When Clinton figures, figures lie.

• Phantom Orphans

• The First Duffer

• 10 Million New Jobs?

• Who Deserves the Credit?

• 100,000 New Cops?

• 700 Hospitals Closed by Evil Republicans?

• Democratic Elections vs. Clinton's Image: Image Wins

• Bonus Section!

• The Very Scarey Story that Had a Happy Ending

From The Forward, Dec. 25:

President Clinton stood before the Palestinian National Council and spoke of "two profoundly emotional experiences in less than 24 hours."

One of those experiences was his meeting with the children of jailed Palestinian-Arab terrorists.

The other experience was meeting Israelis, "some little children whose fathers had been killed in conflict with Palestinians."

But... There was no such event on the public schedule of the trip.

The minister for public affairs at the Israeli Embassy said he could not confirm that any such meeting took between Mr. Clinton and Israeli children took place. Other Israeli government sources, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Clinton never met with the Israeli children.

The White House and State Department did not return calls about it.

The Wall Street Journal page A22, January 6, 1999.

"He couldn't break 80 at a miniature golf course with the windmill and the big whale with its mouth open...."

-- Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, commenting on Bill Clinton's claim that he finally reached his goal of shooting a sub-80 round of golf.

It is unfortunate that the President is compelled to discuss his golf scores the way he campaigns. Bill Clinton extends his dishonesty even to the mundane. If he had any character at all, he would restrict his lies to matters of national security and fishing.

Someone said this was another example of the liberal thinking pattern which accepts "form over substance." As it happens, I "sliced" the final phrase from the quote. The quote, with the divot replaced, reads:

"He couldn't break 80 at a miniature golf course with the windmill and the big whale with its mouth open... with his swing."

Apparently, Mr. Clinton has neither substance nor form!

Ten Million New Jobs

Back to The Top

Bill Clinton keeps taking credit for "creating ten million new jobs." Before blowing away the numerical part of this lie, I'd like to ask a few questions:

• Which created those job openings: business or government? Remember, Bill Clinton takes credit for cutting government jobs by 300,000.

• When Bill Clinton and the Demotones raised taxes on investment, did that encourage job creation, or discourage it?

• When bleeding-heart liberals mandate inflationary policies (e.g.:
  • "Cleaner-burning" gasoline in California which now costs 10% more while getting 5% lower mileage, dirtying engines, and destroying fuel lines (which causes engine fires);
  • Raising the expense limits on smog-related repairs;
  • Mandating employment benefits such as six weeks' family leave;
  • Raising the minimum wage;
  • Raising the threshhold on the poverty level in order to buy more votes; )

  does that encourage job creation, or discourage it?

• When Bill Clinton and the Demotones raised taxes on investment, did that encourage job creation, or discourage it?

• When liberal policy-makers like Bill Clinton and Algore spin out more red tape, does that encourage job creation, or discourage it?

• Which party has fought to get government out of the way of business' ability to create jobs, Democratic or Republican?

