We don't got no stinking facts!

I just endured the pain of watching Piers Morgan interview Michele Bachmann for eleven minutes and 31 seconds that seemed like an eternity.  You’ll remember that Ms. Bachmann is the Republican Representative from Minnesota and erstwhile candidate for the presidency of the U.S. And for a brief moment, she was the favorite “non-Romney” in the race.

Normally, I would turn her off rather than listen to her respond to every question with the same scripted answer.   But today I watched because I just had to hear her defend Mr. Romney’s change of position on the horrors of the individual mandate.  I found her responses very interesting because I had recently heard Jonathan Gruber, an economist and a professor of economics at the MIT, speaking about the same topic.

Professor Gruber was hired as a consultant by Mr. Romney to assist with his insurance plan in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts is the only state to have an individual mandate, thanks to Mr. Romney’s plan.  Professor Gruber said that the Affordable Care Act is the same as the Romney’s plan.  He should know.  He’s the consultant on both.  So I’m going to use his comments as reference points for my following comments.

I’ve always thought Ms. Bachmann was disingenuous but now I think I was being generous. But believe it or not, even though her contorted responses were  uncomfortable, they weren’t what was so painful.  The most painful part was listening to her lie on the public airwaves.  Unless of course she doesn’t understand the healthcare law.  In that case, she shouldn’t be talking about it on a major network evening talk show.  Let me give you my reasoning.

While repeating for the “dozenth” time that Obamacare is causing the “collapse of Western civilization. (Not really, I added that.)  But she did say that it was the largest tax increase in the history of the world, as a response to every question.  She then gave an example:  The tax on the sale of real estate.  Her version: I paraphrase.  Americans will have to pay an additional tax of 3.8 percent at the closing on the sale of their real estate.  So she said that if a family sold their house for $500,000 they would have to pay $18,000 plus in additional taxes.

Simply not true.  Here are the facts: If a family sold their house for a profit of $500,000 (the level of capital gains exclusion from taxation) they would not be required to pay any tax.  And if that family sold their house for $501,000 profit they would only pay the 3.8 percent tax on the $1000.00 profit – that’s $38.00; a far cry from $18,000 plus.

But wait.  That same family would need to earn over $250,000 for this tax to apply. So 97 percent of Americans won’t be affected.  I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on Ms. Bachman.  She’s just part of an organized Republican campaign of disinformation about this law.  She’s in good company.  This last few days, I’ve listened to Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Mitt Romney spread disinformation like the plague.

The Republican propaganda machine is an awesome thing to observe.  It functions on some primary principles:  Politics and morality are inseparable.  Excite your base with moral frames on every issue.  (This way they don’t need to offer alternative policies.)  People won’t understand the facts and they have short memories anyway.       

Remember the movie, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  An American prospector,  says to the bandits who are posing as mountain police, “where are your badges.”  The bandit responds, “Badges?  We don’t got no badges.  We don’t need no badges.  We don’t got to show you no stinking badges.”

Remember this mantra the next time you hear a Republican talking about the Affordable Healthcare Act.  “Facts? We don’t got no facts.  We don’t need no facts.  We don’t got to show you no stinking facts!”

Robert DeFilippis