Jeb Bush has said repeatedly that the National Rifle Association named him a “statesman of the year,” and that Charlton Heston gave him an award, or a rifle, about 10 years ago. His campaign now says he was mistaken on both counts.
Hillary Clinton claimed that private insurance premiums have “gone up so much” in some states that didn’t expand Medicaid because hospitals shifted their costs for providing emergency care for the uninsured. But we have found no data to support that claim, and the idea that such cost shifting occurs is debated.
Several Republicans have claimed that business deaths outnumber business births in the U.S. That was accurate for individual firms for 2009 to 2011, but no longer.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says he would use the Department of Education to monitor “extreme political bias” on college campuses, but the example he has cited isn’t as clear-cut as Carson suggests.
Jeb Bush said President Obama promised to lower health insurance premiums. Actually, the president promised to cut the rate of growth in premiums.
Sen. Bernie Sanders repeats a Democratic talking point in saying that Social Security hasn’t contributed “one penny” — or “one nickel” — to the deficit. In fact, it contributed $73 billion to the deficit in 2014.
President Barack Obama says “states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths.” Carly Fiorina says those states have “the highest gun crime rates.” But both imply a causation that’s impossible to prove.
Republican presidential candidates Ben Carson and Scott Walker, who oppose President Obama’s plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees, stretched the facts to support their policy position.
Sen. Bernie Sanders says firefighters, police officers, nurses and truck drivers all pay higher effective tax rates than hedge fund managers. That’s accurate for some in those occupations, but it’s not the case across the board.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz continued a years-long effort by Democrats to link Republicans to the idea of “privatizing” Social Security.