So... ten million new jobs, huh?
	If he doesn't subtract the number of people laid off, isn't that just a little bit misleading?
Ever heard of "downsizing"? The latest trend is to eliminate positions and open up temp positions in their place. I know; it's happened to people I work with. I had a cubicle mate named Denny. He was laid off by another company and came to my company as a temp. Denny's take-home pay was a bit higher. Factored into the statistics about wages, that makes it look like people are earning more, or at least not earning so much less. But if you consider the value of the benefits he lost at his old job -- benefits that temps don't get -- he made about half what he used to make.
	Another effect of downsizing: At my company, management eliminated many jobs and then created "new", lower-paying jobs that -- coincidentally(?) -- just happened to have the same job descriptions as the jobs that had just been eliminated. Then the old employees were allowed to take the "new" jobs. Isn't it great how Mr. Clinton creates "new" jobs? By the way, we're losing 20% of our paid holidays and we recently lost 1/3 of our sick/personal time. I also have to throw this in: Our company took away our old medical plan and replaced it with a managed-care plan much like Hillary's health care plan. Our insurance deductibles and co-payments balooned while our choices of physicians have been severely restricted. My family now has to drive 50 to 120 miles to get to an "in-network" physician; and to see a specialist, we have to make an extra trip, extra co-payment, extra wait, to get a referral from a "gatekeeper".;
Wages have just kept up with inflation. However, inflation causes "bracket creep", which means you pay higher taxes on the same inflation-adjusted income, even though your after-tax compensation has fallen and your cost of living has risen!
	At the same time, gasoline taxes rise, payroll taxes increase (and higher payroll taxes means smaller raises), and hundreds of hidden taxes and fees have been raised by the Clinton administration. We, of course, pay for much through more expensive and lower quality goods and services. The lifetime tax burden on a child born at the end of the Bush administration was 38% (up from 36% at its beginning); but a child born today will pay 86% of his/her lifetime income in taxes. Mr. Dole, you're asking the wrong question. It's not, Are you better off today than you were four years ago? It is, Are your children better off?
Bill Clinton's policies have actually widened the other Gender Truth Gap. Truth Gap, I say, because there is such a chasm between how women have actually faired under Bill Clinton's policies... and personal behavior... and how they support him. Women's wages have actually fallen 2.2% during the Clinton administration. Likewise, other groups with stereotypes of supporting Bill Clinton have faired even worse! For example, hispanics' wages have fallen 5.5% during the Clinton administration.
So... Who Deserves the Credit? Back to The Top
The Washington Times (September 20, 1996, page A-20) The Dole Plan is Already Working According to a new study by Cato Institute researchers Stephen Moore and Dean Stansel, the top-ten tax-cutting states ... outperformed the top-ten tax-hiking states ... across the board: Their economies outgrew those of their tax-raising counterparts, 33 percent to 27 percent. Incomes for a family of four in tax-cutting states rose $1,600 more than those in tax-raising states. Tax-cutting states not only balanced their budgets, they also had higher budgetary reserves (7.1 percent of state expenditures) than the tax-raisers (1.7 percent). Moody's bond ratings were higher in the former than the latter. The top 10 tax-raisers created a net zero new jobs from 1990 to 1995. The tax-cutters gained 1.84 million new jobs.... [GASP!!! That's about the same as the number of jobs Clinton claims to have created, when you adjust for the number of layoffs! -rw]	Examples: Michigan Gov. John Engler inherited a 1.5 billion deficit in 1991, slashed state payrolls and taxes.... In the two years preceding the tax cuts, the state had no net new jobs. Since then, Michigan has 450,000 net new jobs. Arizona Gov. Fife Symington has cut the top income tax rate by almost a third, and now the state finds its job creation, population, and new business creation rolling at three times the national average. New York, Gov. George Pataki reversed the course of his predecessor Mario Cuomo (some would say, the curse of his predecessor) with, among other things, a 20 percent income-tax cut. After losing half a million jobs between 1990 and 1995, New York has picked up 90,000 new jobs in the past 12 months....

