Americans United for Change is a liberal group whose message closely mirrors that of the Obama White House.
Year: 2011
Las Vegas Smackdown
Republican candidates hammered each other for two hours in a lively Nevada confrontation — and often strayed from the facts.
Cain denied that his tax plan would boost taxes for 84 percent of Americans, or fall heavily on those with lower incomes. A new study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says just that.
Santorum and Bachmann denounced Cain’s 9 percent “business flat tax” as a European-style “value-added” tax, which Cain also denied. The TPC study agrees with Santorum and Bachmann.
Obama’s Spin on Jobs Bill
President Obama exaggerates when he claims “independent economists” say his jobs bill “would create nearly 2 million jobs.” The median estimate in a survey of 34 economists showed 288,000 jobs could be saved or created over two years under the president’s plan.
Obama also claimed one economist said the Republican jobs plan “could actually cost us jobs.” That economist said he did not have enough information to provide a jobs estimate, although he added that focusing on cutting spending “could be harmful in the short run.”
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Oct. 11-17
This week, readers sent us comments about Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan and deficit spending in the United States.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Ohio Group Won’t Take ‘No’ for Answer
A pro-business group in Ohio committed an audacious misappropriation of an elderly woman’s emotional opposition to the state’s new collective bargaining law. The group’s TV ad uses her story of how firefighters saved her great granddaughter’s life to make it appear she supports the law that she actually wants repealed. The dishonest editing caused a number of Ohio TV stations to stop running the ad on advice of their attorneys.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican,
Just the Fracking Facts
Rick Perry said he would “create another 250,000 jobs by getting the EPA out of the way” of natural gas drilling. But the EPA isn’t currently in the way: The very study on which Perry relies assumes that all of those jobs will result if current regulations are not changed.
In a speech at a steel plant in Pittsburgh on Oct. 14, the Texas governor outlined a sweeping plan to create over a million jobs by increasing American energy production.
Oct. 14: 9-9-9, ‘Death Panels,’ Texas Air Quality
Cain’s ‘Fiscal Hocus Pocus’
A former chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation calls Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan “a terrific example of fiscal hocus pocus” that would have the effect of “drastically increasing taxes on the working poor and middle class.” Edward Kleinbard, now a professor of law at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, published a research paper through the university on Oct. 12. It is so far the most detailed look at the 9-9-9 plan by any independent tax expert,
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Oct. 4-10
This week, readers chided us for not reviewing “all of the facts” about teachers’ tax burden and for using “questionable sources.”
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Tales From New Hampshire
Our research has turned up some more dubious and misleading claims from the economic debate among Republican candidates in Hanover, N.H. Cain claims his 9-9-9 proposal to overhaul the tax code is “simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral.” But his campaign …