'Nancy Pelosi Exits Lying'

As the new GOP Congress takes off today, Nancy Pelosi spent her last hours as Speaker doing what she does best, as Professor Bainbridge writes:

Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (let’s just pause to savor that “outgoing” qualoifier) exits with an immense lie:

At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”

The numbers tell a different story.

When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi’s Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 – a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi’s four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.

Meanwhile, there’s a new sheriff in town; he can definitely talk the talk, but we’ll see if he can live up to the second half of that tired western metaphor in the weeks to come.