President Joe Biden has moved into the lead to win the "Lie of the Year" award with his claim that the U.S. economy is experiencing zero inflation, Joe Concha wrote in an opinion piece in The Hill.
The media and politics columnist berated Biden and his administration for turning "the most basic economic norms on their head for cheap political gain by arguing that since the inflation rate fell by six-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent in July compared to the same month of last year, that somehow means zero percent."
Concha added that what makes the president's lie worse is that he has not been fact-checked for his claim, pointing as proof to the lack of any fact-checking by Politifact, Snopes or FactCheck.org.
He emphasized his point by writing, "[I]magine what would have happened if the previous president attempted to spin numbers with alternative facts in this fashion. The U.S. media would have screamed about the need for transparency and truth, and the fact checks and scathing editorials would commence. Yet that didn't happen here with his successor."
Concha also called out The New York Times, writing, "Surely at least one columnist has put pen to paper to hold the Biden administration accountable on the issue that ranks as Americans' top concern."
Instead, Concha wrote, The Times published a column on the latest inflation numbers that included effusive praise for the Biden administration.
Concha was referencing Paul Krugman's column, "Finally, Some Good News on Inflation," in which Krugman wrote, "When President Biden declared, accurately, that we had zero inflation in July, many on the right accused him of lying, because prices in July 2022 were 8.5 percent higher than they were in July 2021. Do they really not understand the difference?"
Concha used a football analogy to counter this point: "Let's say Team X is beating Team Y 42-0 in the third quarter of a game. But in the fourth quarter, neither team scores, and the game ends 42-0. Team Y's coach runs to the podium of a post-game press conference and declares his losing team tied Team X 0-0. Team Y's coach ignores the first three horrible quarters in making his argument and focuses on just one quarter in declaring the tie."
Concha bemoaned that, "aided by a sycophantic media, the Biden administration continues to change basic definitions of the English language" and predicted that "many more lies will be uttered over the next five months, especially as the midterm elections draw close."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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