Would a tax hike on the wealthy kill 700,000 jobs?
(Carolyn Kaster — AP)
“The president wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. But what that does is it net loses 700,000 more American jobs that are really from people who need those jobs.”
— Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), on Fox News, Nov. 8, 2012
“According to Ernst & Young, raising the top rates would destroy nearly 700,000 jobs in our country.”
--House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Nov. 9
The presidential election is over. Time to get ready for the fiscal cliff!
The fiscal cliff, of course, is the looming end-of-the-year expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and the automatic spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act. The double whammy would likely sink the economy, though Democrats and Republicans disagree on the best approach for resolving the problem.
For his part, President Obama has long urged retaining the Bush tax cuts for workers making less than $250,000, but letting tax rates (and some other provisions) rise for the wealthiest Americans. Republicans have opposed this, in part because they say it would harm small businesses that organize themselves so earnings or losses are passed though to the shareholders — who then are taxed at the individual tax rate. (We have explored this topic in detail before.)
Rep. Pete Sessions, however, went further and actually claimed that hundreds of thousands of people would lose their jobs if Obama’s proposed tax increase went into effect. What’s the math behind his claim?
UPDATE: Boehner repeated the claim at a news conference the morning this column appeared.
The Facts
According to an aide, Sessions obtained his figure from a study prepared last year by two economists at Ernst & Young for the Independent Community Bankers of America, the National Federation of Independent Business, the S Corporation Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — all opponents of the president’s agenda.
Tracing impact of negative ads on presidential race
(Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Negative ads often work. But clearly some negative ads work better than others.
Going over the exit poll data, it is striking to see that the messages sent by the Obama campaign were effective, while the messages of the Romney campaign largely fell on deaf ears.
Let’s take a look at three examples.
The Bain attacks
The Obama campaign — with an early assist by former House speaker Newt Gingrich — sought to define former governor Mitt Romney as a corporate raider with little regard for the concerns of middle-class Americans. Regular readers of this column will recall that we were frequently highly critical of these ads (for those who still care, here is a collection of columns), because the ads often stretched the facts and took complex business deals out of context.
The science of Pinocchios
For readers curious about what makes a statement worth One Pinocchio, versus Four, watch the tutorial above that appeared this week on The Fold from The Washington Post.
Indeed, the hardest part of our job is deciding how many Pinocchios a claim gets — and then dealing with the torrent of email from readers who think we are being either too hard or too soft on the subject. It is admittedly subjective, though we do provide a guide to our rating scale.
Over time, we have developed a bit of a matrix to help us sort through the relative scale of a misstatement. For instance:
1. Is this from prepared remarks or just an off the cuff remark? Misstatements in prepared remarks tend to get worse grades.
2. How central is this “fact” to the point the politician was trying to make? If a politician keys his or her speech off this errant fact, he or she is going to get graded more harshly.
3. Did the politician use weasel words to try to disguise the sleight of hand he or she were performing? If we catch the magician’s tricks, there are more Pinocchios.
4. Did the suspect data come from a reputable, neutral source or from a partisan think tank? The politician loses points if they rely on dubious sources.
We tend to give some credit to people who admit they made a mistake, or at least can provide an explanation for their error. We are always willing to listen. There are some politicians with excellent staffs who quickly respond with the facts and tend not to try to spin us. Some politicians have even called us directly to make their case.
In some cases, we have been convinced to reduce the number of Pinocchios or even drop the matter. Even if we don’t change our assessment, a cooperative response certainly helps build credibility for the next time we come calling.
Fact checking the ‘final arguments’
(Charlie Neibergall — AP)
We had more or less thought we were done fact checking this election cycle when we handed out our Pinocchio awards over the weekend ... and then we saw the candidates’ “closing argument” speeches.
So, one more time, here’s a roundup of their factually challenged assertions.
Mitt Romney
Speech in Englewood, Colo., Nov. 3
“He was going to focus on creating jobs. Instead, he focused on creating Obamacare that killed jobs.”
The health-care law has barely been implemented yet. Generally when Republicans describe it as a job-killer, they are referring to a Congressional Budget Office estimate that over the next decade the health-care law would reduce the number of overall workers in the United States by one-half of 1 percent, which translates to 800,000 people. But that’s not the same as saying it would “kill” that many jobs.
The biggest Pinocchios of Election 2012
(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s hard to believe this nasty and brutish presidential campaign has come to an end.
According to our Pinocchio Tracker, through most of the race President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney were neck and neck for the average number of Pinocchios, averaging about 2 Pinocchios each. But then, in the final months, Romney suddenly pulled ahead (so to speak) with a series of statements and commercials that stretched the limits. Obama’s average also got worse — and was nothing to be proud of.
In the end, Romney finished with an average ranking of 2.4 Pinnochios, compared to 2.11 for Obama. Not counting debates (when we awarded no Pinocchios), we rated 92 statements by Obama and 77 by Romney, as well as more than 200 claims made by surrogates and interest groups, as well as Republican presidential contenders.
Among the primary aspirants, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) finished with the worst rating overall of any candidate — an average of 3.08 Pinocchios.
Here are some of the lowlights of the 2012 campaign.
Four Pinocchios for a Virginia Democratic party mailer: Romney proposed ending health care for wounded vets
(Emmanuel Dunand/AFP, Getty)
“Our veterans sacrificed everything for our country …But Romney suggested ending guaranteed health care for wounded veterans.”
