In a campaign speech Tuesday, October 28, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain accused Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, of being inconsistent on taxes.…The Verdict: False. What McCain is doing here, in part, is comparing apples and oranges. He compares two different aspects of Obama’s [...]
Read On No CommentsWe rated that claim False. We examined it again in August when the ad first aired and again found the statement to be False. But the ad will be new to many viewers this week, so we are revisiting it here.McCain is distorting Obama’s original comments…McCain twisted Obama’s words when he claimed that Obama characterized [...]
What happened: “No one will delay the World Series game with an infomercial when I’m president,” the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd Tuesday in Hershey, Pa… Why that’s wrong: It’s not unusual for World Series games to start after 8:30 p.m., and according to the Web site Politico, the Fox executive who’s responsible for [...]
“Republican John McCain is misreading seven-year-old comments by rival Barack Obama about ‘redistributive change’ to argue that the Democrat’s tax policy is built on ‘taking your money and giving it to someone else.’ … Obama never said that, according to an audio file circulated by Naked Emperor News, a Web site with many postings critical [...]
“Sen. John McCain’s campaign has seized on Sen. Barack Obama’s offhand remark that he wants to “spread the wealth around” to allege Obama is a socialist. Even in the context of a heated presidential campaign, that’s a remarkably incendiary accusation. It’s become a standard part of the McCain campaign rhetoric, uttered by surrogates and candidates [...]
“The McCain campaign went from tiptoeing around allegations that Obama is a socialist, to outright calling him one. Sen. John McCain’s campaign has seized on Sen. Barack Obama’s offhand remark that he wants to ’spread the wealth around’ to allege Obama is a socialist. So no, Obama’s tax increase on those making more than $250,000 [...]
An ad released jointly by the McCain-Palin campaign and the RNC claims Obama “rewards his friends with your tax dollars” and calls his actions “unethical.” Some of what the ad says is false or misleading. Here are the facts: The ad claims that Obama supporter and Chicago real estate developer Allison Davis received $20 million [...]
A recent attack mailer from the Republican Party of Florida calls Obama “Soft On Crime.” “Barack Obama has consistently voted against tougher penalties for criminals — including major offenses — allowing criminals to remain on the streets,” the mailer states. This mailer, like so many other mailers and TV ads, cherry-picks a few choice examples [...]
“In other words, Obama says pretty much the opposite of what the McCain camp says he said. Contrary to the spin put on his remarks by McCain economics adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, he does not express ‘regret’ that the Supreme Court has not been more ‘radical.’ Nor does he describe the Court’s refusal to take up [...]
“A week from the presidential election, Republican John McCain is persisting in exaggerating and misrepresenting rival Barack Obama’s tax and health-care plans…McCain’s central claim - that people will be ‘forced’ into a new government-run plan under an Obama presidency - is not true. In fact, Obama broke with many Democrats and others who advocate universal [...]
“Sometimes they make it easy on us fact-checkers. Take the new flier from the Republican National Committee landing in mailboxes in the hard-fought state of Virginia…To state the obvious, it’s not fair to extrapolate from that comment the sentiment that ‘terrorists just need a good talking to.’ Iran, Cuba and Syria are indeed designated ‘state [...]
RATING 3 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful).”The ad should get a prize for the most effective use of small business owners in a misleading commercial…How about the “trillion dollars in new spending” by Obama? The McCain campaign apparently did its own calculations on the cost of Obama’s programs. A more neutral [...]
“Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin misrepresented to a campaign audience Thursday what her Democratic counterpart Joe Biden has said about Barack Obama’s ability to handle a foreign crisis. ‘Sen. Obama’s own running mate, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has informed us that a serious international crisis is certain if Obama is [...]
“At a rally in Bensalem, Pa., John McCain accused Barack Obama of getting cocky. ‘We have 14 days to go. We’re a few points down. The national media has written us off. Sen. Obama has announced that he’s choosing his Cabinet,’ McCain said at the Oct. 21, 2008, event. The remark invokes a theme from [...]
“The Statement: Speaking during a campaign stop Monday, Oct. 20 in Belton, Missouri, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain criticized Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama’s proposals on taxes. ‘The Obama tax increase would come at the worst possible time for America, and especially for small businesses like the one Joe dreams of owning,’ McCain said. [...]
“John McCain hammered his Democratic opponent over the weekend for ‘phony tax cut’ policies that will allegedly harm hard-working Americans such as his new-found friend, ‘Joe the Plumber.’ The Arizona senator claims that Obama has been going round the country promising to ‘cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans’ at a time when 40 [...]
“Here, we’ll look at the allegation that in 1992, Obama directed Project Vote, ‘an arm of ACORN that also encouraged voter registration.’ This year, Project Vote and ACORN worked together on a nationwide voter registration drive aimed at low-income, minority and youth voters. They have worked together on other initiatives with left-leaning groups like the [...]
“The McCain campaign has taken to denigrating some of Obama’s tax proposals as ‘welfare’ rather than tax cuts. And it continues to mislead about who would see a tax increase. A new McCain-Palin Web ad characterizes Obama’s proposed refundable tax credits as ‘welfare.’ But McCain himself proposes refundable tax credits, too, as part of his [...]
“RATING 2 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful) … For a candidate who likes to brag about the ‘Straight Talk Express,’ it would have been more accurate for McCain to say that Obama worked with ‘ex-terrorist Bill Ayers’ since their time together was spent on education and charity projects, not blowing up [...]
“McCain said ‘Joe the plumber’ faced ‘much higher taxes‘ under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over [...]
“McCain claimed that Obama’s real ‘object’ is a government-run, single-payer health insurance system like those in Canada or England. The McCain campaign points to a quote from five years ago, when Obama told a labor gathering that he was ‘a proponent of a single-payer health care program.’ But Obama has since qualified his enthusiasm for [...]
“McCain described Colombia as the ‘largest agricultural importer of our products.’ Actually, Canada imports the most U.S. farm products, and Colombia is far down the list.” [FactCheck.org, 10/16/08: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_3.html]
“Obama said McCain–running ads featuring Ayers with Sarah Palin making him an issue on the stump–never said anything to his face. Ayers did not came up in the first two presidential debates. If McCain continues to insist that Obama launched his political career from Ayers’ Hyde Park living room, he is misleading the public by [...]
“John McCain made two assertions on corporate taxes, one that small businesses pay 50 percent of the taxes and the other that U.S. corporations are among the highest taxed in the world. Both are wrong. All corporate income taxes–including giant corporations and the smallest of businesses–account for only about 14 percent of federal revenues raised [...]
“[McCain] made an attack, that his campaign has been making for weeks, saying that Obama’s campaign was launched in the living room of William Ayers, of the Weather Underground. That’s not true. Obama says his campaign was launched at a Ramada hotel, there were several coffees, right about that same time that summer one was [...]
John McCain talked a lot about ‘Joe the plumber’ during the third presidential debate, saying Joe is an example of a small business owner who would not do well under Barack Obama’s policies…But generally, Obama does not fine ’small businesses.’ They are specifically exempt. We rate McCain’s claim False.” [Politifact, 10/15/08: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/802/]
“McCain was a bit off the mark when he said Obama did not repudiate the remarks of Democratic Rep. John Lewis. Obama did release a statement that said he ‘did not believe’ McCain ‘or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies.’” [FactCheck.org, 10/15/08: http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/10/15/john-lewis-and-the-news/]
“McCain has claimed yet again that Sen. Obama ‘voted twice for a budget resolution to increase taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year.’ As we’ve reported, a single taxpayer making more than $41,500 would have seen a tax increase, but a couple filing jointly would have seen no increase unless they made at least $83,000, [...]
“McCain just mispoke in accusing Democratic running mate of wanting to divide Iraq into ‘three countries.’ Biden did propose a plan in 2006 to decentralize power in Iraq by giving control of a major region each to the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. But his plan would maintain Iraq as a single country.” [Washington Post, [...]
“McCain exaggerated the closeness of the relationship between Obama and former Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers in claiming that his rival had ‘launched his political career’ in Ayers’ living room. It is true that Obama attended a coffee meeting at Ayers’ home after he announced his intention to run for the state senate in September [...]
“McCain just recycled a frequent claim, that Obama has voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year. It’s based on Obama’s vote this year in support of a non-binding Democratic budget resolution that would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011 and 2013. Independent analysts have asserted this claim is misleading [...]
“As in the second debate, Mr. McCain charged that small businesses would be fined under Mr. Obama’s health plan if they did not pay for health coverage as mandated by the government. And Mr. Obama, again, corrected him by pointing out that his plan would exempt small businesses from the requirement that employers either provide [...]
“Mr. McCain said: ‘Senator Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through — as he said, his object is a single-payer system. If you like that — you’ll — you would love Canada and England.’ Mr. McCain was wrong in saying that Mr. Obama’s proposal called for [...]
“When asked whether he would appoint someone to the Supreme Court who disagreed with him and supported Roe v. Wade, Mr. McCain said he would apply no ‘litmus test’ in his Supreme Court appointments and would make his decisions ‘based on their qualifications.’ But Mr. McCain has gone much further while seeking to shore up [...]
“Senator McCain argued as the debate began, and as he repeatedly does on the campaign trail, that the blame for the financial meltdown lies with the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were a unique hybrid–government-chartered but shareholder-owner—until they were forced into government conservatorships last month. ‘The catalyst for this housing crisis was [...]
“Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of failing to repudiate recent remarks by Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and legendary civil rights leader, who accused Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, of ’sowing the seeds of hatred and division’ because of the insults hurled by some at their rallies about Mr. Obama. [...]
“McCain was wrong to state that small businessman ‘Joe the Plumber’ would end up paying a fine if he refused to provide his workers with health insurance under Barack Obama’s health-care plan. Under the Obama plan, small businesses are exempted from a requirement imposed on large companies that they contribute to a national health fund [...]
“During tonight’s debate, McCain said that Hillary Clinton proposed the same kind of mortgage buy-up plan that he did. This is not true. While Clinton has proposed directly helping homeowners by having the government buy and resell mortgages that are in danger of foreclosure, her proposal would force financial institutions to take a loss. The [...]
“But McCain is still saying he’d balance the budget within four years? This is silliness, and I think McCain knows it. I look forward to his campaign explaining how, exactly, he’ll do this while extending the Bush tax cuts and funding bailouts.” [ABC News Debate Live Blog, 10/15/08: http://blogs.abcnews.com/liveblogging/2008/10/live-debate-b-2.html]
McCAIN: “We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” THE FACTS: This is a reference to U.S. spending on oil imports. McCain has repeatedly made this claim. But the figure is highly inflated and misleading. According to government agencies that track energy imports, the United States [...]
McCAIN: “Now, we have allocated $750 billion. Let’s take 300 of that billion and go in and buy those home loan mortgages and negotiate with those people in their homes, 11 million homes or more, so that they can afford to pay the mortgage, stay in their home.” THE FACTS: Ordering the government to buy [...]
