Are the charts and graphs debunking an important Republican attack line on the health care reform law? The GOP scuttlebutt is that the law represents the biggest tax increase ever.
But it doesn’t look that way.
But, as I’ve often noted here, facts now mean so little in our politics. Once upon a time people felt compelled to apply a little acting to twist facts. Now, many politicos and partisans don’t even bother. What matters is to take a political mantra and repeat it over and over, have it written again and again, then repeated over and over again. The facts are ignored.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, two graphs are worth a thousand partisan spins.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.