Factchecking the Debate #3
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Factchecking the Debate #3
| Thu, 10-16-2008 - 5:25pm |
FactChecking Debate No. 3
October 16, 2008
Sorting out fact and fiction in the presidential candidates' final debate.
Summary
Spin and hype were apparent, once again, at the third and final debate between McCain and Obama:
- McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: “his scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.” He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.
- 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 $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.
Update Oct. 16: ABC News reported the morning after the debate that Wurzelbacher admitted to a reporter that he won't actually make enough from his new plumbing business to pay Obama's higher tax rates. ABC said his admission "would seem to indicate that he would be eligible for an Obama tax cut."
- Obama repeated a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.
- 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 Canadian-style health care, and his current proposal is nothing like that.
- Obama incorrectly claimed all of McCain’s ads had been “negative.” That was true for one recent week, but not over the entire campaign. And at times Obama has run a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain.
- 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.
- Obama strained to portray himself as willing to break ranks with fellow Democrats. His prime example was his vote for a bill that was supported by 18 Democrats and opposed by 26. Congressional Quarterly rates him as voting with his party 97 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator.
Analysis
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama met for their final debate Oct. 15. The face-to-face was held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and was moderated by CBS News' Bob Schieffer.
McCain made some dire claims about a liberal group he said was out to steal the election:
But does this constitute "destroying the fabric of democracy"? More like destroying the fabric of work ethic. There's been no evidence that the ACORN employees who submitted fraudulent forms have been paving the way for illegal voting. Rather, they're trying to get paid for doing no work.
Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., where the first ACORN case was prosecuted, said:
Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Obama wasn't entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN:
For more on investigations of ACORN and registration fraud, and Obama's involvement with the group, keep an eye on our home page. A longer article on ACORN is in the works.

Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher got a lot of airtime.
McCain first mentioned Joe by saying:
At their encounter, Wurzelbacher told Obama that “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year,” before asking whether or not Obama would raise his taxes.
If the company is actually that profitable, and depending on how the business is organized legally, Obama’s plan would indeed raise his federal income taxes, and Obama conceded as much during the exchange. As we’ve written before, small businesses commonly are organized in such a way that their owners file business taxes as individuals. So if Joe’s plumbing business earns more than $200,000 per year (or $250,000 if Joe is married and files tax returns jointly) then his taxes would indeed be higher under Obama's plan than under McCain's.
It’s worth noting that while Wurzelbacher told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he lives “in a simple, middle class home” and portrayed himself as an ordinary working guy, Wurzelbacher’s $250,000 to $280,000 is a bit higher than "ordinary." In 2007, the last year for which the Census Bureau has figures, the median income for a family in Toledo, Ohio, was $43,553.
Update, Oct. 16: ABC News reported that Wurzelbacher may actually qualify for a tax cut under Obama's plan, and not a tax increase. ABC reported on its Web site the morning after the debate that one of its reporters, Chris Bury, had spoken to Wurzelbacher and that he "acknowledged that he wants to purchase the plumbing business for $250-280,000, not that he would net that much in profits." ABC news quoted him as saying he would make much less than $250,000. If that's correct, then Wurzelbacher based his complaint on a misunderstanding of how Obama's tax plan would affect him. Earlier, Wurzelbacher appeared live on ABC's Good Morning America program and repeated his complaints about higher taxes, but anchor Diane Sawyer did not ask him about his expected profits or question whether his taxes really would go up. We await further clarification.
But Joe the Plumber wasn’t through yet. He made an encore appearance when McCain recycled a bogus claim that Obama would "fine" small business owners who fail to provide health care coverage for their workers:
ACORN and Vote Fraud
McCain made some dire claims about a liberal group he said was out to steal the election:
McCain: We need to know the full extent of Sen. Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.It's true that the voter registration wing of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has run into trouble in several states. ACORN employees have been investigated and in some cases indicted for voter registration fraud. Most recently, more than 2,000 registrations in Lake County, Ind., have turned out to be falsified.
But does this constitute "destroying the fabric of democracy"? More like destroying the fabric of work ethic. There's been no evidence that the ACORN employees who submitted fraudulent forms have been paving the way for illegal voting. Rather, they're trying to get paid for doing no work.
Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., where the first ACORN case was prosecuted, said:
Satterberg: joint federal and state investigation has determined that this
scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.
Instead, the defendants cheated their employer. ... It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. ...
appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.The $8-an-hour employees were charged with providing false information on a voter registration, and in one case with making a false statement to a public official. ACORN was fined for showing insufficient oversight, but it was not charged with masterminding any kind of fraud.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Obama wasn't entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN:
Obama: The only involvement I've had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The Woods Fund, where Obama served as a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the course. ACORN's Chicago office and CSI have not been under investigation.
For more on investigations of ACORN and registration fraud, and Obama's involvement with the group, keep an eye on our home page. A longer article on ACORN is in the works.

Joe the Plumber
Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher got a lot of airtime.
McCain first mentioned Joe by saying:
McCain: Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.Joe’s newfound fame stems from an impromptu encounter Oct. 12, during which Wurzelbacher questioned Obama’s tax plans. Joe has since become a conservative folk hero after telling both Fox News and the conservative Web site Family Security Matters that he thought Obama’s plans sounded “socialist.”
At their encounter, Wurzelbacher told Obama that “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year,” before asking whether or not Obama would raise his taxes.
If the company is actually that profitable, and depending on how the business is organized legally, Obama’s plan would indeed raise his federal income taxes, and Obama conceded as much during the exchange. As we’ve written before, small businesses commonly are organized in such a way that their owners file business taxes as individuals. So if Joe’s plumbing business earns more than $200,000 per year (or $250,000 if Joe is married and files tax returns jointly) then his taxes would indeed be higher under Obama's plan than under McCain's.
It’s worth noting that while Wurzelbacher told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he lives “in a simple, middle class home” and portrayed himself as an ordinary working guy, Wurzelbacher’s $250,000 to $280,000 is a bit higher than "ordinary." In 2007, the last year for which the Census Bureau has figures, the median income for a family in Toledo, Ohio, was $43,553.
Update, Oct. 16: ABC News reported that Wurzelbacher may actually qualify for a tax cut under Obama's plan, and not a tax increase. ABC reported on its Web site the morning after the debate that one of its reporters, Chris Bury, had spoken to Wurzelbacher and that he "acknowledged that he wants to purchase the plumbing business for $250-280,000, not that he would net that much in profits." ABC news quoted him as saying he would make much less than $250,000. If that's correct, then Wurzelbacher based his complaint on a misunderstanding of how Obama's tax plan would affect him. Earlier, Wurzelbacher appeared live on ABC's Good Morning America program and repeated his complaints about higher taxes, but anchor Diane Sawyer did not ask him about his expected profits or question whether his taxes really would go up. We await further clarification.
But Joe the Plumber wasn’t through yet. He made an encore appearance when McCain recycled a bogus claim that Obama would "fine" small business owners who fail to provide health care coverage for their workers:
McCain: Now, my old buddy, Joe, Joe the plumber, is out there. Now, Joe, Sen. Obama's plan, if you're a small business and . . .

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Didn't want it to get lost in the other thread, what with all the smirking and grinning and eyerolling.
Good Post!
I especially love this part and can't wait for the follow up:
He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The Woods Fund, where Obama served as a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the course. ACORN's Chicago office and CSI have not been under investigation.
For more on investigations of ACORN and registration fraud, and Obama's involvement with the group, keep an eye on our home page. A longer article on ACORN is in the works."
Other places you can find me:




Flickr Badge" border="0" />
Flickr Badge" border="0" />
Flickr Badge" border="0" />
Our family photo album online!
(password: ballfamily)
border=0>
Other places you can find me:
Here are some others...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/15/eveningnews/realitycheck/main4524944.shtml
What Would Joe Pay?
To be clear on Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber from Ohio: He would not be fined by Obama for not providing health care to workers. Obama says he will exempt small businesses. That said, he has not defined what a small business is. Obama has also promised a small tax credit to help offset small business health care costs.
Eliminating Dependence on Foreign Oil
McCain says the United States can eliminate dependence on oil imports from the Middle East and Venezuela in his first term. Those imports now total 3.6 billion barrels a day.
