[J.P.’s Moment of Common Sense on Broad View, KRNG 101.3 FM Reno.  Listen live Saturdays at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.]

What a crappy week.  On Wednesday the Republican milquetoasts in Congress unconditionally and ignominiously surrendered on the budget battle, funding the federal government until January 15th and eliminating the debt ceiling until February 7th.  Oh goody, Barack Obama has a new Visa card with no credit limit.

So no more government shutdown.  Hallelujah, the bureaucrats’ paid-vacation nightmare is finally over, those poor souls.  We are so lucky to have these people, by golly.  How else would we know when we’re allowed to look at Mount Rushmore?

If Wednesday’s Republican humiliation is not depressing enough, that same day Cory Booker was elected to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey.  Just what we needed: another lowlife in the senate.  This is the man who was mayor of Newark without actually living in Newark.  Mr. Booker lied about his place of residence, even going so far as to brag about living in a low-income neighborhood and how he improved things there.

But his pretend neighbors hate his guts because they know he never lived there.  Best anyone can guess, he lives in New York somewhere.  (Probably with a man.)  So not only was the guy ineligible for the office of Newark mayor, he’s ineligible for his new position, too.

Cory Booker will feel right at home in Washington, D.C., where he can trade imaginary life stories with fellow senators like Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has an imaginary Cherokee family, and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who spent the last ten years pretending he fought in Vietnam.  He’ll probably get along swimmingly with President Obama and his imaginary birth certificate, too.

This seems to be the Age Of The Big Lie.  Politicians are getting away with lies that are so flagrantly unbelievable they defy explanation and, even when they get exposed, they win elections anyway.  The recently concluded budget battle/government shutdown featured a number of these Big Lies, four of them coming from the president himself.

Big Lie 1: Obama is a budget cutter who is lowering the deficit.

Not only is this outrageously false, it’s dangerous.  Look, these congresscritters in Washington are not overly bright.  Congress has some of the dumbest people on the planet (even after Joe Biden left to be Vice President).  You’ve got people who think astronauts planted an American flag on Mars, people who think islands will tip over if too many humans live there, and people who think Al Gore is some sort of scientist.  And if you tell them a tale about deficits coming down they will keep spending money on Piss Christ artwork, windmills that don’t work, and super trains that go nowhere.  Contrary to his claims, Obama is the biggest spending president ever, far and away the worst caretaker of public funds ever to occupy the White House.  I’ve written columns proving it and so have many others.

Obama can technically claim deficits are coming down because he, along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, blew so much money during his first year in office that every deficit since has necessarily been smaller.  But that’s misleading.  The important fact is that Obama’s five years in office comprise the five largest deficits in history.

Big Lie 2: If Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit the U.S. Treasury will default on its debt.

Every headline in every newspaper blared it, every newscaster on every television channel shouted it.  Even so-called financial experts like those toadies at Standard & Poor’s were repeating it.  Obama started this lie years ago during his first debt limit clash with Republicans.  The claim is so untrue it caused a headache epidemic last week... from everybody rolling their eyes.  Common sense should tell anyone with half a brain that when Treasury notes come due, you can sell new ones for the same amount without raising the total debt.  As long as there’s enough money coming in to make interest payments (which there is), default is unnecessary.  And since the Constitution makes it illegal for the president to default out of spite (like he barrycaded the World War II Memorial out of spite), it can’t happen.

Big Lie 3: If Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit, Social Security checks won’t go out.

The Social Security trust fund holds “special issue certificates” from the U.S. Treasury that are considered part of the national debt.  As such, they are subject to the debt limit.  When the trust fund needs cash to make monthly Social Security payments, it redeems some of those certificates, the U.S. Treasury sells an equal amount of new Treasury notes, and total national debt stays exactly the same.  As I’ve said before, harsh as it sounds, either President Barack Obama knows this and is lying or he doesn’t know this and the man is inexcusably ignorant.

Big Lie 4: Republicans were responsible for the government shutdown.

The U.S. Constitution says the House raises and spends the government’s money.  The Senate merely advises and consents.  Democrats don’t like it but that’s the way it is.  The House controls the purse.  House Republicans were willing to compromise and in fact voted numerous bills to keep the government running but the Democrat-controlled Senate refused to pass them on to the president, who was promising to veto them anyway.  In the end, all Republicans asked for was a one-year delay in the individual mandate for Obamacare—which, keep in mind, nobody can sign up for anyway because the stupid website doesn’t work.

Obama and the Democrats shut down the government—not Republicans—Social Security checks were never threatened, there was no danger of default, and Obama is the biggest spender in American history.  That’s the straight truth.  As Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.”

Here’s the big question that should be keeping you awake at night: why were so many people so busy telling us the opposite?

That’s... today’s dose of common sense.

“All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals.  Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender.  For it is all give and no take.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth.  And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.” —Lucius Annaeus Seneca

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA        Tweet

October 21, 2013 - Totally disgusted with our government and our liberal media that is so in love with this administration they have just stopped actually reporting the news. What the American people get is an editorial about the coolest perks of being president. I recently told both my senators from my state, that they get elected to office and they lose their minds! Especially our village idiot Jerry Connolly! I wish his village would call on him to return home. I heard a joke they other day that so expresses my sentiments towards the President and anything that has to do with him. Evidently he, being the president, thinks that he is comparable to those Presidents whose faces are sculpted on Mt. Rushmore. At this moment a huge piece of coal is being sent to Mount Rushmore to add his likeness. They couldn't find a piece of poop big enough nor did they think it would hold together. – Pam T., Virginia

October 20, 2013 - Hey, JP, take a deep breath. Don't want anything to happen to you. We NEED you! Right on about everything. Thanks. – Gdebruin, North Carolina