This edition of Groundhog Friday, an occasional wrap-up of recent repeats, includes claims from the presidential candidates about Libya, income inequality, nuclear weapons and more.
Trump, Sanders and Clinton Repeats
Stories by Lori Robertson
Director, FactCheck.org
Trump’s Tax Returns
Donald Trump said “there’s nothing to learn” from his tax returns, but experts say there’s plenty to learn from presidential candidates’ tax returns, including sources of income, effective tax rates, charitable giving habits and more.
Sanders’ False Income Claim
Sen. Bernie Sanders falsely claimed that “Mom is working, Dad is working, and the kids are working, and yet together they’re bringing in less disposable income today than a family did with one breadwinner 40 years ago.”
Trump’s Cherry-Picked ACA Rates
Republican front-runner Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, for months, that premiums under the Affordable Care Act are “going up 35, 45, 55 percent.” Trump cherry-picks insurers’ rate increases on the ACA marketplaces.
Clinton’s Vermont Gun Stat
Hillary Clinton claimed that Vermont was the source of the “highest per capita” number of guns that come from out of state and were “used in crimes and violence and killings in New York.” As we are fond of saying, one statistic rarely tells the entire story.
U.S. Foreign Military Support
Republican Donald Trump criticized U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany and South Korea, saying “we can’t afford it.” We’ll answer the question: What exactly does the U.S. provide in terms of military support to these countries?
Trump’s False Accusation
Donald Trump has accused Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign of buying the rights to a racy photo of Trump’s wife, Melania, and giving the photo to a super PAC that used it in an ad. But the photographer who took the photo told us no one contacted him to buy the rights.
Cruz Wrong on San Bernardino Shooter
Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that the woman involved in the San Bernardino, California, shooting had “publicly posted on social media calls to jihad.” There were no such public messages, according to the director of the FBI.
Clinton on Sanders’ Health Care History
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said, “I don’t know where [Bernie Sanders] was when I was trying to get health care in ’93 and ’94.” Sanders cosponsored a single-payer health insurance bill in 1993, and Clinton thanked him for his work on the issue that year.
Sanders’ Corporate Tax Comparison
Sen. Bernie Sanders frequently says corporate income tax receipts have dropped from more than 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to only 11 percent in 2015, leaving the impression that favorable tax policies are the reason. But there are several factors behind that drop.