other and creates class warfare which promotes Social Paranoia.
Banking regulations are great! *high5*
Clearly the answer to all of America’s problem is to have no banking regulations, and none of that socialist free health care for all.
What scares me isn’t that she’s crazy- every country has a few politicians who are reliably batshit. No, scares me is that she keeps getting a platform to say these things in public, uncorrected.
Also, apparently our unemployment rate is negative 11 per cent.
Isn’t that slavery?
“What scares me isn’t that she’s crazy- every country has a few politicians who are reliably batshit. No, scares me is that she keeps getting a platform to say these things in public, uncorrected.”
What scares me is how all of the other Republican candidates are trying to out-crazy each other. There’s no “She may be crazy, but I’m a sane, normal Republican, so vote for me!” I loathe these people.
The US stimulus was actually much smaller than that number would indicate, because at the same time that federal spending was increasing, state spending was decreasing. If I recall correctly, Krugman says that the net stimulus effect in the US was pretty close to 0.
So, not merely wrong but up-is-down wrong.
We laugh about it — alas, what else can we really do? — but having endured the last 40 years of conservative social action in America, I envy you Canucks. I’d even move to Vancouver if it weren’t for the Fujiyama fallout. (too soon?)
I know religious fundamentalism have wreaked havoc in progressive nations all over the world, but to see that the decline in basic ‘book smarts’ (and moral repose) among the Republican icons of the last 50 years — Goldwater, Buckley, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush/Cheney, Palin and the Bachmanns that follow; each a mere shard of their comparatively multifaceted predecessor — is rewarded with an almost inversely magnified political success. The more short-sighted and unsound their policies, the greater their electoral gains. Is the whole world this irrational (suicidal?), or is it just my poor psyops-addled USA?
A pox on the houses of those few hundred (or thousand) Owners Of The Means Of Production And All The Good Land And Whatever Else George Carlin Said About Them who abuse the gears of Industry and Commerce in their pursuit of personal profit, acting the pimp where the gardener is called for. Where oh where is Zatoichi when we need him?