“Sen. John McCain revived a claim against Barack Obama that he’s made before — that Obama voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year… But it’s inaccurate to suggest votes on nonbinding budget resolutions, which don’t have the force of law and don’t include precise details on taxes or spending, are the same [...]
“Republican vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin, in an interview taped Oct. 8 and aired Sunday, Oct. 12, on Fox News’ Hannity’s America, referred to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on offshore High drilling and ‘clean-coal’ technology. ‘That was kind of perplexing last night, listening to Barack Obama’s position all of a sudden saying [...]
“Sarah Palin has insisted that a formal investigation into the ‘Troopergate’ controversy in Alaska has exonerated her of ‘unlawful or unethical’ activity. The Republican vice-presidential pick has told critics to read the report by an investigator appointed by the State Legislative Council to determine whether she had abused her power as Alaska governor to push [...]
“This attack is false, but it’s more than that – it’s malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there’s ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving [...]
“A McCain campaign video released today hits the ‘guilt by association’ theme that has become a prominent part of GOP attacks on Barack Obama during the final weeks of an increasingly vituperative presidential election campaign. It baldly accuses the Illinois senator of ‘lying’ about his connection with Ayers, a former Weather Underground leader turned education [...]
“At a campaign event Thursday, October 9, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain criticized Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama’s health-care plan. ‘Under his plan, he will fine employers who don’t offer health insurance to put their employees in government health care. He’ll fine them,’ McCain said. ‘You know what that does? That [...]
“John McCain told the Des Moines Register this week that he always tells ‘100 percent absolute truth,’ even in campaign ads. There’s one big problem with that bold statement: it’s just not true. McCain has made a number of statements — in paid ads and on the campaign trail — that simply cannot be described [...]
“In a campaign speech Wednesday, October 8, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain questioned Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama’s foresight on the role of the troubled subprime lending sector in the recent financial crisis. ‘As recently as September of last year, he said that subprime loans had been — quote — a [...]
“In last night’s debate, Sen. John McCain repeated one of his regular complaints — that Sen. Barack Obama said that he would strike targets inside Pakistan under certain conditions. McCain raises the issue to suggest that it is an example of Obama’s inexperience in foreign affairs … McCain has repeatedly mischaracterized Obama’s statement to make [...]
“The claim: Speaking about energy costs, McCain said: ‘We’ve got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries who don’t like us that much.’ The facts: McCain repeatedly makes this claim, which often has been criticized as exaggerated by non-partisan groups — including FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the [...]
“The claim: ‘With the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies,’ McCain said, government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were key drivers of the financial crisis — ‘the match that started this forest fire.’ … The McCain campaign has produced no evidence, however, that Obama did favors for the corporations. In 2005, McCain [...]
“McCAIN: ‘Oil drilling offshore now is vital so we can bridge the gap between imported oil … and it will reduce the price of a barrel of oil. … We’ve got to drill offshore and do it now.’ THE FACTS: The government estimates that opening the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and eastern Gulf of Mexico [...]
“Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain said at the Oct. 7 presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, that Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama has ‘never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue.’ Verdict: False. While McCain is correct that Obama has supported the Democratic leadership almost all of the time, to say [...]
“During the second presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., McCain made the charge directly. ‘Senator Obama has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. That’s his record.’ Ninety-four times? Not that we could find. But 94 still is awfully far away. The McCain campaign could easily claim that Obama has ‘repeatedly’ [...]
“That’s way off. We hate to nitpick apparent misstatements, but this one’s a doozy — 1.3-million is the number of people worldwide who make some money off eBay, according to a 2006 A.C. Nielsen study. As of 2003, some 20,000 Americans made their living off eBay, company executive Jim Griffith told a Colorado newspaper at [...]
“McCain accused Obama of voting for a ‘Bush and Cheney’ energy bill that gave away billions to oil companies. McCain is referring to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which Obama did in fact vote for. Sen. Clinton raised this same charge against Obama during the Democratic primaries. It was misleading then and it’s equally [...]
“McCain said that Obama had voted 94 times for higher taxes or against tax cuts. He’s getting warmer — the first time we dinged him for this one, he said Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes, which is way off. This is still misleading, though. The real breakdown includes: 23 votes against tax cuts [...]
“McCain said that Obama’s health care plan would mandate that ’small businesses’ provide coverage for their employees and would fine them if they failed to do so. Actually, Obama’s health care plan, posted on his Web site, says: ‘Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.’ McCain previously used this charge in his acceptance speech [...]
“McCain said that Obama has proposed $860 billion in new spending. That’s based on a McCain campaign estimate of how much Obama’s new proposals will cost, without figuring in any savings or reductions in spending. Any increase in funding and any created program counts as ‘new spending’ in this estimate, whether or not it is [...]
“Once again, McCain said that Obama raised taxes 94 times. This came up in the vice presidential debate, and it is a bogus charge. Factcheck.org, a non-partisan watchdog, has analyzed the charge. Of the 94, 23 of those votes were indeed votes against proposed tax cuts. Eleven of them were increases on families earning over [...]
“In outlining his tax policy, John McCain boasted that he would give all American families a $5,000 tax credit to allow them to go out and buy their own health insurance. This is true but it is only part of the story. The other part, which McCain rarely mentions on the campaign trail, is that [...]
“As for Mr. McCain, he repeated again his misleading attack that ‘Senator Obama has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts.’ This comes from a tally that has been pushed by both the campaign and the Republican National Committee, but Factcheck.org, a non-partisan group, conducted an analysis and found most [...]
