November 22, 2011 11:35 am ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling Touts "Progressivity" Of Regressive GOP Tax Plan
November 21, 2011 10:12 am ET filed under Blog
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - November 20, 2011
November 21, 2011 10:02 am ET filed under Fact Check
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - November 20, 2011
Sunday's political talk shows focused almost exclusively on the efforts of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, with a number of the committee's members appearing on separate shows. Democratic committee member Sen. John Kerry (MA) pointed out on Meet the Press that "we are not a tax-cutting committee. We're a deficit-reduction committee." However, that point doesn't seem to have gotten through to Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), all of whom complained that the only thing stopping a deal was a refusal by Democrats to extend the costly and regressive Bush tax cuts. For the second time in as many weeks, Hensarling argued that the Bush tax cuts were not one of the largest drivers of the debt, while Kyl claimed that not extending them would wreck the economy. Toomey went so far as to say that that the federal government does not have a revenue problem but only a spending problem.
November 14, 2011 10:37 am ET filed under Blog
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - November 13, 2011
November 14, 2011 10:29 am ET filed under Fact Check
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - November 13, 2011
The Penn State sexual abuse scandal headlined the political talk shows on Sunday, but Republican leaders still found plenty of time to air dishonest talking points about conservative policies. GOP super committee members Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) misled viewers about the root of the debt problem the committee is trying to solve and what Republicans have proposed to address it. In particular, both lawmakers severely distorted the impact of the failed Bush tax cuts. Elsewhere, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus declared that Republicans want to "reduce taxes on every single American," ignoring the party leaders demanding that the poor pay higher taxes, and struggling presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that "what we need to win this war on terror" is the reinstatement of Bush-approved torture techniques.
November 07, 2011 11:34 am ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling: "The House Has Been A Jobs Bill Factory" Under GOP Rule
August 10, 2011 3:03 pm ET filed under Blog
GOP Super Committee Appointees Don't Understand What Caused The Debt
July 29, 2011 1:27 pm ET filed under Video
Rep. Hensarling: "I Mean, We're Compromising All Over The Place Here"
From the July 29, 2011, episode of Happening Now on Fox News:
June 17, 2011 2:24 pm ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling Piles On The GOP's Bogus 'Obama-Made-It-Worse' Claim
May 26, 2011 9:37 am ET filed under Fact Check
Slew Of House Republicans Falsely Claim President Obama Called For Israel To Return To "1967 Borders"
Since his speech on the Middle East last Thursday, President Obama's opponents have falsely attacked him for calling on Israel to return to its "1967 borders." In reality, Obama repeated the ordinary belief that an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal should result in two states with secure borders "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps," which will allow Israel to retain large settlements in the West Bank. Addressing the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the president explained very clearly that his original statement meant that the final border negotiated between the parties "will be different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967." However, that hasn't stopped many House Republicans from perpetuating a smear against Obama for something he never actually said.
May 06, 2011 1:47 pm ET filed under Blog
House Republicans Attempt To Spin Best Private-Sector Job Growth In Five Years
April 06, 2011 4:50 pm ET filed under Blog
Even House GOP Leaders Don't Take House GOP Budget Projections Seriously
March 18, 2011 10:54 am ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling Justifies Vote To Eliminate "Job-Destroying" NPR Funding
March 07, 2011 5:11 pm ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling: Economy Improving Because GOP Ended "Democrats' Legislative Pain"
March 07, 2011 10:17 am ET filed under Blog
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - March 6, 2011
March 07, 2011 10:06 am ET filed under Fact Check
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - March 6, 2011
For the first time in weeks, the Sunday political shows didn't touch on GOP union-busting efforts in Wisconsin and elsewhere, choosing instead to focus on national economic issues. That meant a series of tired talking points from familiar Republican faces. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) implied Democrats have raised taxes, when in fact they've cut taxes by hundreds of billions. Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) ignored economic growth and 1.5 million new private sector jobs in the past year to attack President Obama's economic policies. Bachmann also misled NBC viewers about the Affordable Care Act and the partisan nature of the Tea Party. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed the administration has protected government workers at the expense of private sector jobs. On less familiar topics, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) dishonestly insisted American Muslims don't cooperate with law enforcement despite much evidence to the contrary, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) foolishly claimed that Apple electronics are manufactured in America. Somebody should tell that to the Chinese factory workers who built your iPhone.
