Rivals Split, With Joe in the Middle

Debate sees an aggressive McCain and a cool Obama



FactChecking Debate No. 3

FactChecking Debate No. 3
October 16, 2008
Sorting out fact and fiction in the presidential candidates' final debate.
Summary
Spin and hype were apparent, once again, at the third and final debate between McCain and Obama:

* McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: “[T]his scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.” He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.

* McCain said “Joe the plumber” faced “much higher taxes” under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.

* Obama repeated a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.

* McCain claimed that Obama’s real “object” is a government-run, single-payer health insurance system like those in Canada or England. The McCain campaign points to a quote from five years ago, when Obama told a labor gathering that he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program.” But Obama has since qualified his enthusiasm for Canadian-style health care, and his current proposal is nothing like that.

* Obama incorrectly claimed all of McCain’s ads had been “negative.” That was true for one recent week, but not over the entire campaign. And at times Obama has run a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain.

* McCain described Colombia as the "largest agricultural importer of our products." Actually, Canada imports the most U.S. farm products, and Colombia is far down the list.

* Obama strained to portray himself as willing to break ranks with fellow Democrats. His prime example was his vote for a bill that was supported by 18 Democrats and opposed by 26. Congressional Quarterly rates him as voting with his party 97 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator.

For details on these and other misleading claims, please read on to the Analysis section.
Analysis
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama met for their final debate Oct. 15. The face-to-face was held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., and was moderated by CBS News' Bob Schieffer.

ACORN and Vote Fraud

McCain made some dire claims about a liberal group he said was out to steal the election:

McCain: We need to know the full extent of Sen. Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.

It's true that the voter registration wing of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has run into trouble in several states. ACORN employees have been investigated and in some cases indicted for voter registration fraud. Most recently, more than 2,000 registrations in Lake County, Ind., have turned out to be falsified.

But does this constitute "destroying the fabric of democracy"? More like destroying the fabric of work ethic. There's been no evidence that the ACORN employees who submitted fraudulent forms have been paving the way for illegal voting. Rather, they're trying to get paid for doing no work.

Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., where the first ACORN case was prosecuted, said:

Satterberg: [A] joint federal and state investigation has determined that this
scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.

Instead, the defendants cheated their employer. ... It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. ...

[It] appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.

The $8-an-hour employees were charged with providing false information on a voter registration, and in one case with making a false statement to a public official. ACORN was fined for showing insufficient oversight, but it was not charged with masterminding any kind of fraud.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Obama wasn't entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN:

Obama: The only involvement I've had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The Woods Fund, where Obama served as a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the course. ACORN's Chicago office and CSI have not been under investigation.

For more on investigations of ACORN and registration fraud, and Obama's involvement with the group, keep an eye on our home page. A longer article on ACORN is in the works.
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Joe the Plumber

Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher got a lot of airtime.

McCain first mentioned Joe by saying:

McCain: Joe wants to buy the business that he has been in for all of these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes.

Joe’s newfound fame stems from an impromptu encounter Oct. 12, during which Wurzelbacher questioned Obama’s tax plans. Joe has since become a conservative folk hero after telling both Fox News and the conservative Web site Family Security Matters that he thought Obama’s plans sounded “socialist.”

At their encounter, Wurzelbacher told Obama that “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year,” before asking whether or not Obama would raise his taxes.

If the company is actually that profitable, and depending on how the business is organized legally, Obama’s plan would indeed raise his federal income taxes, and Obama conceded as much during the exchange. As we’ve written before, small businesses commonly are organized in such a way that their owners file business taxes as individuals. So if Joe’s plumbing business earns more than $200,000 per year (or $250,000 if Joe is married and files tax returns jointly) then his taxes would indeed be higher under Obama's plan than under McCain's.

It’s worth noting that while Wurzelbacher told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that he lives “in a simple, middle class home” and portrayed himself as an ordinary working guy, Wurzelbacher’s $250,000 to $280,000 is a bit higher than "ordinary." In 2007, the last year for which the Census Bureau has figures, the median income for a family in Toledo, Ohio, was $43,553.

But Joe the Plumber wasn’t through yet. He made an encore appearance when McCain recycled a bogus claim that Obama would "fine" small business owners who fail to provide health care coverage for their workers:

McCain: Now, my old buddy, Joe, Joe the plumber, is out there. Now, Joe, Sen. Obama's plan, if you're a small business and . . . you've got employees, and you've got kids, if you don't get – adopt the health care plan that Sen. Obama mandates, he's going to fine you . . . I don't think that Joe right now wants to pay a fine when he is seeing such difficult times in America's economy.

