Burke: The lie that shut down government could cost you more

By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist

James David Vance, vice president of the United States, stood at the White House press room podium on Oct. 1 and lied. He lied to you and to the 340 million Americans who care that the U.S. government has been shuttered.

And he lied to you with purpose.

He lied to you with a straight face, with malice aforethought, and without remorse.

And it was a lie so transparent it almost reaches the level of falsehoods his boss, Donald Trump, spews forth every day.

Vance told you that the government shut down because Democrats insist congressional approval of the budget must include money for free health care for illegal immigrants.

That’s a lie. And he knows it.

Here are the facts:

• Undocumented immigrants are prohibited by law from purchasing Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace coverage and receiving ACA tax credits.

• Undocumented immigrants cannot receive federally funded Medicaid and Medicare coverage.

The Democrats’ budget proposal does not make them eligible for any of these programs.

Rather, what the Democrats want changed are the health care-related provisions of the Republican’s “Big Beautiful Law” passed and signed by president Trump that:

• Cuts almost a trillion dollars from Medicaid, triggers a half-trillion in Medicare cuts, and raises health insurance costs (to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires);

• Means health insurance premiums are set to more than double, on average, next year unless ACA tax credits are restored.; and

• Includes a hidden cut to Medicare because it adds $4.1 trillion to the national debt, and this new higher level of debt automatically triggers imposition of the statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act, which means another $536 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare over the next decade.

Folks, the Democrats are simply refusing to vote for next year’s budgets until the Republicans negotiate these cuts and fix what they broke. Their proposal does not provide free health care for undocumented immigrants.

What they want is to extend the existing Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year and roll back the Medicaid cuts. in the “Big Beautiful Law.”

The president and the Republican Congress refuse to even talk about it.

So it is the Republicans, who control both houses of Congress and the White House, who are shutting down government.

Unfortunately, this is not Vance’s first and only lie. He lied about the 2020 election, claiming it was rigged and Trump won. He lied when he said Trump “saved” Medicare. He lied when he claimed legal Haitian immigrants were killing pets and eating them in Springfield, Ohio (even after officials told him it wasn’t happening).

And (yea!) he apparently didn’t lie when he wrote that he went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.” (He now says Trump isn’t Hitler. Was he lying then, or now?)

Unfortunately, if Vance is a big liar, Trump is a bigger liar.

Here’s a sample from just the past few weeks:

At his United Nations address, Trump said, “I ended seven wars … with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda — a vicious, violent war that was — Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.” (Total fictions.)

He also said climate science was an elaborate “hoax and con job;” that respect for U.S. is at an all-time high (not so by any measure); that U.S. environmentalists want “No more cows, we don’t want cows anymore. I guess they want to kill all the cows.” (What?) He later said he thought the speech was “very well received.” (It wasn’t. One comment from a Democratic House member following his remarks was “This man is literally unhinged, irresponsible, bizarre, bonkers, ludicrous. I don’t even know why his staff are allowing him to stand in front of a mic at this point. It was completely incoherent.”)

On Truth Social he shared an AI-produced video that promised all Americans access to “MedBeds,” a nonexistent device said to cure all diseases, reverse aging, and even regrow lost limbs. (There’s no such thing as a “medbed;” it only exists in the minds of QAnon conspiracy nuts.)

He again claimed the 2020 election was rigged and he won. (The Big Lie will never die, at least in Trump’s mind.)

Speaking to 800 generals and admirals he lied a half-dozen times about Joe Biden, claiming, for instance, Biden tried to kill the Space Force (he didn’t) and allowed 25 million migrants into the U.S. (official federal counts say it was 10 million).

And let’s not forget tariffs. He continues to lie claiming other countries “pay” his tariffs. They don’t. American consumers, you and me, pay them.

At the start of Trump 1.0 I wrote about his lying. How anything (everything) he said couldn’t be trusted.

It’s gotten worse since then because his fabrications are spreading. RFK Jr., J.D. Vance, most of his Cabinet, his press secretary, everyone in his administration, all lie. Constantly.

And if they tell the truth, they get fired, as Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer experienced when she reported weaker-than-expected/weaker-than-Trump-wanted jobs figures for July.

Gentle reader, we can’t have a functioning government, a functioning democracy, a functioning society when we can’t believe anything, anything at all we hear from our president, vice president, or any leader calling themselves a Republican.

And that’s no lie.

Slava Ukraini.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.