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan back a plan that cuts health services for veterans by 19%.”
— A mailer from the Democratic Party of Virginia
The Virginia Democratic party circulated this mailer during the waning days of the election, painting GOP candidate Mitt Romney as a sort of monster who proposed terminating the guaranteed health-care benefits for wounded veterans. Such a policy move would be tantamount to political suicide, so this type of claim should raise a red flag for readers.
Democrats have also accused Romney of wanting to increase defense spending by $2 trillion — a number we have found a bit dubious — so voters might be a little confused at this point. Which is it? Would he slash funding for veterans and the military community or throw heaps more money at them?
The defense budget is separate from Veterans Affairs spending, so these assertions are not as contradictory as they may sound. But these Democratic claims send mixed messages about how a Romney presidency would affect current and former service members.
Both parties resort to political gamesmanship when it comes to budget matters, but let’s take a closer look at the Virginia mailer to determine how much truth it contains.
The Facts
The claim about “ending guaranteed health care for wounded veterans” refers to comments Romney made during a November 2011 roundtable discussion with veterans in Mauldin, S.C. The Republican candidate was responding to a veteran who complained about the difficulties of navigating Veterans Affairs bureaucracies.
A ‘greatest hits’ of misleading Obama claims
“Mitt Romney’s plan… …rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy.”
“Medicare…voucherized.”
“Catastrophic cuts to education”
“Millionaires will get one of the largest tax cuts ever…while middle class families pay more.”
— voiceover from a new Barack Obama ad, “Remember”
Just as Mitt Romney recently released an ad with a “greatest hits” of misleading claims, so too has the Obama campaign. Let’s spin this record again too! As we shall see, one song is more or less on-key, but others are off-kilter.
“Mitt Romney’s plan… …rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy.”
This statement, by itself, is relatively correct. Romney has said he would repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, saying the regulations are “overwhelming,” but he has been vague about what he would replace it with.
An imaginary, misleading ‘debate’ between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu
(Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama at the White House.ISRAELI GPO/GETTY IMAGES)
DEBATE MODERATOR: “Welcome to the first debate between Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. President, we’ll start with you.”
OBAMA: “I’ve made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran’s affairs.”
MODERATOR: “Mr. President, thank you. Mr. Prime Minister, your response.”
NETANYAHU: “The Jewish state will not allow those who seek our destruction to possess the means to achieve that goal. A nuclear armed Iran must be stopped.”
MODERATOR: “Mr President, your rebuttal.”
OBAMA: “Obviously there are some differences between us.”
ANNOUNCER: “Friends, Americans and Israel cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama. This call was paid for by the Emergency Committee for Israel because your vote will make the difference in this election.”
— Text of a “robocall” message sponsored by the Emergency Committee for Israel
The Fact Checker was surprised to hear this “debate,” using the actual voices of President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he answered his home phone earlier this week. We did a little digging, and this has got to be one of the most ridiculous attacks in an increasingly bitter campaign. Let’s see how the Emergency Committee for Israel cut and snipped this call together.
The Facts
Obama’s first statement sounds rather weak and feckless during the robocall, but it changes dramatically when viewed in its proper context — a presidential news conference held on June 23, 2009, to condemn the attacks by the Iranian government on pro-democracy demonstrators. Obama’s point is that the pro-democracy activists were not being directed by the United States, as the Iranian government had claimed. The sentence used in the call is highlighted in bold.
President Obama’s claims of ‘Romnesia’
“Mr. ‘Severely Conservative’ wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year.... We’ve got to name this condition he’s going through. I think it’s called ‘Romnesia.’”
— President Obama, Oct. 19, 2012
In his stump speeches, President Obama has added a light-hearted attack on Mitt Romney that argues that the GOP presidential candidate suffers from “Romnesia” — an ailment that Obama mischievously adds is a preexisting condition that would be covered under the new health-care law.
Early in the election campaign, Democrats tried to make the argument that Romney is a flip-flopper, and we took an extensive look at their claims. (We found three correct statements out of ten items.) But then Democrats dropped the idea--until now.
Obama is fairly specific in his examples, so here is a quick round-up and analysis of Obama’s claims of “Romnesia” made during in appearance in Fairfax, Va., earlier in October.
“If you say you’re for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you’d sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia.”
Obama is referring to the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first bill he signed as president. The law updated the statute of limitations for wage discrimination claims, making it easier to pursue such claims.
4 Pinocchios for Mitt Romney’s misleading ad on Chrysler and China
“Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama. Fact checkers confirm that his attacks on Mitt Romney are false. The truth? Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry. He is supported by Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News. Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”
— voiceover in unannounced Mitt Romney television ad running in Ohio
When a campaign does not announce a television ad, it’s a good sign that it knows it is playing fast and loose with the truth. Indeed, this is an excellent example of an ad that has a series of statements that individually might be factually defensible, but the overall impression is misleading.
The ad also comes on the heels of Mitt Romney’s mistaken claim in a speech last week that Chrysler was moving Jeep production to China — a statement immediately denied by the auto manufacturer. Yet the story apparently was too good for Romney to give up, because the ad repeats the claim, tweaked slightly to make it more accurate.
The Facts
Here’s what Romney said last Thursday in Ohio: “I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America, I’m going to fight to make sure trade is fair.”
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