Politicians aren't known for being particularly truthful, but when it comes to business and the economy, both parties tell some real whoppers. Here are the ten most common and ridiculous lies that turn up regularly in everything from policy papers to stump speeches.
NOTE: To see the lies, click on the NEXT button on the upper right.
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Illustrations by Igor Zakowski
Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #1: We want to balance the budget.
Who Tells It: Republicans
Despite the fact the claims that Republicans want a balanced budget, it's clear from the nature of their actual proposals that they aren't serious. If they were, their proposals would insist, among other things, that the government bring the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a screeching halt, end the ineffective and absurd war on drugs, completely terminate oil subsidies, and radically reduce military spending. Instead, what they surface are nickel and dime ideas (like defunding NPR) and budget-breaking absurdities, like tax cuts for the super-rich.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #2: The gender pay gap is real
Who Tells It: Democrats
Liberals pander to the feminists by insisting that men are paid more than women. But here's the truth: when you factor out the time that women spend having children and caring for them, and then compare apples to apples (i.e. same job, same start date), the gender pay gap shrinks to statistical insignificance. This lie is pernicious because it distracts people from looking at the REAL pay gap, which is insane accumulation of wealth and earnings among the super-rich. As long as politicians can keep middle-class men and women squabbling over table scraps, nobody will notice that ALL of the economic gains of the past three decades have gone to those who were already obscenely wealthy.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #3: The U.S. has high corporate tax rates
Who Tells It: Republicans
While it's true that the U.S. tax rates (on the books) is among the highest in the world, there are so many tax breaks available to businesses (especially large ones) that the ACTUAL tax rate is lower than many third world countries. The only companies that pay the full tax rate are small businesses that can't pay accountants to squirrel away money overseas and can't pay politicians to enact preferential treatment and special breaks. The result is a huge advantage for large companies, even though they employ a tiny (and declining) fraction of American workers.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #4: We support small businesses
Who Tells It: Republicans and Democrats
Politicians give lip service to small businesses, because small businesses actually comprise most of the economic activity in the United States. But small business have no political power and therefore no influence. A small business can't raise enough money to get on the radar screen of any one politician (except maybe the hometown congressman), which means that the interests of small businesses will always get short shrift. The problem is made worse by the fact that many small business owners foolishly believe that the CEOs of huge firms will influence politicians to become more "business-friendly". What they don't understand is that a business climate that's friendly to huge multinationals can easily be one that's toxic to small businesses.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #5: We have the best healthcare in the world
Who Tells It: Republicans
The way the Republicans talk about it, you'd think that any substantive change in the current healthcare system would bring American businesses to utter rack and ruin. But the truth is providing the current system in the United States is extraordinarily inefficient, with costs that are higher (relative to actual results) than anywhere else in the world. While the current system is great for two industries -- insurance and healthcare -- every other industry operates at a disadvantage in the United States because either they, or their workers, have to pay for the inefficiency of a system where expensive procedures are more profitable than keeping people healthy.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #6: Free trade creates jobs
Who Tells It: Republicans and Democrats
Free trade creates jobs...in places where labor is cheap. In the United States, free trade has created massive outsourcing that has, in turn, gutted entire sectors of the economy. It's not just the manufacturing jobs that have gone away. There are hundreds of thousands of highly-trained engineers, for example, who are being put out of work by engineers abroad who will work for what in the United States would be minimum wage. The collapse of the American job market was hidden for years by a massive glut of borrowing and consumer spending, but now it's come home to roost, to the point where gaining back a tiny fraction of the jobs that were lost is considered a huge victory.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #7: Nobody is above the law
Who Tells It: Republicans and Democrats
As my brilliant colleage, BNET blogger Alain Sherter pointed out in his post "Why the Feds Won't Prosecute Bankers", corporations that are deemed "too big to fail" are routinely given a free pass when they commit crimes. The executives who commit criminal acts are allowed to walk and the companies themselves given a nominal fine, in order to make certain that the company survives. As a result, executives at huge firms know that they can continue to commit crimes, because they know they will not be held accountable. Any attempt to regulate such firms so that they can't wriggle out is quickly squelched, primarily by Republicans, but aided and abetted by those Democrats who are also sucking at the corporate teat.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #8: What's good for big business is good for the country
Who Tells It: Republicans and Democrats
It used to be that "What's good for GM is good for the country." But that was when large companies actually employed a a large number of American workers. Today, many huge companies are deployed so heavily overseas that they're not really American at all. Many multinationals are, for all intents and purposes, sovereign states. Some even have their own standing armies. Even so, U.S. politicians in both parties continue treat such corporations as if they were American entities, and are more than happy to accept their campaign contributions, even though this is tantamount to accepting money from a foreign country.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #9: We feel your pain
Who Tells It: Democrats
Politicians at the federal level, including Democrats, are so far removed from poverty, or even from the middle-class, that it's impossible for them to have any idea what it is actually like to try to survive in the current economic climate. Many members of congress are millionaries and multi-millionaires, as are most of the senators. Many come from families with inherited wealth. They are all highly paid, with the world's best health insurance, and lifetime job security as lobbyists or industry consultants. The idea that anyone in this position can "feel the pain" is sickeningly absurd.
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Top 10 Lies Politicians Tell About Business
Lie #10: Supply side economics really works
Who Tells It: Republicans
It's been decades since George H.W. Bush gave Supply Side Economics the "Voodoo" sobriquet, and yet there are still politicians (Republicans mostly) who insist that this crack-brained idea is valid, even though there is not a single shred of evidence that this is the case. Why the persistent denial of reality? It's a classic case of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too, combined with a willingness to belief any old thing that makes you feel good. It's probably not a coincidence that the most vocal proponents of this particular brand of economic snake oil also hold other absurd beliefs contrary to history and observable reality. Show me a tried and true supply sider, and I'll show you somebody who believes that every word of the Bible is accurate, that global warming is fictional, and that Obama was born on the planet Mars.