“McCAIN: Said one way out of the financial crisis is to ’stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us.’ THE FACTS: Although he didn’t spell it out, he was referring — as he has in the past — to purchases of oil from countries hostile to the U.S. The figure is [...]
“McCAIN: Complained that Obama’s ‘cronies and friends’ had received money from Fannie and Freddie. THE FACT: McCain has his own ties to the mortgage giants. Rick Davis, his campaign manager, has been a focus of attention because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paid him or his lobbying firm more than $2 million dating back to [...]
“McCAIN: Said Obama had voted for tax increases ‘94 times.’ THE FACTS: This inflated count, heard before, includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by Factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no [...]
“McCain said: ‘Sen. Obama likes to talk loudly. In fact, he wants to announce that he’s going to attack Pakistan — remarkable.’ But this is what Obama said originally on August 1, 2007: ‘There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible [...]
“McCain just said that Obama has voted to raise taxes 94 times. As fact-checkers have constantly pointed out, that is an exaggeration. Per Factcheck.org: — 23 votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts. — 7 were in favor of measures that would have [...]
“Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain said at the Oct. 7 presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, that Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama ‘has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. That’s his record.’ … Misleading. McCain’s summary ignores the fact that some of the votes were for measures to lower [...]
“This John McCain ad blatantly distorts Barack Obama’s words in an effort to paint him as callous about the role of the U.S. military. The commercial truncates a comment that Obama made to a voter in New Hampshire in August 2007. According to the Associated Press, the senator from Illinois brought up Afghanistan when asked [...]
“A McCain-Palin ad calls Obama ‘dishonorable,’ while distorting his words and votes on troop funding. It accuses him of saying ‘our troops in Afghanistan’ are just bombing villages and killing civilians. What Obama said, in context, was a criticism of U.S. military strategy, and not of American troops. It accuses Obama and ‘Congressional liberals’ of [...]
“The New York Times article cited by Palin concluded that ‘the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.’ Other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have [...]
“RATING: 0 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful) … ANALYSIS: During Thursday’s vice presidential debate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin repeated the exaggeration that Sen. Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes. According to Factcheck.org, the total includes seven votes that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on corporations or [...]
“Sarah Palin got her facts wrong in Thursday’s debate with Joe Biden when discussing where John McCain stands on new protections for homeowners facing foreclosures. The Alaska governor incorrectly made it sound like McCain supports giving bankruptcy judges the power to rewrite mortgage payment terms on first homes. He doesn’t.” [ABC News, 10/03/08: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-misstates.html]
“Ms. Palin castigated Mr. Obama’s health care plan as one that would be mandate a ‘universal government-run’ system in which health care is ‘taken over’ by the federal government. This is inaccurate on several levels. Mr. Obama’s proposal includes an option for people to choose a new public plan with benefits similar to what members [...]
“Palin said that Obama’s plan would be ‘government run’ and would mandate health care. The first claim is false, as we’ve said before. Obama’s plan would increase the offerings of publicly funded health care, but would not replace or remove private insurance, or require people to enroll in a public plan. The second claim leaves [...]
“At the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Mo., Sarah Palin defended John McCain’s health care plan and criticized Barack Obama’s. Obama has a plan ‘to mandate health care coverage and have a universal government run program,’ Palin said. ‘And unless you’re pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I [...]
“Sarah Palin just asserted that Sen. Joseph Biden backed John McCain’s military policies until this presidential race. That is flatly false. Biden was an outspoken opponent of President Bush’s troop increases in Iraq as soon as Bush announced them after the 2006 elections. As Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, he led the most heated hearings before [...]
“Palin threw out an old canard when she criticized Obama for voting for the 2005 Energy bill, saying, ‘that’s what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks.’ It’s a false attack Clinton used against Obama in the primary and McCain himself has hurled. It’s true that the bill gave some tax breaks to oil [...]
“PALIN: Claimed she has taken on the oil industry as Alaska governor. THE FACTS: Palin pushed to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and distributed the proceeds to the state’s citizens to offset rising energy costs. However, she has also sided with the industry on a number of issues. She sued the Interior [...]
“PALIN: Said Alaska is ‘building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.’ THE FACTS: Not quite. Construction is at least six years away. So far the state has only awarded a license to Trans Canada [...]
“Gov. Palin suggested that the nearly $700 billion the U.S. spends a year on imported oil could be replaced by domestic sources. CNNMoney.com took estimates from various government agencies to conclude that crude oil production could be increased at most between 1 and 3 million barrels per day, on top of the 5 million barrels [...]
“Gov. Sarah Palin was erroneous when she claimed U.S. troop levels in Iraq are now at ‘pre-surge’ levels. When President Bush announced last month that he would withdraw an additional 8,000 U.S. troops over the coming months, he committed to leaving at least 138,000 troops in the country at the end of his presidency, 3,000 [...]
“During the vice-presidential debate in St. Louis on Thursday, Oct. 2, Republican nominee Gov. Sarah Palin criticized Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s opposition to the military ’surge’ in Iraq and said, ‘The surge worked. Barack Obama still can’t admit the surge works.’ … The Verdict: False. Obama has said the surge ’succeeded beyond our [...]
“Palin repeated the claim that Obama ‘voted against funding our troops.’ The claim refers to a single 2007 vote against a war funding bill. Obama voted for a version of the bill that included language calling for withdrawing troops from Iraq. President Bush vetoed it. (McCain supported that veto, but didn’t call it ‘vetoing support [...]
“PALIN: Said the United States has reduced its troop level in Iraq to a number below where it was when the troop increase began in early 2007. THE FACTS: Not correct. The Pentagon says there are currently 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 17,000 more than there were before the 2007 military buildup began. PALIN: [...]
