Joe Biden thinks he can “finish the job,” or so he declared in his reelection announcement video. Aside from “finish the job” being an ominous mafia phrase, Biden was utterly dishonest, and The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas rebuts four specific lies.

“Cutting Social Security”

“Around the country,” Biden says in the ad, “MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms, cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., repeatedly has said that Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in lawmakers’ budget and debt-ceiling negotiations.

“In the coming weeks, the House will vote on a bill to lift the debt ceiling into the next year, save taxpayers trillions of dollars, make us less dependent upon China, curb our high inflation—all without touching Social Security and Medicare,” McCarthy said last week. “Simply put, it puts us on a fiscally responsible path in three ways: It limits, it saves, and it grows.”

Previously, McCarthy had said that “cuts to Medicare and Social Security, they are off the table.”

Senator Rick Scott’s “sunset” proposal for federal legislation is what Biden means to attack, but that’s not the official GOP position and Scott and Mitch McConnell have both denied Social Security would be cut.

“Stand Up for the Right to Vote”

At several points in the ad announcing his reelection campaign, Biden references the right to vote being under attack.

“That’s been the work of my first term, to fight for our democracy,” Biden says early in the ad.

Biden goes on to say that “MAGA extremists” want to take away numerous freedoms and rights, “all while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

Toward the end of the video, Biden says he will “stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.”

The president doesn’t specify who or what would take away anyone’s right to vote. But in the past, he has been highly critical of state election reforms such as expanding voter ID requirements and maintenance of voter lists as well as restrictions on the controversial practice of ballot harvesting.

The truth is that while many Republican-controlled states have passed laws to dial back some of the pandemic expansions of voting accommodations, turnout was not negatively affected in 2022 and not a single person has lost a single right.

“Banning Books”

In the ad, Biden says Republicans are “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love,” but doesn’t provide any specifics. …

It’s not clear how Biden defines book bans.

What isn’t occurring is the common definition of a “ban,” which is either prior restraint of publication or restricting all availability of books.

What has happened is that officials, responding to parents’ protests, have removed some books with adult content from school libraries.

Much of the Left’s aim has been directed at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who signed a bill to prevent pornography in school libraries. After much media criticism for supposedly “banning” books, DeSantis showed some of the explicit material in the books aimed at children.

The same media outlets that criticized the governor for removing the books cut the feed of the press conference. This action indicated that the content was too explicit for the news outlets’ audience.

Moreover, he says, “an examination reveals that most of the titles identified as "banned” … have not been removed from school libraries.“ They’ve merely been challenged by parents.

"Freedom Is Fundamental”

In his video, Biden says several times that he would protect freedom.

“Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” Biden says. He later adds: “Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms.”

His various other references to freedom are similarly vague, and he distorts what the word means.

During over two years in office, Biden has boosted regulation compared with his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump.

In its first two years, the Biden administration imposed 517 regulatory actions at an economic cost of $318 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.

That’s fewer rules than the last Democrat president, Barack Obama, but it comes at a greater economic cost.

The Obama administration imposed 740 regulations in the first two years at a cost of $208 billion to the economy.

The Trump administration, known for deregulation, imposed 1,340 rules at a cost of $64.7 billion over four years.

That’s to say nothing of the burdensome cost of government that caused inflation and economic turmoil. That’s hardly freedom. Neither are mask and vaccine mandates, student loan giveaways, climate boondoggles, or collusion efforts with Big Tech giants to suppress free speech.

But no one should ever accuse Joe Biden of being a truth teller.

Read the whole thing here.