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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Barrasso’s Subsidy Speculation

July 22, 2011

Sen. John Barrasso engaged in wild speculation in claiming that lower-income subsidies will cost $900 billion a year under the federal health care law. He assumes that all employer-based insurance in the United States will disappear.
In an op-ed for Roll Call, the Wyoming Republican and orthopedic surgeon said that "incentives in the health care law will encourage businesses to drop insurance coverage," adding that those employees will join state-based exchanges, increasing the cost of subsidies:

Barrasso,

Pawlenty Not ‘Ashamed’ Now

July 22, 2011

Tim Pawlenty's repeated claim that he "won" Minnesota's 2005 government shutdown is inconsistent with his view at the time. Shortly after the state budget crisis had been resolved, Pawlenty — then governor of Minnesota — said that "anybody who tries to spin this as a partisan victory should be ashamed of himself."
Pawlenty, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has boasted he "won" the 2005 shutdown in two TV ads — most recently in "The American Comeback,"

Did Obama ‘Enact’ DREAM Act?

July 20, 2011

Q: Did President Obama “enact” the DREAM Act by executive order to give “amnesty” to 20 million illegal immigrants?
A: No. But the administration in 2011 adopted a policy of giving “particular care” before deporting students, military veterans and others deemed to be low risk. In 2011, it issued a new policy to allow certain illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to apply for two-year work permits.

FactCheck Mailbag, Week of July 12-18

July 19, 2011

This week, readers sent us compliments and comments about our fact-check of Washington's fiscal mess.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.

Did Lugar ‘Bail Out’ NYC?

July 18, 2011

Club for Growth exaggerates when it claims Sen. Richard Lugar voted to bail out New York City "back in the 1970s" at a cost of $9.4 billion. Lugar was mayor of Indianapolis when Congress passed the famous 1975 New York City bailout. He did vote for a 1978 bill that provided the city with $1.65 billion in federal loan guarantees — but it cost federal taxpayers $0.
The main point of the ad is also exaggerated.

Fiscal FactCheck

July 15, 2011

Washington’s spending has recently been higher as a percentage of the nation’s economic output than at any time since World War II. But by the same measure, Washington’s revenues are the lowest in more than 60 years. …

Ron Paul Ad Invokes Reagan, Imprecisely

July 15, 2011

Ron Paul wrongly suggests Ronald Reagan reluctantly agreed to a "debt ceiling compromise" in 1987. There was no disagreement over raising the debt ceiling. In fact, Reagan said he had "no objection whatsoever" to raising the debt ceiling. Reagan opposed the main provision of the legislation that threatened to impose deep spending cuts, including to the military, if the president and Congress did not reduce the deficit by a certain amount.
Paul, the populist Texas congressman who is running for the Republican presidential nomination,

Crossroads Targets Dems for Budget Woes

July 14, 2011

The conservative group Crossroads GPS has launched a $7 million ad campaign targeting President Obama, five Democratic senators and 10 representatives. A lot of the content in the ads …