“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signaled early she would go after Barack Obama all night on the charge that he had voted 94 times to either raise taxes or fight against tax cuts. Fact check.org, a non-partisan watchdog, has analyzed the charge. Of the 94, 23 of those votes were indeed votes against proposed tax [...]
“Sarah Palin repeated John McCain’s claim that Barack Obama voted to increase taxes for every American earning more than $42,000 a year. This is a considerable stretch. Obama voted for a non-binding budget resolution that laid down general budgetary guidelines based on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts will expire, as scheduled, in 2011. [...]
“Palin got her numbers wrong on troop levels when she said that troops were now down to ‘pre-surge’ levels. The surge was announced in January 2007, at which point there were 132,000 troops in Iraq according to the Brookings Institute Iraq Index. As of September 2008, that number was 146,000. President Bush recently announced that [...]
“Palin repeated several false claims about Obama’s tax policies. Obama did not in fact vote to increase taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 per year. What Obama actually voted for was a budget resolution that called for returning the 25 percent tax bracket to its pre-Bush tax cut level of 28 percent. That [...]
Ms. Palin said “millions of small businesses” would pay higher taxes under Mr. Obama’s tax plan, pointing to the increases for “those making $250,000 a year or more.” Mr. Obama’s plan would affect couples making more than $250,000 or singles making more than $200,000. Many small-business owners actually pay taxes as individuals, not as corporations. [...]
“Governor Palin said she reduced taxes when she was mayor of Wasilla, from 1996 to 2002. The city did eliminate property taxes, but she also pushed through a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for a $15 million sports complex. That increase followed a 2-cent sales tax initiated by her predecessor that helped the city [...]
“In addressing the issues of taxes, Governor Palin has made claims about Senator Obama’s policies that are not correct. She revived, for example, an accusation that he and Mr. Biden voted ‘for the largest tax increases in U.S. history’ and also charged that he would raise taxes ‘for those families making only $42,000 a year.’ [...]
“PALIN: Said of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: ‘94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction.’ THE FACTS: The dubious count includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the [...]
“Gov. Sarah Palin boasted that Mr. McCain ’sounded that warning bell’ about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, echoing some of Mr. McCain’s recent comments in which he portrayed himself as being on the vanguard in warning about the impending financial crisis. Ms. Palin was referring to Mr. McCain’s decision in 2006 to sign on as [...]
“The McCain-Palin campaign is airing radio ads in four states claiming that the Obama-Biden ticket ‘oppose[s] clean coal.’ That’s false: Obama’s energy plan, which he began promoting well over a year ago, calls for investing in ‘low emissions coal plants’ and creating ‘5 ‘first-of-a-kind’ commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration.’ His position [...]
“This hour we are taking on the issue of spending. Like taxes when you start talking about billions and trillions of dollars, its easy to get confused. So let’s take a listen to the charge from John McCain yesterday in Columbus, Ohio. ‘It shouldn’t be surprising that Senator Obama isn’t interested in protecting your tax [...]
“McCain seriously misstated his vote concerning the marines in Lebanon. He said that when he went into Congress in 1983, he voted against deploying them in Beirut. The Marines went in Lebanon in 1982, before McCain came to Congress. The vote came up a year into their deployment, when the Marines had already suffered 54 [...]
“We’ve heard that one before. McCain’s been playing it for laughs since 2003. The study in question was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, and it relied in part on federal appropriations. Readers (and politicians) may disagree on whether a noninvasive study of grizzly bear population and habitat is a waste of money. McCain clearly [...]
“John McCain claimed that Obama voted in the Senate to raise taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year. This is misleading on several levels. The vote that McCain is talking about was a non-binding resolution on the budget that envisioned letting the Bush tax cuts to expire, as scheduled, in 2011. But these [...]
MCCAIN: McCain said Obama voted to cut off money for the troops in Iraq. THE FACTS: Despite opposing the war, Obama has, with one exception, voted for Iraq troop financing. In 2007, he voted against a troop funding bill because it did not contain language calling for a troop withdrawal. The Illinois senator backed [...]
“Calling on President Eisenhower to deliver a lesson about accountability, Sen. John McCain invoked two letters authored by the 34th president the night before the Normandy invasion during Friday’s presidential debate. One letter, McCain said, was authored in the event that the D-Day invasion was a success and the other, a resignation, in the event [...]
“McCain: ‘And Senator Obama, who after promising not to vote to cut off funds for the troops, did the incredible thing of voting to cut off the funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.’ Fact Check: Obama did vote against a 2007 spending bill that did not include language calling for withdrawing troops from [...]
“McCain: ‘I voted for alternate fuel all my time. … No one can be opposed to alternate energy, no one.’ Fact Check: In his 26 years in Congress, McCain has voted against several bills and amendments calling for new investments in renewable energy, according to official Senate records. In March 2002, for example, McCain voted [...]
MCCAIN: “We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it.” THE FACTS: Obama did vote for a 2005 energy bill supported by [...]
MCCAIN: “I’ve been criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.” THE FACT: McCain did eventually call for the resignation of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. But he first said that if he were president he would fire him, a step a president cannot take with the head [...]
John McCain correctly asserted that in 2003 he began to question the Iraq war strategy, which is correct. In November 2003, he criticized the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, saying the United States should send at least 15,000 more troops or risk “the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam.” [...]
“John McCain raised an old Republican canard, repeated often in the primaries, when he claimed that Obama’s health care plan would eventually turn the health care system over to the federal government. The Illinois senator proposes helping individuals purchase health insurance through a system of subsidies and tax credits. He is also in favor of [...]
