It is rumored that Newt Gingrich once told the truth about the current political topic of the day. But that was apparently a long time ago. And he was under medication at the time.

This week he pushed the Republican Lie-of-the-Week on Fox News:

One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents. Now I think the average American doesn’t think we need 16,000 health police — they don’t think we need a single health police. And it’s interesting that that health bill has more IRS agents than it has doctors or nurses or people who actually do health in the bill. I think, Republicans this fall, if they were to run as one of their planks, that they will never fund the 16,000 IRS agents

Now this particular fictionoid has already been comprehensively debunked by FactCheck.org, back on March 30. The short version is:

The CBO estimated that the cost of the Affordable Care Act would “probably include an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years for administrative costs of the Internal Revenue Service.”

From that, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee derived the statement “IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees.” That’s what Gingrich — and others — blithely turned into “The bill says the IRS will hire 16,000 additional IRS agents.

To come up with their 16,500 figure, first the Ways and Means Committee Republicans ignored the $5 billion figure, and seized on the $10 billion

Then, they made the not unreasonable assumption that $10 billion over ten years would work out to $1.5 billion per year once the law is fully effective

They then assumed that all of that $1.5 billion per year would go towards payroll expenses. In other words, the extra IRS employees would operate out of cardboard boxes placed under bridges and overpasses. No desks or computers, no office space, no phones or utilities, they would never travel, they would have no overhead costs. This assumption allowed the Ways and Means Committee Republicans to divide $1.5 billion by the current average payroll cost for the entire IRS workforce, to arrive at 16,500.

They fully recognized this was wrong, and they said clearly that adjusting for non-payroll expenses and overheads would drop the estimate from 16,500 to 11,800. In other words, they said: “Guys, we have two numbers. The wrong one is 16,500. The right one is 11,800.” But catch any Republican going with the right one.

The 11,800/16,500 computation also ignores inflation in payroll costs. It assumes that the salaries of the new IRS employees would just stay fixed over the ten-year period. FactCheck.org estimates that correcting for this “would further reduce the maximum number that could be hired by another 1,000 in 2014, and by about 2,800 in 2019″. So the right number is actually much lower than even 11,800.

Remembering that the CBO originally said $5 billion to $10 billion, it looks like the number of new IRS employees implied by the CBO estimate is roughly 5,000 to 10,000.

And these, of course, are not all IRS agents. “But there’s a huge difference between an IRS revenue agent — who calls on taxpayers and conducts face-to-face audits — and the workers who make up the bulk of IRS employees. Those who work at the IRS include clerks, accountants, computer programmers, telephone help line workers and other support staff. In fact, IRS revenue agents make up only 15 percent of the IRS workforce, according to the official IRS personnel summary.”

Moreover, “IRS’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance.” Given that this is what the IRS will need new employees for under the Affordable Care Act, it’s a safe bet that much less than 15% of the new employees will actually be IRS agents.

So when Newt Gingrich goes: “One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents”, that’s just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. As Ezra Klein put it:

First, that’s not a “thing in the health bill.” It’s an extrapolation from a CBO report. Second, the word “is” is wrong, as even the original GOP spin only used the word “may.” Third, the number 16,000 is wrong. Fourth, the word “agents” is wrong. But if the statement gets no credit for truth, it’s at least efficient: Not just anyone could pack four falsehoods into 13 words. But Gingrich, now, he’s a professional.

No matter which way you slice it, in effect, what Newt Gingrich is saying to his target audience of right-wingers and Tea Partiers is: “Listen up, you sorry little shit-for-brains losers. So what if this is a total lie that has already been thoroughly debunked? You don’t know any better, suckers, and you never will. You’ll still swallow it whole. As as long as you keep swallowing — and the media invites me to keep emitting — I’m going to keep on putting it out.”

(One of the enduring disappointments I have about Jon Stewart — one of the few disappointments — is how he always gives Gingrich the “my friend” loving-kindness treatment whenever he has him on The Daily Show.)

And, it isn’t just New Gingrich, of course. The honor roll of Republicans who propagated the 16,000 or 16,500 lie well after it was totally debunked includes Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn.