Is there any tale this guy won't fabricate?

As we noted last week, Glenn Beck is busy hyping his up-coming television and radio visit to Wilmington, Ohio. The Beck day-long appearance is being hyped as a sort of conservative, grassroots bailout for a town that was hit hard when big-time employer DHL Express left the area in 2008. Since then, Wilmington has been featured prominently in the press as an epicenter of hard economic times.

On December 15, Beck is going to broadcast his syndicated radio show live from Wilmington, and that night's Fox News program will also originate from the small town, situated between Cincinnati and Dayton. The host is hoping his fans will swoop into town for the day and fill the local merchants' registers with cash.

That's all well and good, but Beck being Beck it turns out he's lying about Wilmington in an attempt to score cheap partisan points during the holiday season by stressing the town doesn't need, or want, the (intrusive) federal government's help in order to rebound. The town just wants the warm wishes of Beck's fans and a single day of local shopping. Or something

Here's the lie at the base of Beck's latest charade [emphasis added]:

[Wilmington] went from the No. 1 most up-and-coming city, and a city everybody wants to live in, to ground zero. And this town hasn't taken any money from the government. They don't want any money from the government.

And on Beck's Fox News show last night, the host insisted, “Instead of looking for a handout,” Wilmington “turned to faith, hope, charity.”

See, Wilmington doesn't want the government's money. Except that, of course, it does. (And hey, there's nothing wrong with that.)

As Media Matters reported last month, Wilmington and its surrounding county have, in fact, received $6 million worth of federal funds via the 2009 stimulus bill; a bill that Beck, of course, has derided as evil and un-American. And as Politifact.org noted, in the wake of the DHL pull out of the area, Wilmington received $7 million in emergency federal funds.

So in total, approximately $13 million in federal funds have flowed into Wilmington in recent years. But Beck pretends the town isn't accepting “any money from the government.”

But here's another punch line: On Dec. 15, Beck will be appearing live onstage at Wilmington's downtown Murphy Theater. And guess what? Last year Wilmington's local Republican Congressman secured nearly $300,000 in federal aid to cover the cost of repairing the theater's heating system. That's not all. The GOP representative is now petitioning Uncle Sam for an additional $1.5 million (in the form of an earmark no less!) to pay for refurbishing the theater.

I wonder if Beck will mention any of that from the stage next week in Wilmington, Ohio, or will he continue to push the phony story that it's the town that's won't take government handouts?