100,000 New Cops on the Streets Back to The Top
Mr. Clinton keeps taking credit for putting 100,000 new cops on the streets. First off, they're not "cops"; they're police officers. Bill Clinton ought to have a lot more respect for those men he keeps using for photo ops. Second, "100,000" must be the exaggeration of the decade!
(To the tune of 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall) 100,000 new cops on the streets, 100,000 new cops! You mark one down and count him as ten; 100,000 new cops on the street!	100,000 new cops on the streets, protecting us from violent criminals and bringing down the rate of violent crime -- right?	But according to Attorney General Reno at the Department of Justice, only 17,000 new police officers have been hired!	4,000 are out guarding coral critters and sea turtle eggs... Doesn't that make you feel so much safer?	Then there are the 4,000 who were going to be hired anyway. The local forces merely shifted part of the expense of hiring to the federal program. Wouldn't you?
Officer Bill has been taking credit for his 100,000 supercops bringing the violent crime rate down. But at the first Dole-Clinton debate, Mr. Clinton finally implied an admission that the figure he's spouted so many times is not accurate. What he said was that we need to hire the rest of the 100,000 cops.	Algore got a lot closer in his debate with Jack Kemp. He admitted to a mere 20,000 having been hired, with 45,000 having been funded by the 103rd Congress. Of course, he worded it so it sounded like a wonderful accomplishment!	The federal government's contribution only pays for 1/2 to 1/3 of the expense of a police officer's salary, benefits, equipment, supervision, and other overhead expenses. I was too lazy to show that in the graph.	Nor did I choose to represent the program as 80% fat -- remember, for every $5 taken by Washington for any given program, only $1 makes it back to the recipient (in this case, the police agencies) -- although I did show this particular guy as a famous fat-head.	For what it really costs us, we could have two to three times as many new police officers, if the federal government didn't take so much of our income that we can't afford to hire them locally!
Update: Numbers Don't add up for C.O.P.S. Tuesday, April 13, 1999 Auditors are uncovering some fishy goings-on in Premier Clintong's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. That's the 1994 initiative that was supposed to add 100,000 more police to streets in five years. While the Clintong administration claims it has been a factor in reducing crime, the crime statistics have been falling since 1991. Moreover, there are costly problems with the $8.8 billion program in more than 100 communities. For example, Nassau County, N.Y., got $26 million to add 383 police to its beat -- but the number of county-funded police officers actually declined by 218 from May 1995 to May 1998. Richmond, Calif., took $944,000 in grants to add nine officers -- but used the money to fund vacant positions instead. Auditors looking into $440,000 in grants to Alexandria, Va., found no documentation that equipment purchased with the money put more officers on the street as pledged. Spokane, Wash., added only a couple dozen officers -- although it was credited with adding more than 90. A few weeks ago, Vice President Algore claimed COPS had already added 92,000 police, but experts report that many of the positions are fictitious. Remember, for one thing, that they are adding the number of officers employed each year. Law enforcement specialists point out that crime has fallen in many communities which did not get grants -- calling into question just how effectively the money is being used. Nevertheless, the Clinton administration is pushing a new $6.4 billion plan to add up to 50,000 more police on the beat. Source: Editorial, "100,000-Cops Program Proves to Be Mostly Hype," USA Today, April 13, 1999. Cited in "NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP IN "COPS" PROGRAM" National Center For Policy Analysis DAILY POLICY DIGEST, Tuesday, April 13, 1999. For more on Police Resources: http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/crime42.html Update #2: What C.O.P.S. Auditors Found Friday, April 16, 1999 Federal auditors have identified questionable use of funds in President Clinton's $8 billion Community Oriented Policing Services program. The project was supposed to allocate funds to municipalities to hire an additional 100,000 police. But a number of cities have been using the money to pay for existing police. A review of the status of 1.3 percent of the 11,300 departments receiving funds showed that: Some 41 percent of the 149 agencies may have been using the money to fund existing positions -- rather than hire new police. Nearly 60 percent of the departments had not developed "a good-faith plan" to keep the new officers hired under the program after the grants expired -- a requirement of the legislation. In 78 percent of the cases studied, auditors could not find proof that officers were being deployed to community policing duties or that agencies had a system in place to track how officers were being used. The report said that the Justice Department's COPS office must redefine what practices constitute community policing -- as well as those that do not. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), chairman of the House subcommittee on crime, said he had been "skeptical of this program from the very beginning," and announced that he would hold hearings on it in the next month. Source: Kevin Johnson, "Auditors Track Millions Meant to Put New Officers on the Streets," USA Today, April 16, 1999. Quoted in National Center For Policy Analysis DAILY POLICY DIGEST, April 16, 1999.

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