McCain raised a similar charge at the last debate. It's still false. Obama’s plan, which is posted on his Web site, specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.”

Obama hasn't defined exactly what he means by "small" but he seems to think Joe would qualify; he repeatedly referred to Joe’s “small business” during their exchange.

Obama's health plan does mandate that children have health coverage. If Joe doesn't provide insurance for his kids, he would face some unspecified penalty.

Health Care Hype

Obama and McCain traded boasts and accusations on each other’s health carebob plan. They ran afoul of the facts a few times.

Obama: And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year.

The Obama camp does estimate that. But experts we talked to found that optimistic figure hard to believe.

Then, McCain said:

McCain: Sen. Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through — as he said, his object is a single payer system. If you like that, you'll love Canada and England.

Obama’s plan is not a single-payer system, which would be one in which everyone has health care provided and paid for by the government. Under Obama’s health care plan, Americans can keep the insurance they have, choose from federally-approved private plans or buy into a new public plan similar to the health care federal employees and members of Congress have.

McCain was referring to comments Obama made at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque in August. But Obama did not say that "his object is a single payer system." He said it would "probably" be his first choice "if" he were starting with a clean slate, which he isn't. He said his object is to "build up the system we got." According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama said:

Obama (as quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19): If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system. ... [M]y attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may be over time — as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered — decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively.

Back in 2003, Obama was much more explicit. At an AFL-CIO forum, he said he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program,” adding, “that’s what I’d like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.”

That was five years ago, however, and recently, Obama has said he’d favor single-payer only if “starting from scratch.” He told The New Yorker in May 2007: “If you're starting from scratch, then a single-payer system ... would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition ... would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive.”

Obama exaggerated a weakness in McCain's health care plan:

Obama: Now, under Sen. McCain's plan there is a strong risk that people would lose their employer-based health care.

Experts see a risk that some would lose their employer-based care, but Obama’s reference to "people" makes it sound as though nearly everyone would. Two independent studies both found that McCain’s plan would lead to a net decline in the number of people with health care through their jobs. (They said Obama’s would result in a net increase.) Both reports show, however, that there’s not a “strong risk” for all, or even a majority, of workers to lose their health care.

Currently, 159 million Americans have health care through their jobs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. A study by the Lewin Group shows a net decline in the number with job-provided benefits of 9.4 million people in 2010 for McCain's plan. The Tax Policy Center projected that the net decrease would be 7.7 million in 2010 and 20.3 million people by 2018.

McCain and Obama both said much more that may have confused viewers. For a spin-free look at both of the candidates’ health care plans, see our recent article on this issue.

100% Negative?

Obama falsely claimed all of McCain's ads had been "negative."

Obama: And 100 percent, John, of your ads – 100 percent of them have been negative.
McCain: It's not true.
Obama: It absolutely is true.

It was almost true, for one recent week. Obama was referring to a report by the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin that concluded that “nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative” during the week of Sept. 28 through Oct. 4. During the same week, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative. The Obama campaign was found to have outspent the McCain campaign in nearly all of the competitive states, in some cases by a margin of more than 3-to-1.

McCain’s ads, however, have not been deemed 100 percent negative in other weeks. In fact, in the week after the Republican National Convention, 77 percent of Obama’s ads were negative, according to the advertising project, while 56 percent of McCain’s were negative.

Wrong on Exports to Colombia

McCain was way off when he said that Colombia is "our largest agricultural importer of our products." To be sure, Colombia is an important trade partner. According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture, Colombia imported slightly more than $1.4 million worth of U.S. agricultural products in 2007. But that's not even close to the nearly $1.9 billion worth of agricultural products exported to Canada. And there are dozens of other countries that import more U.S. farm products than Colombia does.

Obama No Maverick

Obama exaggerated his willingness to defy his own party. When McCain asked for an example, Obama offered this:

Obama: First of all, in terms of standing up to the leaders of my party, the first major bill that I voted on in the Senate was in support of tort reform, which wasn't very popular with trial lawyers, a major constituency in the Democratic Party.

obamaThat 2005 bill was S.5, which dealt with class-action lawsuits. Obama was one of 18 Democrats voting for it, while 26 opposed. It's a stretch for Obama to claim that he bolted his party when nearly 41 percent of Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

And as we pointed out before, Obama has a pretty consistent record of voting in stride with his party. According to Congressional Quarterly, in Obama's three years in the Senate, he has voted with his party almost 97 percent of the time.



