Clowns Like George Santos Aren’t Responsible for Washington’s Most Insidious Lies

Let's be clear: Politicians lie. It's not an exception; it's a rule.

Serial liar George Santos, a newly minted House member from Long Island, is not the first politician to spin fables about his resume. He won't be the last, either. But as Reason Magazine reminds us, the much bigger, more damaging lies, that come out of politicians' mouths — over policy — have very real consequences for us all:

Consider last summer's stupendously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which [President Joe Biden] 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.

The bottom line is the Santos' of the political world get found out, and voters deal with them accordingly (though there is a compelling case that Santos, whose lying has become a form of performance art, needs to be kicked to the curb for the good of the House, his party and the country before the next election).

The most consequential liars, whether it's Mr. Biden's deficit fibs, just about everything Donald Trump ever said and so on…the big lies about policy, the rule of law, the processes and primary of the Constitution…they affect us all.

The problem is, we keep falling for the lies. Whether it's through sheer partisanship, putting hope over experience, or simply not being well-informed, politicians lie because we reward them for it with power and security.

Which also means H.L. Mencken is right again:

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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