Patton: Why Do Politicians Lie to Us?

Why do politicians lie to us? In some cases, lying is the right thing to do. It is in the national interest. Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals on May 2, 2011. Two days before, President Obama spoke at the White House Correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C..

Suppose a reporter approached the President at the dinner and asked, "I understand that Osama bin Laden has been located at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and that a Navy Seal operation is about to begin to attack the compound and kill bin Laden. Can you confirm that?"

Of course, the President would have to lie and deny such an attack. Would you have him be truthful and say - "Aren't you a clever fellow? I cannot tell a lie. Yes, indeed, even as I speak, the attack you describe is about to begin. I sure hope Al Qaeda doesn't hear about this."

So, sometimes, lying by an elected official is the right thing to do.

The second reason politicians lie is to flatter us, so we will support them in the next election. That comes as no surprise. What is a surprise is that the public in many cases does not want to hear the truth. We want to be lied to, and will be annoyed if we hear the truth.

For example when was the last time you heard a politician tell you that your taxes are low. Heresy! Here in tax phobic New Hampshire, most everyone is convinced that, no matter what, our taxes are too high. And politicians are doomed to defeat if they try to convince us otherwise.

Yet, there is good evidence that presently taxes in the United States are low. In 1944, the top tax bracket reached 94 percent and remained above 84 percent until 1964. (Mutual Funds, March, 2002). Today, the top marginal tax bracket is 39.6 percent.

Not only have our tax rates dropped dramatically over the past 72 years, U.S. rates are small by comparison with other countries. "US taxes are low relative to those in other developed countries. In 2012, US taxes at all levels of government represented 24 percent of GDP (gross domestic product), compared to an average of 34 percent of GDP for the 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

"Among OECD countries, only Chile and Mexico collected less than the United States as a percentage of GDP. In many European countries, taxes exceeded 40 percent of GDP." (Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute & Brookings Institution, 2012)."

Alright, put down those firebrands and pitchforks. Don't start a riot. I'm not arguing that our taxes should be raised. I'm just saying they are not as high as people think they are. And, given that misperception, politicians will, never, ever, tell us the truth and argue that our taxes are relatively low.

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Given that all politicians lie, do some lie more than others. According to Hank Berrien (The Daily Wire, 4/11/2016), Donald Trump makes it a point to accuse other elected officials of lying. "Donald Trump has repeatedly labeled his political opponents liars. He dubbed Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) Lyin' Ted when it became clear Cruz was a serious rival for his nomination; he called Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) an 'even bigger liar' and said former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's lies were almost as bad as Cruz's. Trump has termed virtually every mildly adversarial media member a liar, too.

"But there's only one truly massive liar in this race: Donald Trump. When Politico attempted to measure how many lies Trump told over the course of 4.6 hours of speeches, they found that he lied, on average, once every five minutes. When Huffington Post catalogued his lies over the course of just one town hall event, they came up with 71 lies."

So, if Trump is the biggest liar among the presidential candidates, which ones, according to PolitiFact, make the most honest public statements?

PolitiFact describes itself as "a project operated by the Tampa Bay Times, in which reporters and editors from the Times and affiliated media outlets fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups.'" (03/22/2016).

Statements are rated true, mostly true, half truth, mostly false, false, and "pants on fire" (lies) by PolitiFact. Hillary Clinton (51 percent), Bernie Sanders (51 percent) , and John Kasich (50 percent) virtually tied for highest percentage of true and mostly true statements.

By contrast, Donald Trump (76 percent) was first and Ted Cruz second (65 percent) in the number of mostly false, false, and "pants on fire" lies. (PolitiFact, 3/22/2016).

So here we have Donald Trump accusing everyone else of lying, but, in reality, Trump appears to be the biggest liar of them all. And, despite this, we're expected to believe Trump. His supporters claim , "Trump tells it like it is." Well, contrary to popular belief, I guess a lot of people were indeed born last night. And others did just fell off the turnip truck.

Gary Patton is the author of two books, Selling Mt. Washington, a political satire, and Outtastatahs: Newcomers' Adventures in New Hampshire, a work of regional humor.