Budget Ballyhoo

Both candidates got ahead of themselves when it came to balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit. Obama said every one of his spending increases was paid for.

Obama: Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut. ... Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

McCain said he could balance the budget within one term.

Schieffer: Do either of you think you can balance the budget in four years? You have said previously you thought you could, Sen. McCain.
McCain: Sure I do. And let me tell you...
Schieffer: You can still do that?
McCain: Yes.

These are pie-in-the-sky predictions. We've looked at McCain's balanced-budget promise before – it's out of reach unless he cuts spending to an unrealistic degree. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates that by 2013, at the end of his first term, McCain's tax plan would have him facing a $662 billion deficit. That could come to more than half of that year's discretionary spending, which the Office of Management and Budget projects to be $1.1 trillion. And we've previously disputed Obama's claim that "every dime" of his proposed spending is covered. The Tax Policy Center estimated that Obama’s plan – and McCain's, too – "would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years" unless the candidates come up with "substantial cuts in government spending" that they haven't yet specified. More recently, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget also estimated that in 2013, Obama’s major budget proposals – including spending cuts – would increase the deficit for that year by $281 billion.

The $42,000, Again.

McCain was on the wrong side of this exchange:

McCain: Sen. Obama talks about voting for budgets. He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year. . . .

Obama: [T]he notion that I voted for a tax increase for people making $42,000 a year has been disputed by everybody who has looked at this claim.

McCain was wrong to say Obama's March 2008 vote for a budget resolution "increases" anything. Budget resolutions set targets for taxes and spending; actually raising or lowering them requires separate legislation.

mccain The $42,000 figure also would only apply to single taxpayers, not to couples or families. As we’ve reported, a single taxpayer making more than $41,500 would have seen a tax increase, but a couple filing jointly would have seen no increase unless they made at least $83,000, and for a couple with two children the cut-off would have been $90,000. Regardless, the increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his own current tax plan. And Obama was right when he said "even FOX News disputes" McCain's $42,000 claim. Chris Wallace of Fox News agreed that it was misleading.

Wrong Justice

McCain said that Obama voted against the confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and John Roberts:

McCain: Senator Obama voted against Justice Breyer and Justice Roberts on the grounds that they didn't meet his ideological standards.

McCain probably meant to say that Obama voted against the confirmations of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the most recent additions to the court. Obama did vote against the confirmation of Roberts, but he wasn’t in the Senate when Breyer was nominated to join the Court. Breyer was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1994. Obama didn’t become a senator until January 2005.

Charter School Slip-Up

Obama overstated his work on charter schools in Illinois:

Obama: Charter schools, I doubled the number of charter schools in Illinois despite some reservations from teachers unions.

Actually, the bill Obama cosponsored doubled the number of charter schools in Chicago, not in the entire state of Illinois. (And an extra slap on the wrist to Obama for using the personal pronoun in saying that "I doubled the number of charter schools" – as we've pointed out before, it takes a lot more than one politician to get a bill passed.)

Tried But Untrue

And we noted that both candidates continued to recycle bunk that we've heard before:

* McCain said once again, "We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." As we've noted several times in the past, $700 billion would have been the cost of all annual U.S. oil imports when the price was $140 per barrel. But it's down to about half that now.

* Obama said oil companies have "68 million acres that they currently have leased that they're not drilling." We've previously criticized him for similar statements, and it's still not true. As we've pointed out, there is exploratory drilling being done on much of these lands, which are not yet producing oil. In 2007 there were more than 15,000 holes that were being proposed, started or finished that do not count as "productive" holes.

* Listing some of his running mate's achievements, McCain credited Gov. Sarah Palin with “a $40 billion pipeline of natural gas that's going to relieve the energy needs" of the lower 48 states. We'll just note, again, that the pipeline is still in pre-development and is actually projected to cost $26.5 billion.

Sea Story

Finally, the ears of nautical buffs may have perked up when McCain said, “we've sailed Navy ships around the world for 60 years with nuclear power plants on them.” His naval history is off by a few years. The first nuclear-powered vessel, the submarine USS Nautilus, was actually launched Jan. 21, 1954.

–by Jessica Henig, Joe Miller, Lori Robertson, Justin Bank, D'Angelo Gore, Emi Kolawole and Brooks Jackson
Sources
Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007.

Burman, Leonard E., et.al. "An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans: Updated September 12, 2008." Tax Policy Center, 12 Sept. 2008.

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election." U.S. Budget Watch. 15 Sep. 2008.

