Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker of the House, has a new book out and is making the rounds of political shows, doing his best to appear as the slightly less insane version of Glenn Beck. Each delivers the same message; America is on the brink of being screwed permanently because Democrats (aka Socialists) and, more specifically, a black guy with Hussein as his middle name have the reigns of power.
When he appeared on Fox News Sunday this week, even host Chris Wallace challenged Gingrich's hyperbole. He repeated his shtick, also verbatim, on Sean Hannity's show last night and, unlike Chris Wallace, Hannity lapped it up like a hungry puppy.
Wow, if there was ever a need for a fact checker...
Unpacking Gingrich. First, what Gingrich and Hannity refer to as the country wallowing in high taxes and unprecedented debt. Here's a graph of marginal tax rates from over the last 100 years.
And a graph of debt vs. GDP from 1940 to present and projected to 2020.
What's clearly apparent from both charts is both taxes AND debt to GDP have been considerably higher in the past and the country didn't face the collapse of the republic scenario Gingrich and Hannity are so desperately struggling to sell. (Note: it would be interesting to see the above chart if the Bush era tax cuts and the war in Iraq were not contributing to the debt).
"If the secular socialist machine wins, we're going to be in a country that no longer resembles America" Newt Gingrich
It's almost laughable. Secular? Socialist? Just a week after the news that the nominal tax rates are the lowest in 60 years and a couple months after the Democrat's health care reform that provided private insurers some 15 million new customers and two weeks after Barack Obama presided over a National Prayer Day, Gingrich is still trying to convince Americans that black is white and down is up.
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