The political lies that really matter

From George Santos to Joe Biden, résumé padding is unacceptable. But it's all the lies about legislation we can't afford.

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Newly elected New York congressman George Santos has "apologized" after getting caught lying about where he went to high school and whether he graduated from college. And where he worked after not graduating from college. And whether he is Brazilian. And Jewish. And whether his grandparents actually fled the Holocaust. And whether his mother died on 9/11. 

Santos—who says he won't resign—is an extreme case, but résumé padding is nothing new in Washington. Who can forget Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's fraudulent—and ultimately apologized-for—claims of Native-American heritage? She apparently even plagiarized the "Cherokee recipes" she contributed to a 1984 cookbook called Pow Wow Chow.

There are folks like Sen. Dick Blumenthal (D.–Conn.), who lied about serving in Vietnam during a tight race but then claimed he didn't really do anything wrong because he only misspoke on multiple occasions and not all the time.

And of course, there's President Joe Biden, who dropped out of his 1988 presidential bid after he was caught lying about his own distinguished academic record. Incredibly, he even plagiarized the life story of a British politician whose family were coal miners. (Biden's were not.)

When politicians invent accomplishments and lie about their pasts, it reflects poorly on their character and shows an incredibly disturbing willingness to cheat in the pursuit of power. But the most harmful falsehoods that politicians tell aren't about the scholarships they didn't win, wars they didn't fight, or discrimination they didn't overcome. 

They're about the laws they pass. Consider last summer's stupendously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which the president announced would shrink the budget deficit and reduce rising prices. Even outlets sympathetic to Biden weren't buying that.

What the bill actually does is create a vast number of complicated tax breaks and incentives aimed at "greening" the economy. It raises taxes enough to reduce the deficit by around $300 billion, which is just 2 percent of planned borrowing over the next 10 years. It does nothing to reduce our $30 trillion in debt.

Who is loaning the U.S. government those funds? The Federal Reserve mostly, which pays for all those treasury bonds by printing money out of thin air, the principal cause of inflation. Far from reducing deficits, Biden is making the government's long-term balance sheet worse: When he took office, the 10-year deficit was expected to be $12.21 trillion. By the end of his first year, it had climbed to a projected $14.5 trillion. 

He has also misrepresented his record on job creation, tweeting in September, "Right now, I have the strongest record of growing manufacturing jobs in modern history." As The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler pointed out, Richard Nixon beats Biden handily on that count, with 1.3 million new manufacturing jobs back in the early 1970s compared to Biden's 630,000.

Biden also promised that he would end his predecessor's use of Title 42 rules to keep migrants from Latin America from entering the country while seeking asylum here. His flip-flop on that that has alienated even his supporters. 

Of course, Joe Biden hardly invented political lying, especially among presidents. His recent predecessors in the Oval Office lied about everything everywhere all at once (Donald Trump), health care policy (Barack Obama), pretexts for war and torture, (George W. Bush), and sex (Bill Clinton).

From newly minted congressmen like George Santos to the president, we've come to expect—and maybe even accept—that our politicians are going to lie about their resumes and their personal lives. That's totally unacceptable.

But it's the lies about their policies that we end up really paying for—and that we really can't afford.

Produced by Nick Gillespie and Justin Zuckerman; Sound editing by Ian Keyser; Additional graphics by Danielle Thompson and Isaac Reese

Credits: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; KEN CEDENO/UPI/Newscom; Rod Lamkey - CNP/Newscom; PAT BENIC/UPI/Newscom; Cliff Owen - CNP/picture alliance / Consolidated News Photos/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/Newscom; Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA/Newscom; Alex Edelman - Pool via CNP / MEGA / Newscom/RSSIL/Newscom; Chris Kleponis - CNP/Newscom

[politicalfoolishness]

I never knew someone to take an extra 40 credits over what they need for a degree. The bounds of his lying and the lying of other politicians know no limits.

[TryCryingIntoThis]

Thanks Reason and to you Nick. Well done. Let me know when the Reason staff are ready to run and head up this great country. I will support you all the way.

[johnmicheal]

The lying is only 2nd. Not enforcing and prosecute biggest liars is much worse.

[playingcasually]

This is just a product of how the system is set up. For most people it's preferable to support a complete piece of work from "their" side than to let the "other" side win the position.

[nmuskier]

Not all politicians are inherently dishonest. 99.9% of them give the rest a bad name.

[jimruby]

The greatest political lies all start with "If I'm elected..."

[JCSAXON]

I don’t ever recall him speaking honestly except when he bragged about ousting the Ukrainian prosecutor that got in his crime family’s way

[fearthehoneybadger]

Didn't anyone check Santos out before he was elected?

[jacobzaranyika]

At least nobody is being made to suffer in his case.

[acctsys]

Well, if they lie about credentials to get a post, of course they'd lie about getting anything done.

[Broadlighter]

Political power makes people do strange things.

[jillpatton]

You lie, fib, embellish, exaggerate..then yeah you can't be trusted as a law maker.

[sdozer]

We're gonna need a bigger fire department.

[DyablommeHaywood]

These are dark times but, I think we are getting a little something back for our pain. More of us see can see that politician are not out friends and D.C. is as Gavin McInnes says, "Hollywood for ugly people"

[microsoftpain]

These liars all have one thing in common. They will do anything for power.

[seanvogt]

I like this guy. Nobody is immune to criticism.

[scottfranco]

The moral is: if you are going to make stuff up, go BIG. By the time you are found out, you will be to entrenched to get rid of.

[junerenfer]

We must hold them, all of them responsible, VOTE them out of offfice.

[Arianne]

People Deserve The Rulers They Get; _certainly so when they elect them every four years._

[gerritpeacock]

Hell. This makes him an honest politician in a roundabout kind of way.