Most politicians exaggerate. And some even tell outright lies. Throughout the course of his long political career, President Joe Biden has been extremely prone to both.
But in remarks delivered during the White House signing ceremony for the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 earlier this month, he told such a whopper that he earned “four pinocchios” in a fact check published on Thursday.
Biden boasted that the new legislation would create one million new construction jobs over the next six years. He said, “There’s an analysis that says investment in the Chips and Science Act will create 1 million — more than 1 million construction jobs alone over the next six years building semiconductor factories in America.”
Two days later, he repeated the claim in a Twitter post.
Investments in the CHIPS and Science Law will create more than 1 million construction jobs alone over the next 6 years building semiconductor factories in America.
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 11, 2022
The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glen Kessler, looked into the astonishing assertion and determined the true figure would be closer to 6,200.
“We’ve learned from experience that when a president utters a big job-creation number, it’s ripe for fact-checking,” Kessler wrote. “So we were curious to learn how the president’s job prediction for the Chips and Science Act — which will provide nearly $53 billion for U.S. semiconductor research, development, manufacturing and workforce development — was developed.”
He reported that the President “mentioned an ‘analysis’ as the source for the claim that 1 million construction jobs would be created. … But we were puzzled when we did not see the figure in the White House’s “fact sheet” on the bill.”
“It turns out this number is wildly exaggerated,” Kessler wrote.
He noted that the “first tip-off” the claim was false was the sheer size of the number.
“The second tip-off is that Biden was specific — 1 million construction jobs in six years. Before the pandemic tanked jobs, the U.S. economy took four years to add 1 million construction jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data — from all industries, not just the semiconductor business,” he explained.
When Kessler’s team asked the White House about the source of Biden’s claim, they cited a 2021 report issued by the Semiconductor Industry Association.
According to the fact check, “That report touted the contribution of the semiconductor industry and examined the potential impact of a $50 billion federal investment program, similar to the Chips Act.”
Which gave the fact checkers their third tip-off. The report had been “issued by an industry advocate,” Kessler noted, a group that is interested in putting “the best gloss on the industry’s economic contributions.”
SIA spokeswoman Sarah Ravi told the Post, “The statement about 1 million construction jobs is not accurate.”
“[T]he president stumbled badly here,” Kessler concluded. “In public remarks, and then in a tweet, he claimed 1 million construction jobs would be created because of the Chips Act. The real number was just 6,200, according to the industry-commissioned report cited as the source.
“If you wanted to be generous, you could say the report said 56,000 jobs would be supported by construction. If you wanted to be very generous, you could say 1 million jobs would be supported in the ‘construction phase’ of the law. But that would be overly generous, given that the White House amplified Biden’s statement in a tweet; it was not a simple misspeak.
“[T]here is no reason to get the number so wrong — twice. While the White House concedes a ‘mix-up,’ the tweet has not been deleted; neither has the official transcript been corrected. The president earns Four Pinocchios.”
Administrations work hard to present their accomplishments in the best possible light to voters. That’s politics. In fact, it’s human nature. However, there is a point at which an exaggeration can only be called an outright lie.
Following the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report last week that the inflation rate had decreased to 8.5 percent from the previous month’s 9.1 percent, Biden said, “I just want to say a number: zero. Today, we received news that our economy had zero inflation in the month of July.”
On Tuesday, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Contrary to its disingenuous name, this legislation will do nothing to lower inflation, but will fund climate change programs and add 87,000 new auditors to the ranks of the IRS.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tells us regularly that our border is secure despite the fact that over two million illegals will have crossed our open border by the end of this fiscal year.
Biden and his minions lie to Americans with such regularity that it’s become impossible to believe them. Claiming a bill will create one million new jobs when it is expected to bring less than one percent of that number is a lie. A pretty breathtaking one.
Kudos to Kessler for calling him out.
A previous version of this article appeared on The Western Journal.
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If it will produce 53 Billion dollars for research, engineering, technology and manufacturing, my question is where the 53 billion monopoly bucks came from?
Forgetting about all the accumulated debt that we will never pay back, to whoever it is owed to, the 53 billion bucks represents tax payer bucks that will be added to that figure of unpaid debt, and that alone, causes inflation, which crushes job growth, to the point that the accumulated debt crushes all of any growth anyone claims, because it is debt.
Now, how can a Chip Bill deliver on a job, if it adds public tax payer guaranteed debt to the equation. There is a point where debt starts to cripple, and I think we are way past that level. Then, how can a taxpayer subsidized bill reduce inflation, when it crushes existing jobs?
Just remember that, when a politician makes a claim that something that politician tries to convince you of is beneficial, he is only picking your pocket, because there are enough sane economists that can prove to you that the politician is lying.
Joe Manchin just proved how stupid, economically, he is. Or was he just plain old corrupt and lying? Either way, no politician should have the power of our tax dollars if they can’t tell the truth.
Only thing about Biden that I care to address is the same thing I always say about Joe Biden. He is not the old insane guy everyone clings to. He is as corrupt as he has always been. Why would anyone expect him to tell the truth about one bill, when he lies about all bills.
As we speak, the Democrats are trying to put a spin on that Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden just signed, only to make people think it is all about the climate, calling it something relating to climate. Forget that the IRS got all those new gun toting kids in diapers, about to knock on our doors and seize all our money.
This stuff is always about intent, something few seem to want to talk about. I already knew Biden was a serial liar, from 50 years ago. WaPo is only doing the bidding of those who want to replace the liar with another liar. I’m not sure which could be worse.
I forgot to say that Glen Kessler was wrong in his statement about those 6,200 jobs. Even that is an impossible task. All this stuff falls to pieces after you consider how defining the way employment is calculated, inflation affects it, and all those who keep on falling off the unemployment rolls factor in.
When you start looking at it like this, not a single thing claimed by these liars in Congress, or the president, can come close to looking like truth. It just can’t.
Joey Robinette: “Maff are hrd….numbrs ar mor hrd”. 1 millin new jobs, when i before e, except after c, and sometymes y.