More on the Lying Liars at the Heritage Foundation

I've called them out a few times, here, here and here (with some help) and here.

Now, Steve Benen reports, one of their economists been caught lying to the Senate Budget Committee.  

As the occasionally reliable Matt Yglesias recently pointed out regarding a different passel of Heritage lies:

But it illustrates an underappreciated point in Washington, namely that even ideological think tanks do their movements a disservice when they do bad work. As Republican members of Congress ponder what to do about immigration, having accurate information about its fiscal impact would be very useful to them. You actually want to have a team of people "on your side" who you can trust to do good work. Heritage is not that team.

True, but MY misses a rather vital feature.  If you are trying to make points that do not comport with truth or reality, you have to lie, pretty much by default.  And you can't do good work if you are lying.

Benin replies:

That's true. If there are any Republican policymakers left who care about quality scholarship and reliable data, they'd no doubt like to rely on an institution like the Heritage Foundation as a go-to source for credible research. But as Heritage transitions from its traditional role as think tank to its new role as an activist group, and the intellectual infrastructure on the right deteriorates, GOP lawmakers no long have such a resource.

But that's not quite right, either.  Heritage has been lying to promote an agenda for as long as I've been aware of them.  If Rethug lawmakers ever had such a resource, it's been gone for a long, long time.

H/T to PK