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Another Bogus ‘New Taxes’ Claim

Another Bogus ‘New Taxes’ Claim
February 14, 2012

It didn’t take long after President Obama released his latest budget for the oil lobby to pick up the misleading cry that it’s being targeted for “new taxes.” That’s mostly not true. Energy Tomorrow, a project of the American Petroleum Institute, ran a print ad in Washington, D.C.’s Politico Feb. 14 asking, “Guess who’ll pay for new energy taxes?”
The problem with that rhetorical question is that most of the “new taxes” are actually a proposed end to some old tax breaks —

FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Feb. 7-13

February 14, 2012

This week, readers sent us compliments about our fact-checking and some criticism for using “loaded” words.
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.

Hoekstra’s Baseless Jobs Claim

Hoekstra’s Baseless Jobs Claim
February 10, 2012

Pete Hoekstra, a former Michigan congressman running for Senate, falsely claims in a TV ad that President Obama’s stimulus “lost 2.6 million more jobs.” Since the stimulus became law on Feb. 17, 2009, the U.S. has lost about 428,000 jobs, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says job losses would have been more severe during the recession without the stimulus.
Hoekstra left Congress in 2011 after running unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2010. Now, he hopes to capture the Republican nomination for Senate and run against Democratic Sen.

What’s the ‘Real’ Jobless Rate?

What’s the ‘Real’ Jobless Rate?
February 10, 2012

As the Obama administration basked in the news that the unemployment rate in January dipped to a three-year low of 8.3 percent, Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich threw a wet blanket on the announcement. Romney said the “real unemployment rate” was actually 15 percent, and Gingrich said that when you include people who have simply given up on trying to find a job, the rate “jumps up to about 12 percent.”
Is the unemployment rate not the real unemployment rate?

Chamber Misuses Report, Misleads Voters

Chamber Misuses Report, Misleads Voters
February 10, 2012

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims in a TV ad that the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment “could top 9 percent in 2013.” Maybe so, if Congress doesn’t change current law — specifically if it fails to extend tax cuts, fails to patch the Alternative Minimum Tax that threatens to raise taxes on more than 31 million Americans, and also allows big spending cuts to take effect. But CBO also said that wasn’t a prediction of the future.

Wind Spin

Wind Spin
February 9, 2012

The wind-power lobby is spinning the facts in a $1.4-million TV ad campaign aimed at extending a lucrative tax break worth billions to the industry. Its ads claim that Congress is “threatening new taxes” targeting wind power, which isn’t true. No “new taxes” are envisioned. Instead, Congress is …

FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Jan. 31-Feb. 6

February 9, 2012

This week, readers sent us comments about our latest article on the compensation of federal workers and their private-sector counterparts.
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.

Is Santorum the Biggest (Senate) Loser?

Is Santorum the Biggest (Senate) Loser?
February 8, 2012

Entrepreneur Donald Trump dismissed the surging candidacy of Rick Santorum by claiming that Santorum lost his Senate seat in 2006 by a wider margin than any incumbent senator in history. He’s wrong.
In fact, there have been two dozen incumbent senators who have taken worse beatings than Santorum did in 2006. Trump need only have checked back as far as the 2010 midterm elections — when Democrat Blanche Lincoln lost her Arkansas seat — to find an incumbent senator who lost by a bigger margin than Santorum did.

Gingrich’s Inflated Gasoline Claim

Gingrich’s Inflated Gasoline Claim
February 7, 2012

Newt Gingrich exaggerates when he says the Environmental Protection Agency has a proposal “that would raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon.” Gingrich’s cost estimate comes from an oil industry study of “clean gasoline” recommendations made by U.S. automakers. The EPA has yet to issue a proposal, and a top agency official says the oil industry study is based on proposals more stringent than those being considered by the EPA.
In addition, there are competing studies that show the possible EPA rule changes would have far less of an effect at the gasoline pump.