McCain, rebutting Obama’s correct observation that earmarks are a small part of the budget, said, “But the point is, that you see, I hear this all the time. It’s only $18 billion. Do you know that it’s tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it’s gone completely out of control to the [...]
“John McCain kicked the evening off with a wild exaggeration by describing the allied invasion of Normandy as ‘the greatest invasion’ in history. Such historical comparisons are always dangerous. In scale, the D-Day landings were far exceeded by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and the Soviet invasion of [...]
“McCain: ‘Senator Obama said the surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure.’ Fact Check: Obama said at the time that the increase in roughly 30,000 US troops in Iraq could improve security in ‘certain neighborhoods’ but that it would not solve the long term political strife [...]
“McCain spokesmen have tried to discredit the newspaper’s reporting with the argument that it is ‘in the tank’ for Obama, a charge that it frequently uses against journalists who cross the campaign. The attacks fail to address the substantive points raised by The Times and other news organizations. The McCain campaign responded to the latest [...]
“At a town hall meeting Monday, September 22, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain hit his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, on the financial crisis. ‘Sen. Obama has declined to put forth a plan of his own,’ McCain said. ‘In a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Sen. Obama has simply [...]
“The effort to convince voters that Sen. Barack Obama would support higher taxes is a central part of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. McCain and the Republican National Committee have repeatedly cited 94 alleged votes by Obama to bolster their argument. Factcheck.org, a non-partisan project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, pieced [...]
“At a town hall meeting Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sen. John McCain repeated a standard line from his stump speech in support of nuclear power, telling voters that it’s ‘clean and it’s safe and we can recycle — excuse me — reprocess and we can store. My opponent is against nuclear power…’ The Facts: [...]
“An already nasty presidential election campaign is getting nastier. The meltdown on Wall Street has touched off frantic attempts by both the McCain and Obama camps to secure political advantage and indulge in guilt by association. Over the last 24 hours, both campaigns have issued video press releases (let’s not call them ads until they [...]
“Obama’s campaign says Raines is not an Obama adviser and that McCain’s campaign knows it because Raines said so in an e-mail earlier this week to Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser. Obama’s campaign provided The Associated Press with a copy of the e-mail. ‘Carly: Is this true?’ Raines asks above a forwarded note informing [...]
“The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new ad that once again distorts Obama’s tax plans. The ad claims Obama will raise taxes on electricity. He hasn’t proposed any such tax. Obama does support a cap-and-trade policy that would raise the costs of electricity, but so does McCain. It falsely claims he would tax home heating [...]
WRIGHT: Senator McCain appears to have changed his tune on regulation in a fundamental way. Today on the stump, he’s a champion of reigning in Wall Street with tough regulations. MCCAIN: We’re going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption and greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street. WRIGHT: But for [...]
The McCain campaign has accused Obama of planning to raise taxes on middle-income families, despite a campaign pledge to reduce taxes for most Americans. The McCainites point to a non-binding Senate budget resolution supported by Obama that assumes that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 will expire as scheduled by the beginning of [...]
“Palin and the McCain campaign repeatedly have claimed her status as governor of an energy-producing state as a national security credential, most recently in the interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson. But Palin has been sloppy in how she states her argument that Alaska is a major player in the energy market. In the [...]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAInJKu1yQU [CNN, 9/16/08]
“The woman touted by John McCain as the most knowledgeable person in America on energy issues has been having a lot of trouble getting her basic energy statistics straight. Last week, Sarah Palin told Charlie Gibson of ABC News that her state, Alaska, produced ‘nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.’ Yesterday, [...]
“It turns out John McCain can lie in Spanish, too. McCain’s campaign is running a Spanish-language TV ad in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that blames Barack Obama for the failure last year of a sweeping immigration reform bill. ‘Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?’ [...]
“Senator John McCain’s truth-deficient campaign hit another low last Friday with a fraudulent new ad, this time about immigration. The ad, in Spanish, accuses Senator Barack Obama and his Congressional allies of killing immigration reform. It’s a gross distortion.” [New York Times, 9/15/08: http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/whats-spanish-for-lies/]
“John McCain is trying to claim that black is white when he argues that his running mate, Sarah Palin, has not accepted earmarks as Governor of Alaska. While it is true that she has sought fewer earmarks than her predecessor, Governor Frank Murkowski, Alaska still leads the nation in terms of per capita spending on [...]
“McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal. Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said [...]
“The advertisement is the latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts. The nonpartisan political analysis group FactCheck.org has already criticized ‘Disrespectful’ as ‘particularly egregious,’ saying that it ‘goes down new paths of deception,’ and is ‘peddling false quotes.’ Even the title is troublesome. ‘Disrespectful’ is one of those words [...]
Palin says Alaska supplies 20 percent of U.S. energy. Not true. Not even close. “Palin claims Alaska ‘produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.’ That’s not true…. It’s simply untrue that Alaska produces anything close to 20 percent of the U.S. ‘energy supply,’ a term that is generally defined as energy [...]
“The new McCain-Palin ad ‘Lashing Out’ begins like an earlier ad we criticized, with its reference to Barack Obama’s celebrity, but then goes down new paths of deception. It takes quotes from news organizations and uses them out of context in an effort to portray Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, as unfairly attacking [...]
“The commercial also asserts that a sex-education bill introduced in Illinois, which Mr. Obama did not sponsor and which never became law, is his “one accomplishment” in the field of education. Both sets of accusations, however, seriously distort the record… It is a misstatement of the bill’s purpose, therefore, to maintain, as the McCain campaign [...]
