Obama Claiming That Romney, Perry and Gingrich Would End Foreign Aid to Israel

Yes, Barack Obama is running as a Defender of Jerusalem.

Politifact rates this claim -- that Romney, Gingrich and Perry have proposed "zeroing out" aid to Israel -- as Pants on Fire.

I don't like citing this guys but this claim is ludicrous. Even more ludicrous is Obama's attempt to claim he's standing up for Israel, but that's a different story.

Budget experts we contacted agreed that that the Obama camp erred in using the term "zeroing out" to describe what Perry was proposing. "Zeroing out" means that funding will be terminated. The actual term for what Perry suggests is "zero-based budgeting."

"Nothing the candidates said indicated that Israel would get a cut," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that analyzes federal spending. "Zero-based budgeting just means funding levels must be justified year-to-year, rather than starting from a baseline. Funding for a particular program, in this case aid to Israel, could well end up being more than the previous year, or it could be less. The campaign is taking advantage of the word ‘zero’ without putting it in the proper budget context."

The Obama claim ignores them then saying they'd expect Israel to be a recipient of substantial foreign aid.

You know, politics would be a lot more interesting and intellectually satisfying if we could just get rid of the stupid lies and focus on the intelligent lies.

via @gabrielmalor

posted by Ace at 11:45 AM

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