OAN Roy Francis
UPDATED 12:11 PM PT – Saturday, January 28, 2023
President Joe Biden is facing criticism over the many false claims he made during his recent speech in Virginia.
The president gave a speech regarding the economic progress of his administration at the Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield on Thursday.
After his speech, fact-checkers from CNN and the House Ways and Means Committee have called out the many false and exaggerated claims that were made in it.
One of the bigger claims that the President made was that his administration had “funded 700,000 major construction project, 700,000 all across America,” the White House had later admitted that this was false. The correct number of major construction projects that were funded was 7,000, CNN reporter Daniel Dale pointed out.
Another claim that Biden had made that turned out to be false was that only 3.5 million people had received their first COVID vaccine shot when former President Donald Trump had left office, the correct number was close to 19 million.
Biden had gone on to say that billionaires “pay virtually only 3% of their income now.” This was again admitted to be false by the White House. The 2021 statistic that the President was citing had found that “the wealthiest 400 billionaire families paid an average of 8.2% of their income in federal individual income tax.”
A questionable claim that the president made was that his administration had “cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion, the largest reduction in debt in American History.”
What Biden had failed to mention was that the reason the deficit had been cut was because of the rise in bipartisan emergency relief spending during the 2020 pandemic, and now it is returning to normal, contrary to what he claimed.
Independent analysts pointed out that Biden’s policies are actually adding to the current and future deficits and not decreasing them.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released a statement fact checking the president and said that he “did not let the facts get in the way of his speech in Springfield.”
“While Biden claimed the economy is growing strong, the latest report on economic growth reveals that the economy under his Administration’s policies has fallen short of expectations on seven out of the last eight economic growth reports,” the committee said. “In fact, the entirety of 2022 was worse for economic growth than expected. And even more trouble lies ahead, according to the latest Leading Economic Index report.”
They also pointed out the recent fearmongering from the President towards the elderly about their retirement security, and the Medicare program.
“President Biden has been making inaccurate accusations about Republicans and fearmongering to scare seniors when Republicans have been clear we are not going to touch their retirement security. Biden has also been making Medicare and Social Security worse off — not protecting them. Medicare premiums have risen for seniors since 2020, while Biden’s ongoing inflation crisis has pushed Social Security further towards insolvency.”