With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said “completely false” attacks on Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any [...]
Palin was originally for the Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere” while running for governor — before she was against spending federal money to build it. She opposed the bridge only after it had become an embarrassment to the state and after $233 million in federal money earmarked for the bridge was diverted to other transportation projects [...]
Nobody expects television ads to be fair and objective analyses of public policy. Almost by definition, the ads are partisan sales pitches, designed to promote one political brand while running down the rival brand. But they should not misrepresent the record of the other side and should clearly distinguish quotes from non-partisan news sources from [...]
“The Bridge to Nowhere argument isn’t going much of anywhere. Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government ‘thanks but no thanks’ to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state… But Gov. Palin’s claim comes with a serious caveat. [...]
“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin keeps saying she stopped the infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in an attempt to burnish her credentials as a pork-fighting reformer. And reporters keep pointing out that her claim is exaggerated. Still, the McCain-Palin campaign keeps up the misleading line that she was the main player in taking out the bridge. And [...]
“Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said, ‘No, thanks,’ to the famous ‘bridge to nowhere’ (McCain’s favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said, ‘Yes, please,’ until this project became a symbol and political albatross.” [TIME Magazine, 9/9/08]
“Palin voiced support for the bridge during her campaign to become Alaska’s governor, although she was critical of the size, and later abandoned plans for the project. She used the federal dollars for other projects in Alaska.” [AP, 9/9/08]
“The senator from Arizona has made a crusade of battling pork-barrel ‘earmarks,’ but the whopper here is the assertion that Palin opposed her state’s notorious Bridge to Nowhere. She endorsed the remote project while running for governor in 2006, claimed to be an opponent only after Congress killed its funding the next year, and has [...]
“Palin did abandon plans to build the nearly $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport. But she made her decision after the project had become an embarrassment to the state, after federal dollars for the project were pulled back and diverted to other uses in Alaska, and after [...]
“It’s the claim that Palin ’stopped the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that sparked the dispute. The reference is to a proposed bridge to a remote Alaskan community that would have cost the U.S. government more than $200 million. Palin has said repeatedly that she told the federal government: ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ As a candidate for [...]
Politfact, a service of CQ and the St. Petersburg Times wrote, “McCain said Palin has ’stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money on things they don’t want or need. And when we in Congress decided to build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere for $233-million of yours, she said, we don’t want it. If we need [...]
“Palin may have said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere, though not until Congress had pretty much killed it already. But that was a sharp turnaround from the position she took during her gubernatorial campaign, and the town where she was mayor received lots of earmarks during her tenure.” [FactCheck.org, 9/4/08]
“When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center. ‘I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,’ Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan’s Gravina Island bridge. But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before [...]
“In her introductory speech Friday as McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin picked up on the Ketchikan bridge that was never built as a symbol of bad federal policy… That is not how Palin described her position on the Gravina Island bridge when she ran for governor in 2006. On Oct. 22, 2006, the Anchorage [...]
“Barack Obama and John McCain have important differences on tax policy. These are fair game for campaign ads, and no one expects 30-second spots to be suffused with nuance. But Mr. McCain’s latest attack on the Obama tax plan crosses the line from reasonable argument to unacceptably misleading. ‘Obama voted to raise taxes on people [...]
“Barack Obama and John McCain have important differences on tax policy. These are fair game for campaign ads, and no one expects 30-second spots to be suffused with nuance. But Mr. McCain’s latest attack on the Obama tax plan crosses the line from reasonable argument to unacceptably misleading.” [Editorial, Washington Post, 8/10/08]
“A Spanish-language radio ad claims the measure Obama supported would have raised taxes on ‘families’ making $42,000, which is simply false. Even a single mother with one child would have been able to make $58,650 without being affected. A family of four with income up to $90,000 would not have been affected.” [FactCheck.org, 8/8/08]
“The TV ad also says that Obama ‘promises more taxes on small business, seniors, your life savings, your family.’ This statement is simply not true for the vast majority of viewers who will see it. Obama, in fact, promises to deliver a $1,000 tax cut for families making up to $150,000 a year, and he [...]
“HOW TRUTHFUL? 0 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful)” “The McCain ad’s claim that Obama says ‘he’ll raise taxes on electricity’ is based on an interview Obama gave to a San Antonio newspaper in February in which he said ‘what we ought to tax is a dirty energy like coal, and, to [...]
Michael Scherer of Time wrote, “So I want to make a few things clear. First, the Obama campaign calculates that its tax plan offers a net tax revenue reduction over ten years, if the health plan is included. Second, independent economists at the Tax Policy Center come to the same conclusion. Third, Holtz-Eakin has repeatedly, [...]
“The few campaign watchers who aren’t transfixed by the images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) new attack ad aimed at Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), might be asking themselves right now, ‘What’s this about an Obama electricity tax?’ Short answer: there isn’t one. Long answer: both McCain and Obama would [...]
“McCain’s new ad claims that Obama ’says he’ll raise taxes on electricity.’ That’s false. Obama says no such thing. McCain relies on a single quote from Obama who once — and only once so far as we can find — suggested taxing ‘dirty energy,’ including coal and natural gas. That was in response to a [...]
