Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The Internet is a fun place to look for fun facts.
Anymore, it seems that's the best way to get fun facts about what our elected officials and wannabe elected officials say.
After the first debate between President Bill Clinton and challenger ex-Senator Bob Dole, Investor's Business Daily ran an alleged truth-detecting editorial.
I was so fascinated by the depth and breadth of President Clinton's exaggerations I decided to do a little truth detection on the alleged truth detector.
It's kind of sad that you would feel the need to do that, isn't it?
The best advice I can give anyone these days is not to believe anything related to politics that is reported to you by a national media outlet.
Anyway, IBD probably leans a little to the conservative side, so I wondered how far they stretched the truth to make the president look bad.
The first thing IBD noted was that Clinton took credit for the "biggest drop in poverty in 27 years." That is based on the fact that the number of people on the poverty rolls dropped by 1.6 million.
But IBD said that really isn't very impressive when you consider the number of poor as a share of the entire population.
In 1989, IBD notes, the poverty rate was running at about 12.8 percent of the population. The current rate of 13.8 percent is a full point higher than that.
A quick browse of the Census Bureau's website confirms those numbers.
Clinton also claimed to have "moved nearly two million people from welfare to work." IBD claims this is really a stretch.
And, according to the Health and Human Services website, IBD is right.
The number of people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children in 1992 was around 4.7 million. In fiscal 1993, the number grew to 4,981,301. In fiscal 1994 it was 4,981,250.
AFDC is what is commonly referred to by most people as "welfare."
So the number of AFDC cases is actually higher than it was in 1992. How does the president justify his claim?
A HHS official told IBD Clinton takes the difference in the lowest monthly average and the highest monthly average over the last four years and then divides by three, which is the average numbers of persons per AFDC claim - a mom and two kids.
Not exactly a statistically accurate way to do things.
Clinton claims taking folks off food stamps. The Agriculture Department shows 25.4 million recipients in 1992 and 26.6 million in 1995.
After I checked out the USDA numbers at their website and found them to be accurate, I decided that the rest of the IBD article was probably pretty close to the truth.
Clinton says he's reduced regulations more than presidents Reagan and Bush. It is true that Clinton has done away with 16,000 pages of regulations. But what he doesn't lay claim to is the fact that he has added even more.
IBD checked the office of the Federal Register. The gross number of pages of regulations rose 7.3 percent from 1992 to 1995, topping out at 67,518. Pages of regulatory text rose from 31,077 in 1992 to 34,029 in 1995.
Clinton takes credit for the first real gain in household income since 1989. But household income still lags far behind its peak in the mid 1980s, IBD notes.
Of course the 1980s were a bad time so the president wouldn't want us to know that's when our household incomes were the highest in history.
Another thing Clinton fails to mention but IBD does is that only men got a pay raise. Working women actually lost ground since 1992. Their real median income is down 0.9 percent from 1992 and 1.5 percent from 1989.
Clinton stopped claiming that there are 100,000 new cops on the street. That's probably because there are only about 17,000 new cops "on the street." Some of those are in parks and marine life sanctuaries, says IBD.
There were other misrepresentations on crime, the economy, the size of government, just about any issue.
I'm picking on President Clinton here, but this type of behavior certainly isn't exclusive to him. It's becoming standard operating procedure in politics for both sides.
I guess that is to be expected.
Buy why are politicians allowed to lie with impunity? Why don't the national media - TV networks, Associated Press - take them to task? Isn't that what journalism is supposed to be about?
I think it's sad that it takes a computer, a modem and a phone line or a trip to the library to get to the truth.
It should be right there on your favorite evening news show or in your local daily newspaper - direct from Associated Press.
Until it is - and I'm not holding my breath - surfing for truth will be an enjoyable pastime.
