Representative John Boehner

Speaker of the House, John Boehner said it in a speech he made to the Economic Club of DC a couple of days ago.

Actually, the Speaker’s “simple equation” is bad math. One of the most prosperous periods in recent US history came during the administration of President Clinton, when the tax rates were higher. As you recall, Clinton was followed by President Bush who cut taxes, mostly for the rich. Those Bush tax cuts resulted in the squandering of the surplus produced by the Clinton administration. There was no money to pay for the just war in Afghanistan and Bush’s optional war in Iraq. Remember how the President and Vice President Cheney said that oil revenue from the quickly freed and grateful nation of Iraq would pay for the wars? Those were the days. As it happened, the combination of tax cuts and the increased spending of borrowed money meant that the deficit grew and grew hugely. As for jobs, Bush created about 3 million jobs (net) over his eight years; Clinton created 23 million. That ought to settle this nonsense about killing jobs by raising taxes on millionaires.

We hate to drag this out, but Speaker Boehner has also said, back in May 10^th of this year, that those Bush tax cuts created 8 million jobs over 10 years. No objective analysis of that period can find 8 million jobs. Rather than add to the misery of this post and your web experience, we refer you to PolitiFact, an objective site that sorts out the truths and falsehoods of our politicians.