“McCain’s false charges have been more frequent: that Mr. Obama opposes ‘innovation’ on energy policy; that he voted 94 times for ‘higher taxes‘; and that Mr. Obama is personally responsible for rising gasoline prices.” [Editorial, New York Times, 7/30/08]
“McCain’s facts are literally true, but his insinuation - that the visit was canceled because of the press ban or the desire for gym time - is false. In fact, Obama visited wounded troops earlier - without cameras or press - both in the U.S. and Iraq.” [Fact Check.org, 7/28/08: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/snubbing_wounded_troops.html]
The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s factcheck.org wrote, “Prior to the sole 2007 vote cited by the McCain campaign as justification for this ad, Obama voted for all war-funding bills that had come before the Senate since 2005, when he was sworn in. So did all other Senate Democrats, except for a few absences. As recently [...]
“The ad’s most inflammatory charge — that Obama voted against troop funding in Iraq and Afghanistan — is misleading. The Illinois senator consistently voted to fund the troops once elected to the Senate, a point Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton made during the primaries when questioning whether his anti-war rhetoric was reflected in his actions.” [...]
“McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would raise tax rates for 23 million small-business owners. It’s a false and preposterously inflated figure. We find that the overwhelming majority of those small-business owners would see no increase, because they earn too little to be affected. Obama’s tax proposal would raise rates only on couples making more [...]
As FactCheck.org noted, “The McCain campaign claims that Obama voted to raise income taxes on individuals who earn as little as $32,000 per year. That’s wrong…[and]…not true.” In fact, as FactCheck.org also noted, Barack Obama’s “tax plan would provide a tax cut of $502 for a non-married taxpayer earning $35,000.” [FactCheck.org, 7/8/08]
“Republicans claim Obama ‘voted 94 times for higher taxes.’ But their count is inflated and misleading. … [B]y repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, the McCain campaign and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he’s voted consistently to restore higher tax rates [...]
According to the non-partisan FactCheck.org, “McCain’s big promise is that he can balance the budget while extending Bush’s tax cuts and adding a few of his own. He likes to leave the impression that this can be done painlessly, for example, by eliminating “wasteful” spending in the form of “earmarks” that lawmakers like to tuck [...]
“Both John McCain and Barack Obama promise to cut taxes for the majority of Americans. But an Obama administration would redistribute income toward lower- and middle-class households, while a McCain White House would steer the bulk of the benefits to the wealthiest families, according to a nonpartisan analysis of the still-evolving tax plans of the [...]
“The McCain camp is attempting to persuade Americans that their taxes will increase dramatically with Barack Obama as president. The presumptive Republican nominee has repeatedly said that Obama would enact ‘the largest tax increase since the Second World War.’ A surrogate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, insists that Obama has not proposed ‘a single tax [...]
Politifact reported, “So calling it a tax increase might not be considered fair. There’s no disputing that taxes will rise, but the question of who’s responsible for that tax increase is another matter entirely. At PolitiFact, we’ve concluded, as have others, that it’s unfair to call Obama’s plan a tax increase merely because it doesn’t [...]
“McCain was asked by a New Orleansreporter why he voted twice against an independent commission to investigate the government’s failings before and after Hurricane Katrina, and he incorrectly stated that he had “voted for every investigation. McCain actually voted twice, in 2005 and 2006, to defeat a Democratic amendment that would have set up an [...]
“McCain’s talk about eliminating $100 billion a year in earmarks is largely fantasy. His advisers are now promoting a more realistic plan of eliminating $100 billion in overall spending. But it is difficult to take even that promise very seriously given the fact that the senator refuses to identify exactly which projects he will be [...]
According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Factcheck.org: “By the measure most economists prefer, McCain is wrong in his claim that Sens. Clinton and Obama want to implement “the single largest tax increase since the Second World War;”… At a more basic level, it’s misleading to tag Clinton and Obama for something that was scheduled [...]
According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Factcheck.org: “By the measure most economists prefer, McCain is wrong in his claim that Sens. Clinton and Obama want to implement ‘the single largest tax increase since the Second World War;’… At a more basic level, it’s misleading to tag Clinton and Obama for something that was scheduled [...]
According to the non-partisan FactCheck.org, “McCain’s big promise is that he can balance the budget while extending Bush’s tax cuts and adding a few of his own. He likes to leave the impression that this can be done painlessly, for example, by eliminating “wasteful” spending in the form of “earmarks” that lawmakers like to tuck [...]
“McCain insists that he did not make a mistake, in verb tenses or any other way. ‘I said we had drawn down,’ he told reporters today. ‘I said we have drawn down and we have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down [...]
But economists say that the proposal is unlikely to actually lower the price of gasoline. McCain’s plan would essentially give federal funds to oil refineries… But the nonpartisan American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates ( http://www.transportation.org/news/109.aspx ) that the total savings for the average American motorist works out to about $28; for [...]
According to FactCheck.org, “McCain’s plan to tax workers on the value of their employer-provided health care plans and provide tax credits would encourage some employers, mainly small businesses, to drop health benefits, say experts, and the proposal could eventually eliminate job-based insurance altogether.” Director of the health research and education program at the Employee Benefit [...]
“There is no reason to doubt the statements by U.S. generals that some of the weapons and munitions used by Sunni extremists in Iraq can be traced back to Iran. Odierno’s statement about movements of ‘a small number’ of al Qaeda personnel through Iran to Iraq also seems quite credible. But it is a big [...]
“His claim that he is the only presidential candidate not to receive money from ’special interests’ is patently false. I was tempted to award four Pinocchios, but I am subtracting one because it is an old quote. Let me know if McCain has repeated the claim recently.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 2/29/08]
“Despite the fun McCain had ridiculing the bear project on the Senate floor, he didn’t actually try to remove it from the bill. He did introduce several amendments, including three to reduce funding for projects he considered wasteful or harmful, but none removing the grizzly bear project appropriations. And despite his criticisms, he voted (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00034 [...]