"It's just wrong" - says MIT economist about Bachmann

G.O.P. leaders in the house have perpetually been using a $3128 figure to try and scare people into not supporting the cap and trade system that is being proposed by Obama and the Democratic leadership. Most recently was our own crazy lady Michele Bachmann. She decided in yesterday's Oped that she would perpetuate the wrong numbers used by the GOP that crunch two irrelevant numbers.

Bachmann and her friends use a number ($3128 per household) that nowhere can be found in the M.I.T. report. This number in fact was debunked by the MIT economist John Reilly in an article by the St. Petersburg Times more than two weeks ago.

"It's just wrong," said John Reilly, an energy, environmental and agricultural economist at M.I.T. and one of the authors of the report. "It's wrong in so many ways it's hard to begin."

Not only is it wrong, but he told the House Republicans it was wrong when they asked him.

"Someone from the House Republicans had called me (March 20) and asked about this," Reilly said. "I had explained why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it, but I think this wrong number was already floating around by that time."

The report by MIT used a figure 100 times smaller than the Bachmann number. The average increase per household would come out to be $30.89. That is an absolute world of difference. 100 times larger than the MIT figure, really? How many flaming pants can we send to her before she gets the message?

So basically, here we see another stumble with Congresswoman Bachmann, with nearly 20 staff in her office and additional staff in her campaign, you think they could come up with a number that supports what the researcher at MIT used. In fact the article in the SPT is from the 24th of March, in my opinion plenty of time to get your facts straight. Making up and misrepresenting numbers is lying. There is noway around it. Bachmann is doing herself no favors by taking false information from talking points and perpetuating them in the media.

It is pretty evident that Bachmann will continue to advance her slanted agenda, News outlets need to be aware of her figures vs the ones that actually exist. I invite her to use figures that may support her political agenda, but don't use numbers that make a liar out of yourself. Bachmann needs to get her numbers straight,and the Strib needs to fact-check when they publish articles like this.

P.S. - sorry for the blog vac. -I've been swamped with other responsibilities