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Election 2004 It's not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds increasingly des perate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight lies or distortions you'll hea r, and the truth about each: Jobs Mr Bush will talk about the 17 million jobs created since the summer of 2003, and will say that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." T hat's like boasting about getting a D on your final exam, when you flunk ed the midterm and needed at least a C to pass the course. Mr Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a de cline in payroll employment. That's worse than it sounds because the eco nomy needs around 16 million new jobs each year just to keep up with po pulation growth. The past year's job gains, while better news than earli er job losses, barely met this requirement, and they did little to close the huge gap between the number of jobs the country needs and the numbe r actually available. Unemployment Mr Bush will boast about the decline in the unemployment rate from its J une 2003 peak. But the employed fraction of the population didn't rise a t all; unemployment declined only because some of those without jobs sto pped actively looking for work, and therefore dropped out of the unemplo yment statistics. The labor force participation rate - the fraction of t he population either working or actively looking for work - has fallen s harply under Mr Bush; if it had stayed at its January 2001 level, the o fficial unemployment rate would be 74 percent. The deficit Mr Bush will claim that the recession and 9/11 caused record budget defi cits. Congressional Budget Office estimates show that tax cuts caused ab out two-thirds of the 2004 deficit. The tax cuts Mr Bush will claim that Senator John Kerry opposed "middle class" tax cu ts. But budget office numbers show that most of Mr Bush's tax cuts went to the best-off 10 percent of families, and more than a third went to t he top 1 percent, whose average income is more than $1 million. The Kerry tax plan Mr Bush will claim, once again, that Mr Kerry plans to raise taxes on m any small businesses. Moreover, as Mr Kerry correctly pointed out last week, the administrat ion's definition of a small-business owner is so broad that in 2001 it i ncluded Mr Bush, who does indeed have a stake in a timber company - a b usiness he's so little involved with that he apparently forgot about it. Fiscal responsibility Mr Bush will claim that Mr Kerry proposes $2 trillion in new spending. That's a partisan number and is much higher than independent estimates. Meanwhile, as The Washington Post pointed out after the Republican conve ntion, the administration's own numbers show that the cost of the agenda Mr Bush laid out "is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion" and " far eclipses that of the Kerry plan." Spending On Friday, Mr Bush claimed that he had increased nondefense discretionar y spending by only 1 percent per year. The actual number is 8 percent, e ven after adjusting for inflation. Mr Bush seems to have confused his b udget promises - which he keeps on breaking - with reality. Health care Mr Bush will claim that Mr Kerry wants to take medical decisions away f rom individuals. The Kerry plan would expand Medicaid (which works like Medicare), ensuring that children, in particular, have health insurance. It would protect everyone against catastrophic medical expenses, a part icular help to the chronically ill. By singling out Mr Bush's lies and misrepresentations, am I saying that Mr Kerry isn't equally at fault? Mr Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things t o complain about. that's the private- sector loss, partly offset by increased government employment. But nobody doubts tha t the war will cost at least another $80 billion. The point is that Mr Kerry can, at most, be accused of using loose language; Mr Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journali sts who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsin g Mr Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers.
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