Folks on the right are living in some alternate reality.

Evidence: Republicans say President Barack Obama has hurt small business, yet he has given out a record number of small-business loans, while Republicans have refused to pass 18 tax cuts for small businesses.

They say "Obamacare" is government health care, yet private insurance companies provide coverage and their stock values rose when the Affordable Care Act was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. They say Obama has been spending us into debt, but federal spending growth under Obama is the lowest since Reagan (1.4 percent versus 8.7 percent). "Big government" is blamed for our problems, when in fact the financial meltdown resulted from not enough regulation and corporations behaving badly. They claim Obama eliminated the work requirement for welfare, but in reality he has given states the flexibility they requested to put even more welfare recipients to work. They say Obama will cut Medicare benefits, whereas he will cut waste and inefficiency, not benefits, to save precious dollars. They claim America is broke when we have an economy nearly the size of all of Europe combined and bigger than China's. They say they are concerned about their children and grandchildren, but they want to elect a ticket that will gut Medicare and provide less of every kind of government protection for their children's future (think food, water, and drug safety just for starters), much less protect the environment we all live in.

If you repeat a lie often enough, does that make it true?

Cheryl Kanuck

Sun City Hilton Head