In a finding surprising to none, Congress is composed of lying sacks of [insert cliche here].
Study finds whole lot of half-truths in Congress
Members of Congress tell the whole truth only about a quarter of the time when debating major legislation on the floors of the House and Senate. ... The two meticulously sifted through the Congressional Record to identify key claims made by each side to support its case and to rebut the assertions of opponents. They also compared the claims with available data to see whether they were true, false or somewhere in between. In all, they examined the accuracy of 18 claims in 43 separate House and Senate debates.Researchers judged the claims made in only 11 of the 43 debates to have been largely substantiated by the facts. An additional 16 were deemed to be “unsubstantiated” -- a polite way of saying they were misleading, mostly false or flatly wrong--while 16 were an artful mix of fact and fiction, they report in their new book, “Deliberative Choices: Debating Public Policy in Congress.”
I would assert this trend has worsened since 2001.
