Josh Marshall: Republicans lie all the time about everything: Newt Gingrich Edition

[pampango]

When I was watching the debate last night I did a double-take when I heard Newt say that ‘reforming’ the federal Civil Service system could save “a minimum of $500 billion a year.”

That sounded pretty crazy to me since that’s like 15% of the entire federal government. And the vast majority of federal spending goes to the military and transfer payments like Social Security and Medicare.

Well, we looked into it and it turns out that the federal government’s entire payroll, even including the military, came to just $432.6 billion in fiscal 2011. In other words, if you fired everyone who works for the federal government you couldn’t save $500 billion.

Our requests for comment from the Newt campaign have yet to be returned.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/02/wtf_newt.php?ref=fpblg

Somehow I doubt that Newt's campaign will be returning those phone calls. He believes that what counts is the audacity of the claim, not whether it is based in fact or not.

[Enrique]

1. PolitiFact rated it "mostly true"

just kidding.

[saras]

2. One mistake

"He believes that what counts is the audacity of the claim, not whether it is based in fact or not."

It's not what he believes, it's what thirty years of intensive psychological and sociological research measure as WORKING MORE EFFECTIVELY. Consumerism exists, it dominates American culture, and that is because of this research, not because of its intrinsic superiority.