Idiocy Alert: Bill Maher Falsely Claims Bush Tax Cuts Gave Rich $2.8 Trillion

June 4th, 2011 1:06 PM

NewsBusters readers are well aware that we like to point out when arrogant, pompous, holier-than-thou liberals make completely false statements on the air and in print.

Bill Maher marvelously did so on HBO's "Real Time" Friday claiming that the Bush tax cuts have so far given a total of $2.8 trillion to the richest one percent of Americans (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BILL MAHER: What it really comes down to is that we spend so much of the money on the richest people in this country. Between the Bush tax cuts when he was in office and now the extension it’s something like $2.8 trillion to the richest one percent who don’t feel that at all. Can you honestly tell me if we had taken that amount of money and put people to work building bridges and roads and schools in this country…

LARRY KING: A W.P.A.

MAHER: … wouldn't this country be better off right now?

As NewsBusters reported last August, the liberal think tank the Brookings Institution calculated that extending all of the Bush tax cuts for an additional ten years would cost the Treasury a total of $3.675 trillion.

Of that, Brookings identified that $679 billion - or less than $70 billion a year - would go to married couples making over $250,000 and individuals earning in excess of $200,000.

It therefore is logical to conclude the cost of these taxes the previous ten years since enacted in July 2001 has been somewhat similar, and that Maher was off by over $2 trillion or 75 percent.

And this idiot is not only allowed to go on HBO once a week spreading such falsehoods totally unchecked, but he also gets invited on other television programs to do the same.

Meanwhile, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman wonders why America's voters are so ill-informed.

Frankly, it's because ignoramuses like Maher are bestowed an overabundance of credibility by being given television programs, and their fans eat up every non sequitur like it's the finest caviar.

Just imagine the people sitting in that audience actually applauded a total falsehood.

If they were at all informed, they would have booed him off stage as they would have the MSNBC contributor who earlier in the show suggested Barack Obama's budget deficits have been smaller than Ronald Reagan's were.

Makes you weep for the future, doesn't it?