Recently, the Republican National Committee mailed out a survey to an unknown number of voters–including at least one non-Republican–spreading misinformation about the Democrats’ health care reform proposal.
The most egregious question: “It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?”
Of course, this hasn’t been suggested except in the minds of the GOP officials who drafted these questions.
Here’s another whopper: “The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the Democrats’ plan could cost upward of $1.6 trillion dollars [sic]. Do you believe that America can afford this added debt when the deficit has already reached record levels?”
The $1.6 trillion figure, and other, similar figures, come from a number of places, including news outlets like Roll Call and the Associated Press, and the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee. But not from the CBO. And whatever the cost of the bill, Democrats have vowed to pay for it through tax increases and efficiencies wrung from Medicare and Medicaid–meaning it won’t be “added debt” at all, and won’t impact the ‘record deficit’ which is largely the result of Republican policies.
No comment yet from the RNC. But at least one puzzling question, remains: People report receiving the survey in the last few days. But the final question on the survey asks, “Does it concern you that the Democrats will try to ram health care legislation through Congress before the August recess to limit the public’s opportunity to evaluate it?”
Wonder how many people will answer “yes” to that one.
