When fallacies are committed intentionally to manipulate or persuade by deception, they are considered propaganda aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward or against some person or group by presenting false ideas, and are usually repeated and dispersed over a wide range of media to create the chosen result in the public’s attitudes. Republicans have, with their media outlet Fox News, spread propaganda that the nation’s current economic problems are founded in excessive spending by the Obama Administration, and traditionally, they have labeled all Democrats as big-spenders for the past thirty years. Throughout the President’s first term, and especially since the beginning of the 112th Congress, Republicans have sought Draconian spending cuts targeting safety nets while defending tax cuts for the rich, and it has been at the forefront of the GOP’s negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff they claim requires drastic spending cuts as long as defense and tax cuts for the rich are exempted.

One of the reasons many conservatives oppose any deal to avoid the fiscal cliff is to let domestic spending cuts in the Republican sequestration begin in 2013, and it has been a two-year claim of Republican leadership that America is broke and that to save the economy, the President’s “out-of-control” spending has to be halted immediately. The problem with that argument is it is patently false. Under President Obama’s leadership, government spending is at its lowest levels since Ronald Reagan’s administration, and in fact, the President’s spending is the lowest since the Eisenhower Administration. However, those are easily verified facts and if there is one thing Republicans avoid like plague, it is easily verified facts.