LYING IS A GOP FEATURE, NOT A BUG

(h/t Brad DeLong)

Meg Whitman channels her inner Sean Hannity.

CAPITOL JOURNAL
Meg Whitman's radio whoppers

The Republican candidate for California governor peddles two falsehoods about state spending and taxing in the very first radio ads for the 2010 race.

By George Skelton Capitol Journal
Los Angeles Times
October 29, 2009

"Did you know," Whitman asks radio listeners, "that in the last 10 years, state spending has gone up 80%?"...It doesn't take much digging to learn that general fund spending "in the last 10 years" has risen just 27%, according to finance department data. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, spending actually has decreased by 16.6%.

"These days," the candidate intones, "Sacramento does the same old thing over and over. Their only solution is to raise taxes and spend more money." ... In fact, over the current and last fiscal years, projected spending -- the amount that would have been paid out without changes in laws -- has been whacked by $31 billion. So their "only solution" is not to tax and spend.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature did raise taxes by $12.5 billion last February.

But contrary to Whitman's ad -- and a widely held myth -- it was the first major state tax increase since the candidate's campaign chairman, Pete Wilson, raised taxes as governor in 1991. The Wilson tax hike was temporary, as is the current one.