Some Democrats have taken to exaggerating the cost of the federal government shutdown, suggesting that it cost the economy nearly 1 million jobs, and claiming that it cost taxpayers $30 billion. Neither statement is accurate.
Sen. Dick Durbin incorrectly claimed that the U.S. borrows money "primarily from China" to fund the federal government. China owns about 8 percent of the total U.S. debt.
The Illinois Democrat made the claim during a June 19 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Durbin, June 19: Keep in mind, for every dollar we spend in Washington, we borrow 40 cents, primarily from China, our major competitor in the world.
Durbin is largely correct that the U.S.
Democrats and Republicans alike are making grandiose — and unsupportable — claims that the budget deal contains the biggest spending cut in U.S. history.
Under the bipartisan agreement, the proposed budget for this fiscal year would be $38.5 billion less than last year’s budget. The federal government spent nearly $3.5 trillion in 2010, so the cut is a little more than 1 percent of total spending.
President Barack Obama called it "the biggest annual spending cut in history."
Some senior Democrats are claiming that Social Security does not contribute “one penny” to the federal deficit. That’s not true. The fact is, the federal government had to borrow $37 billion last year to finance Social Security, and will need to borrow more this year.
Senate Democratic leaders, under pressure from Republicans to cut the budget, have been misleading the public by claiming they already have "cut" spending by $41 billion.
The fact is that the Democrats haven’t "cut" any spending. Congress hasn’t passed a budget for fiscal year 2011, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says federal spending continues to rise.
First a little background: House Republicans passed legislation in the early morning of Feb. 19 that would fund the federal government for fiscal year 2011.
On this week’s Sunday talk shows, we found false claims on the debt, discretionary spending, foreign-funded attack ads and polling data.
Wrong on Debt
On ABC’s "This Week," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made a false claim about the federal debt — a claim that we debunked in January, when Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, made a similar statement. The debt situation has worsened since then, but not enough to make this GOP talking point true.