New drilling, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) would add an estimated 200,000 barrels of oil per day, but that wouldn't happen until 20 years from now. McCain's drilling plan, in other words, won't come close to replacing Middle Eastern and Venezulean imports anytime in his first term, unless a gasless automobile appears tomorrow.
McCain Running 100% Negative Ads?
Both candidates challenged each other’s ads. Obama said 100 percent of McCain’s ads are negative.
This is true for the first week in October, according to the Wisconsin Ad Project. However, over the entire campaign, McCain did run some positive ads. The same study found that for the previous month, Obama’s campaign ran more negative ads than McCain.
McCain said: “It's a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history and I can prove it.”
A McCain campaign analysis shows that from Sept. 12 to Oct. 11 Obama spent $42 million on negative ads compared to $27 Million by McCain. But over the same period, Obama spent $29 million on positive ads compared with only $5 million by McCain. So during this time period, Obama outspent McCain more on positive messages than on negative ones.
Will Obama Pay As He Goes?
One of the biggest issues in the debate was spending, and how the candidates would cut spending to reduce the deficit. Here’s what Sen. Obama said on the issue: "I have been a strong proponent of pay as you go. Every dollar that I have proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches."
Fact: Not so fast. If Obama has identified cuts to off-set his new spending, he hasn’t made those clear. Most non-partisan experts say Obama would spend more than he takes in with taxes or saves with budget cuts. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Obama hikes the deficit by $281 billion in four years. McCain is also a big spender; $215 billion in the red.
Note: The below portion of this Reality Check was written prior to the completion of Wednesday night's debate.
Obama's "tax cuts" really credits?
Expect a new McCain claim that almost all of Obama's "tax cuts" are actually "refundable tax credits," which will result in the IRS writing checks to millions of taxpayers who don't owe taxes, adding to the deficit.
Fact: This is true. Obama is proposing a laundry list of tax credits: for college tuition, qualified pension savings, mortgage interest, expansions of the earned income tax credit, a "making work pay" tax credit, a tax credit for savers, and for child and dependent care - all of which are refundable tax credits.
When a tax credit is refundable, it means taxpayers with no tax liability get a check from the IRS for the value of the credits. The four year cost of all these credits, according the non partisan Tax Policy Center, is $966 billion dollars. Obama's critics are calling this a back door form of welfare.
The Obama campaign responds that McCain is highly misleading here, because Obama's leading proposal, the Making Work Pay (MWP)tax credit, will only apply to workers who pay payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) and that "none will receive a tax cut from the MWP cut that is greater than their payroll tax liabilities."
McCain rebate will go "directly to insurance company"?
One of Obama's most highly used TV ads claims that McCain's $5,000 tax rebate - for health insurance - will "go directly to the insurance company."
Fact: This is half true, but nothing about this is sinister. Under McCain's health plan, families buying health insurance on the open market would indeed see that rebate go to their insurance company - but so what? The rebate is only good for the purchase of insurance. Obama's ad makes an efficient idea sound underhanded, when it isn't.
All other families, including the 160 million Americans who will still buy insurance through employers, will have to set up a Health Savings Account (an HSA), and your employer will be required to deposit the rebate there.
Expect McCain to again accuse Obama of being the most liberal and highest spending Senator.
Fact: Close, but not precise.
Lets start with "Most Liberal." According to the National Journal, which does these rankings Obama was the most liberal in 2007, 10th in 2006 - and 16th in 2005.
How about biggest spender? According to the group that tracks abusive spending, Citizens Against Government Waste, Obama is tied for the Senate's 15th biggest spender in lifetime rankings. In requests for federal pork, the group ranked Obama as number 70 in 2008, meaning 69 Senators ranked higher than Obama in their requests.
Expect both candidates to argue they have the best plan to help real people through the fiscal crisis. Obama's main new idea promises a 3000 tax credit for every (net) new employee added by a business in 2009 and 2010.