February 07, 2011 1:08 pm ET filed under Fact Check
Rep. Hensarling's Reagan-Obama Op-Ed Relies On Sweeping Economic Misinformation
In a column in today's Politico, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) assails President Obama's economic record with a variety of stale Republican talking points. While Hensarling wraps his misinformation in the legacy of President Reagan, he'd do well to remember Reagan's admonition that we are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. Whether Hensarling likes it or not, the fact is that President Bush's policies left the 2009 budget $1.2 trillion in the hole before Obama was sworn into office. Similarly, Hensarling said we are 'slipping further' into "record unemployment," but the data prove the jobs situation has been improving steadily for months. Neither do the facts support Hensarling's claims that the Affordable Care Act is bad for the budget picture and that Democrats increased federal spending by 84 percent since 2008.
February 07, 2011 10:46 am ET filed under Blog
GOP Conference Chair Honors Reagan By Lying About Deficit, Which Reagan Nearly Tripled
January 21, 2011 10:06 am ET filed under Blog
GOP Conference Chairman Hensarling "Deeply Confused" About Obama's Health Care Law
December 07, 2010 11:54 am ET filed under Video
Rep. Hensarling Balks At Tax Deal Over Unemployment Benefits
December 07, 2010 11:51 am ET filed under Blog
Top Conservatives Turned Off By Tax Deal's Inclusion Of Unemployment Benefits
December 06, 2010 9:46 am ET filed under Blog
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - December 5, 2010
December 06, 2010 9:43 am ET filed under Fact Check
Fact Checking The Sunday Shows - December 5, 2010
The lame duck session may be young, but lame Republican arguments on Sunday morning talk shows are a tradition in this town. This week, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) deceived Fox News viewers about the Affordable Care Act's impact on the cost of health care; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich labeled Democrats' tax proposal "class warfare," when the data show tax breaks for the wealthy are bad for the economy (and worse for the debt); and Gingrich suggested that business owners aren't hiring because of tax uncertainty, but that doesn't explain the decade of economic stagnation that followed the "certainty" of the Bush tax cuts. Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) claimed Democrats are "just spending, spending, spending and taxing, taxing, taxing," despite the fact that Democrats passed 25 separate tax relief measures in 2009 alone. Hatch and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) each claimed that "700,000 small businesses" will be affected by higher tax rates on the wealthy, a number that counts athletes, authors, and Wall Street giants as "small." Finally, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) flagrantly misrepresented a recent Gallup poll showing Americans want Bush's tax giveaways to the rich to end.
December 02, 2010 3:20 pm ET filed under Fact Check
In Tax Debate, GOP Puts Words In Orszag's Mouth
As debate raged on the House floor over a Democratic proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) rushed to emphasize that even some Democrats think allowing tax rates to increase for the wealthy is economic disaster. In their efforts, both congressmen claimed that former Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag wrote in an op-ed that it's "no time to raise taxes on anybody." In fact, in his op-ed Orszag said that "ideally" only middle-class tax cuts would be extended. He did acknowledge that the current political climate could necessitate a compromise, but still emphasized that it was "key" to avoid making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent.
November 10, 2010 4:12 pm ET filed under Blog
Rep. McMorris Rodgers Dodges Questions About GOP Leadership Race
November 04, 2010 10:13 am ET filed under Blog
Top Republicans Throw Rep. Bachmann & The Tea Party Under The Bus
September 30, 2010 4:31 pm ET filed under Video
Rep. Hensarling: Chinese Currency Manipulation Is Good For America
March 12, 2010 12:02 pm ET filed under Blog
82% Of Americans Want Tougher Bank Regulations, GOP Says No
February 03, 2010 9:00 am ET filed under Blog
Rep. Hensarling Fundraising Off Confrontation With Obama
January 30, 2010 12:10 pm ET filed under Fact Check
In Q&A Session, Rep. Hensarling Falsely Asserts Democrats Are At Fault For The Deficit
During a January 29, 2010 question and answer session between House Republicans and President Obama, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) falsely claimed Democrats are to blame for the growing deficit.
