Q: Does the health care law contain a “hidden” tax on hunting and fishing equipment?
A: No. There is a 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices. Cabela’s, a Nebraska sporting goods company, applied the tax to some of its customers’ purchases by mistake.
We’ve been batting down bogus claims about the Affordable Care Act for years, since 2009, when legislation was still in the debate stage. But they’ve been increasing in intensity in recent months as we approach Oct. 1, the date the insurance exchanges will be open for business.
Democrat Terry McAuliffe uses the reluctance of his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, to name the tax exemptions and loopholes he would eliminate to offset his proposed tax cuts as the basis for misleading, doomsday claims about Cuccinelli’s tax plan.
Sen. Jim Inhofe badly misquoted Gen. Martin E. Dempsey when he claimed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the current state of the U.S. military as “so degraded and unready, it would be immoral to use force.”
Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s latest ad says Republican Ken Cuccinelli “twists the facts” by saying McAuliffe made millions from a company that went bankrupt, leaving thousands of workers unemployed and with worthless pension funds.
Secretary of State John Kerry says both he and Chuck Hagel, now the secretary of defense, “opposed the president’s decision to go into Iraq” as senators. But both voted to give President Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq.
This week, readers sent us letters about “special” subsidies for Congress and “forced” home inspections.
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.
A year ago, President Obama declared that the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad would cross a “red line for us” and might trigger a U.S. military response.