Satterberg, Dan. "Statement of Interim King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg." 26 Jul. 2007.

U.S. Census Bureau. "Toledo City, Ohio Factsheet." U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2006, accessed 16 Oct. 2008.

ACORN Responds to Senator McCain’s Desperate Attack. 15 Oct. 2008

Griffin, Drew and Kathleen Johnston . “Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say.” 10 Oct. 2008

Robinson, Mike. Obama got start in civil rights practice. Associated Press, 20 Feb. 2007

Tapper, Jake. Spread the Wealth. ABC New Political Punch Blog. 14 Oct. 2008

Brown, David M. “Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 22 Aug. 2008

CQ member Profiles: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill). Congressional Quarterly, 12 June 2008.

Rabinowitz, Steve. “Pres. TV advertising spending continues to grow;
Over $28 million spent from September 28-October 4.” Wisconsin Ad Project. 8 Oct. 2008

Kurtz, Howard. “Recent Obama Ads More Negative Than Rival's, Study Says: Democrat Said to Be Facing Pressure to 'Show Some Spine.'” Washington Post, 18 Sept. 2008

OECD Tax Database. Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.

Hodge, Scott. U.S. States Lead the World in High Corporate Taxes. Tax Foundation, 18 March 2008
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I listened to the speech in its entirety. The phrase "you can put lipstick on a pig" is a reference to whether, or not, McCain truly seeks change (whatever that may be). McCain claims to seek change in government dealings and actions, yet voted within 90% of Bush Administration policy. If McCain's rhetoric is true, and he intends to induce change, it will be a facsimile of change. In other words, McCain will try to dress up a pig "Bush policy," by enforcing certain changes; despite his agreement with 90% of these policies. I suppose the 10% is analogous to the "lipstick." Whether, or not, you accept Obama's argument is one thing. To accuse Obama of slandering Gov. Palin is another.

Why the hell is this an issue? First people wonder how many houses McCain owns (which is eight, officially). Now they accuse Obama of calling Gov. Palin a pig.

Even IF Obama slandered Palin, so what? Didn't McCain do the same thing?

The following are two articles posted on www.factcheck.org. They are analysis of the acceptance speeches by both McCain and Obama at their respective conventions.

FactChecking McCain

September 5, 2008

He made some flubs in accepting the nomination.

Summary

We checked the accuracy of McCain’s speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following:

• McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.
  
  
• McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.
  
  
• McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
  
  
• He promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.
  
  
• He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.
  
  
• He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.
  

Analysis

Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sept. 4 was couched more in generalities than in specifics, offering fewer factual claims to check than we found in other speeches to the gathering. But we found some instances where the nominee strained the truth.

Insurance Claims

McCain mischaracterized Obama’s health care plan:

McCain: His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

The claim that “small businesses” would have to “cut jobs, reduce wages,” runs counter to Obama’s actual proposal. Obama’s plan would require businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. But his proposal specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.” And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. We’ll note that neither man has defined what exactly a “small business” is.

Furthermore, Obama’s plan wouldn’t “force” families into a “government-run health care system.” His plan mandates that children have coverage; there’s no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance – and McCain’s doesn’t – but it’s not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. And if Obama's public plan turns out to be similar to what federal employees have, as he says it would be, we're not sure how "a bureaucrat" would stand "between you and your doctor." The possible exception would be persons covered by Medicaid or SCHIP.

McCain also made this boast:

McCain: My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance.

Fair enough. But McCain's plan wouldn't do nearly as well as Obama's. One comparison, by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, finds Obama’s would reduce the uninsured by 18 million people in its first year, compared with a 1 million reduction under McCain’s plan. TPC made various assumptions about the plans to fill in details each proposal lacks, so those numbers aren’t definitive. We await more comparisons from other experts.

Oily Words

McCain attacked Obama for supporting "corporate welfare" for oil companies:

McCain: [I]nstead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies.

The bill McCain is talking about here is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry a little bit overall – by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, McCain himself proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies – oil included – and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, on the other hand, is promising that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined.

It's true that Obama voted for the 2005 bill. He said he favored the $5.8 billion (over 11 years) that it contained in tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading.

More Oily Words

We found other exaggerations in McCain’s claims about his plan for energy independence:

McCain: We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much.

In fact, the U.S. doesn't pay nearly that much for oil from hostile nations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported 4.9 billion barrels of oil in 2007. At today’s prices, that works out to about $536 billion, still a hefty chunk of change, but considerably less than $700 billion. More important, that's what we pay to all exporting nations, not just those that “don’t like us very much.” We note that 32 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Just Wind

McCain also made sweeping claims about green energy that aren't actually backed up by his policy proposals:

McCain: We will attack the problem on every front. ...We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.