Fact: Most economists doubt this will create many jobs in a downturn. Marty Sullivan, a tax economist with the non partisan Tax Analysts, calls its impact "marginal." Sullivan says because of the economic slowdown, "30-40 per cent of all employers, all the ones worried about holding on to employees, are out of the running." From the start, Sullivan says, "the dollar amount is just not that large. Only those employers already adding employees will benefit."
Sullivan also calls it a largely ineffective "retread" idea from the Carter Administration.
At the right of center Heritage Foundation, tax policy expert Rea Hederman agrees the credit won't have much impact. "It's hard to see how a $3,000 tax credit makes a difference," Hederman says. Employers decide to hire, he says, when "adding that employee adds to profits," and so any business worried about profits in the coming downturn, wont be moved by Obama's tax credit. "$3,000 isn't much of an incentive," he predicts.
McCain's biggest new idea is to buy 14 million "bad" mortgages directly from lenders, and give the homeowner a new FHA backed mortgage at rates the homeowner can afford.
Fact: This idea may help homeowners, but it also bails out lenders McCain promised he would never help. The fine print of McCain's proposal commits taxpayers to buying these loans at face value of the debt, meaning the very lenders who made these bad loans - are made whole.
Yet McCain has resolutely promised not to reward predatory lenders with bailout money. "I will begin by making certain that the 700 billion dollars already committed to economic recovery is not used to further enrich the very people and institutions that invited these troubles with their own reckless conduct." (McCain, Blue Bell, PA., 10/13) At a minimum, its unclear how his plan squares with that promise.
Obama still claims he can pay for all his promises, even though his new fiscal ideas add $175 billion in new spending over two years. On the campaign trail Obama always cites how he can save $10 billion a month by a "responsible withdrawal" from Iraq.
Fact. No, he can't. Not now, and probably not by the end of his term. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the US government currently spends $12.7 billion per month in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. CBO analysts say that if all but 30,000 troops are brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan, the earliest a President could see savings along the lines of $10 billion a month would be 2011. But this won't happen, because Obama isn't leaving Iraq right away - and he's promised to take troops from Iraq and add them to the war in Afghanistan.
McCain still claims he will balance the budget in his first term - when his new ideas will add $352 billion to the deficit. (300 billion comes from the rescue package for mortgages.)
Fact: He can't. Remember that McCain keeps all of the Bush tax cuts, has quite a few new spending proposals of his own (health care, Katrina rebuilding), and is now saddled with an enormous new deficit. No non-partisan group tracking either campaign sees an end to deficit spending in four years, even those who take McCain at his word that he will aggressively cut the budget.
McCain may repeat the claim that Democrats caused the fiscal crisis by obstructing a Republican attempt to impose new capital reserve requirements on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "My opponent (Obama) was silent and his Democratic buddies opposed every effort to rein them in." (McCain, Lacrosse WI., 10/10)
Fact: It's technically true, but the lack of mortgage reserves didn't cause the crisis. First off, there's an emerging consensus among economists that both parties slept through the derivative and debt swap revolution, leaving these products unregulated - and making the current valuation of mortgage backed securities so difficult. The number of bad subprime loans, estimated at around 4 per cent of the total, could not by itself trigger the crisis we now face.
But how how about the "silent" claim? Republicans base this on the fate of Senate bill 190, the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 sponsored by Senators Hagel, McCain, Dole and Sununu. According to Senate Banking staffers in both parties, the bill made it out of committee but never came to an official vote on the floor because the sponsoring Senator, Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, concluded he did not have the votes he needed. These staffers recall most Republicans were for the bill and most Democrats against. Was Obama silent? No way to know, he never voted. And if he was, so were most Senators. The bill never reached the floor.
Obama also correctly claims he introduced a bill in 2006 (s 2280) that called for curbs on abusive mortgages, but this was one year into his Senate career, and this bill never made out of committee.
In the same category, look for Obama to blame the crisis on McCain's inclination toward deregulation. Please see our notes from item 8 above. Both parties gave us this crisis.
Fact: The main piece of legislation that allowed banks and insurance companies to dabble in securities was the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill and both parties were for it. It was proposed by Republicans during the first Bush term, but was signed by President Bill Clinton, and came with the enthusiastic backing of then Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, who is now one of Obama's top advisers.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/16/obama-denies-ties-acorn/