In the days and weeks before Election Day, it is common for the rhetoric to heat up on the campaign trail. But as both sides ramped up their attacks on one another with each passing day, some campaigns made the mistake of going too far, sometimes in an embarrassing way. Both sides have been known at times to engage in some exaggeration on policy issues, but on entitlements Democrats in particular are known for their outlandish and shocking lies.
One of the most embarrassing and laugh out loud moments of the campaign came days before the 2022 election. On November 1st, the White House posted a tweet that boasted, “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.” The problem with the tweet is that social security payments are tied to the federal cost of living adjustment, which is tied to inflation, which is at a 40-year high of nearly 9% thanks to President Biden and Washington Democrats’ reckless out of control spending.
The 8.7% bonus coming to seniors next year will actually cost seniors more in the long run and puts even further strain on the entitlement program that is facing insolvency within a generation. The gaffe prompted Twitter, now privately owned by Elon Musk, to attach a “context” note to the tweet, following a rush of users who pointed out the false flag operation. Ultimately, the public pressure was too much for President Biden and they eventually deleted the tweet because “the point was incomplete” the White House said to Fox News Digital. Despite being deleted the following day, the tweet will be archived in compliance with the federal Presidential Records Act that requires all federal acts to be archived by administration for historical accuracy.
One of the most tried and tested Democratic campaign lies of the last half century has centered around social security. In 2020, Democrats screamed from the mountain tops that President Trump’s plan would cut social security, despite the fact that Trump issued no such plan and made no statement to that effect.
This cycle, “Democrats running for Congress and outside groups supporting them spent $50.4 million on negative and contrast TV ads about Social Security or Medicare from Sept. 14, after primary elections ended, through Oct. 26, according to media tracking firm AdImpact,” Bloomberg Government reports.
Things have even gotten personal, like Wisconsin where former President Obama recently held a campaign rally for Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes. “…if Ron Johnson does not understand that – if he understands giving tax breaks for private planes more than he understands making sure that seniors who’ve worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect – he’s not the person who’s thinking about you and knows you and sees you, and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin!”, Obama said, in a thinly veiled swipe at Johnson’s son who has a pilot’s license and owns a small plane.
“Democrats will protect Social Security. We’ll protect Medicare. Republicans like Rick Scott and Ron Johnson want to put it on the chopping block,” Biden tweeted days before the election.
“All they do is they trot out the same old lies, you know, the Republicans want to end Social Security, we want to put it on the chopping block. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Johnson told Fox News. “We want to save social security. We want to bring down inflation. We want to reduce massive deficit spending that sparked inflation.”
Republican National Committee Chairwoman also shot back at Democrats. “I say that’s scare tactics,” McDaniel said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that “people on fixed incomes right now are dealing with a huge issue with inflation.”
Democrats continue to come up with creative ways to lie about social security while simultaneously employing one of their timeless classics, using fear as a driver. As the truth has prevailed in the past, and history can attest, Democrats will stop at nothing to win control. They’ll even use the livelihood of seniors, threaten American families, and lie about Republicans who are willing to step up and have the tough conversations that Democrats are afraid to engage in with the American people.
Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action