In the New York Post, on the Debt-Ceiling Abuse of Language

Matt Welch | July 31, 2011

Writing in the Sunday New York Post, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch criticize the serial abuses of language in the debt-ceiling debate. Sample:

A funny thing happened on the way to a resolution over raising the nation's credit limit: The most basic definitions of easy-to-understand words such as "spending," "increase" and "budget cuts" went out the window faster than Anthony Weiner's political career. [...]

The high stakes, and inevitable political melodrama that comes with it, have produced a double-rainbow of demonstrably false statements about the basic matter at hand. New York Times economics blogger (and former Reagan administration official) Bruce Bartlett, for example, wrote about "President Obama’s endorsement of large budget cuts," much like Speaker of the House John Boehner saying that under his debt-limit plan, "Spending cuts exceed the debt limit hike."

Would that either of these phrases was even vaguely true.

Read the whole thing here.