Rep. Michele Bachmann claims that “vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens” will all “pay more” under the federal health care law and get “less” in return.
Bachmann’s Killer Health Care Claims
‘Record Revenues’
Republicans claim the federal government will “collect more revenue in 2013 than ever before.” But that’s only true in raw dollars, not as a percentage of gross domestic product, which accounts for growth in population, inflation and earnings.
Guns Acquired Without Background Checks
After the December mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., several Democrats advocating for stricter gun-control laws — including a law requiring universal background checks for gun purchases — took to using this talking point to support their case. …
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of March 12-18
This week, readers sent us letters about federal revenues and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s statement on making Barack Obama a “one-term president.”
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the email we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Ted’s Twisted History
In Sen. Ted Cruz’s twisted vision of economic history, Ronald Reagan cured double-digit unemployment by cutting spending and reducing the federal debt, and Jimmy Carter was guilty of “out-of-control regulation.”
In the real world:
Total federal spending soared during Reagan’s deficit-plagued first term, and the national debt nearly doubled. His budget director later resigned and wrote a book criticizing Reagan’s failure to cut spending.
And Carter signed landmark bills freeing airline, railroad and trucking rates from federal regulation,
Cruz, Paul: A Menagerie of Misinformation
Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul got laughs at the federal government’s expense at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, but the facts don’t jibe with the jokes.
Cruz accused the EPA of “trying to use a lizard to shut down oil and gas production” in West Texas to set up a one-liner about lizard boots. But the jab — an old campaign joke — no longer has any basis in fact. The federal government decided against listing the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard as “endangered”
Palin’s Constitutional Stretch
At the Conservative Political Action Conference, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said that the Senate was “in violation of Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of our U.S. Constitution” by failing to “pass a budget.” She’s referring to a budget resolution. But that constitutional clause doesn’t mention a budget or a budget resolution, which was not required of the Senate until the 1974 Congressional Budget Act. The responses to Palin’s interpretation from constitutional scholars ranged from “completely invalid” to “kind of a stretch.”
March 15: Federal Debt, Health Care Taxes, Defense Cuts
March 8: Sequester, Aid to Israel, Affordable Care Act
Charting Ryan’s Debt Exaggeration
Rep. Paul Ryan exaggerates future growth of the federal debt in a chart contained in his newly released budget plan.
The chart relies on Congressional Budget Office projections from last year that do not account for actions taken since then to reduce federal deficits by nearly $2 trillion over 10 years. The chart also projects debt levels out to 2060, although CBO warns that such long-term projections are “highly uncertain.”
Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee,