Author Archives: Brooks Jackson

Front Group Claims EPA Threatens 7 Million Jobs

Chemical and oil lobbies were behind an ad that dogged Obama's Midwestern bus tour, attacking anti-smog regulations proposed by the administration. Their trade groups are among the business organizations backing a front group calling itself the "Coalition for American Jobs," which sponsored the ad. The TV spot accused the president …
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‘Spenditol’ Silliness

A conservative Christian group makes some wildly improbable claims about government spending in a satirical ad targeting Democrats. The ad mimics the format of spots for prescription drugs, touting "Spenditol" as a cure for the "chronic pain" of rising gasoline and food prices and unemployment worries. While we do get …
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Fiscal FactCheck

Washington’s spending has recently been higher as a percentage of the nation’s economic output than at any time since World War II. But by the same measure, Washington’s revenues are the lowest in more than 60 years. …
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Does the U.S. ‘Look a Lot Like Greece’?

Sen. Mitch McConnell strained the facts when he claimed that "[w]e look a lot like Greece already." The public debt of Greece is double that of the U.S. in relation to the size of each nation's economy McConnell made his comment in a July 6 news conference held prior to …
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Pelosi’s True Spin

Nancy Pelosi accurately — but misleadingly — said more private jobs were created last year than under Bush. Her statement was true. But it's also true that there were still 2,065,000 fewer private jobs in May than there were when Obama took office At last year's pace of job creation, …
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Deficit Arithmetic: Cut Everything 34% Now?

Without an increase in the debt ceiling, could Washington avoid default simply by cutting spending? That's what two leading Republicans, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sen. Jim DeMint, urged over the weekend. What they didn't say is that this would require instant cuts of at least 34 percent in everything but …
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Huntsman’s $1 Trillion Mistake

Jon Huntsman was off by $1 trillion or more when he claimed that Social Security, Medicare and interest payments would consume "every dollar of federal revenue" within 10 years. A spokesman says Huntsman meant to include Medicaid in that list, but even that wouldn't make the claim accurate. In his …
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GOP New Hampshire Debate

In the first New Hampshire debate among 2012 presidential hopefuls, we found a number of incorrect, misleading or shaky factual claims. Pawlenty was wrong when he boasted that he was …
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Secret Service Tattletales?

Q: Does a recent book quote Secret Service agents saying denigrating things about Obama and other recent Democratic presidents while praising only Republicans? A: No. The book's author, Ronald Kessler, states that a viral e-mail's descriptions of Obama and Clinton "are completely wrong." His book quotes both flattering and unflattering …
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Palin’s Twist on Paul Revere

Sarah Palin's much-ridiculed story of Paul Revere isn't entirely wrong, but it's badly twisted. Revere didn't ring bells or fire shots, and he was riding to warn two fellow rebels that the British were coming to arrest them, not to warn the British "that they weren't going to be taking …
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