Fighting a Scarecrow

You say: "I think we should spend more on public education." Your opponent fires back: "So you want to bankrupt the country and throw money at every failing school with zero accountability?"

The name traces back to the older idiom man of straw: an easily refuted imaginary opponent. The straw figure is variously explained as a scarecrow, practice dummy, or effigy, but the point is the same. Beating a straw figure proves nothing about a real opponent. In the same way, someone who tears apart a distorted version of your position has not touched your actual argument.