McCain has been quite specific about his proposals to clear the way for building 45 new nuclear power plants, opening offshore areas to oil drilling and spending $2 billion a year for so-called "clean coal" technology. He has also proposed a $300 million prize for developing the first practical plug-in electric car, although General Motors already is working on that and is aiming for delivery of the Chevrolet Volt by 2010, prize or no prize. McCain has also proposed a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who purchase zero emission vehicles

But when it comes to power from wind and tide, McCain's words are blowing in the breeze. His energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, proposes no new spending for renewable energy programs. Instead, he proposes to "rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits," but hasn't said what he means by that. As we’ve written before, spokespeople for the wind and solar industries are unsure what this actually means. Finally, we’ll note that McCain himself told supporters at a July town hall meeting that he doesn’t think that renewable energy is likely to be "as much of the solution as some people think." Perhaps not, but if McCain is right his own words are contributing to the public misperception.

Pig in a Poke

McCain repeated his vague promise to make spending cuts:

McCain: Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit.

McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?

A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.

Trade Talk

McCain said, “I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them."

McCain may be alluding to Obama’s threat earlier this year to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico and Canada won't open the deal to renegotiation. Obama said at a Democratic primary debate in Cleveland in February:

Obama, Feb. 26: I will make sure that we renegotiate. … I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.

But that's far from a threat to "close" markets to U.S. exports.

An expert from a pro-trade group agrees. “It's a stretch to take the heated comment from the Cleveland debate to pull out of NAFTA if it wasn't revised as indicative of a protectionist policy,” Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told FactCheck.org. “In any event, the position on NAFTA has since been clarified."

In fact, Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn’t plan on pulling out of NAFTA. "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he said.

It's true that McCain has been a stronger advocate of free trade agreements than Obama, who supported the trade deal with Oman in 2006 and one with Peru in 2007 but opposed the one with Central America and another with Colombia. But saying he would "close" markets is nonsense.

Planet Plans

Finally, we note that McCain and the Republican delegates applied a different standard to the Republican nominee's lofty rhetoric than they did to Obama's.

McCain drew applause with this line:

McCain: We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.

The previous evening, however, McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words:

Palin, Sept. 3: What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?

That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restor[ing] the health of our planet," but it escapes us.

–by Brooks Jackson, with Viveca Novak, Lori Robertson, Joe Miller and Emi Kolawole

Sources

Obama, Barack. "Plan for a Healthy America." BarackObama.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.

Office of Management and Budget. "FY 2008 Appropriations Earmarks Summary," 28 January 2008.

Congressional Budget Office. "CBO's Baseline Budget Projections," March 2008.

Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007.

"The Lexington Project." JohnMcCain.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.

"U.S. Imports by Country of Origin." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.

"Spot Prices, Crude Oil in Dollars per Barrel." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008.

The New York Times. "Transcript, the Democratic Debate in Cleveland." 26 Feb. 2008.

Tapper, Jake. "Obama Knocks Clinton, but Wouldn't Ax NAFTA." ABC News, 24 Feb. 2008.

Easton, Nina. "Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all." Fortune Magazine, 18 June 2008.

Obama, Barack. "Why I Oppose CAFTA." Chicago Tribune, 30 June 2005.

Elliott, Philip. "Obama says rivals have failed." The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2007.

"Remarks for Sen. Barack Obama: AFL-CIO." 2 April 2008. www.barackobama.com, Web site accessed 5 Sept. 2008.

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FactChecking Obama

He stuck to the facts, except when he stretched them.







FactChecking Obama

August 29, 2008

He stuck to the facts, except when he stretched them.

Summary

We checked the accuracy of Obama's speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and noted the following:

• Obama said he could “pay for every dime” of his spending and tax cut proposals “by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens.” That’s wrong – his proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals are key components of paying for his program, as well. And his plan, like McCain’s, would leave the U.S. facing big budget deficits, according to independent experts.

• He twisted McCain’s words about Afghanistan, saying, “When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources.” Actually, McCain said in 2003 we “may” muddle through, and he recently also called for more troops there.
  
  
• He said McCain would fail to lower taxes for 100 million Americans while his own plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of “working” families. But an independent analysis puts the number who would see no benefit from McCain’s plan at 66 million and finds that Obama’s plan would benefit 81 percent of all households when retirees and those without children are figured in.

• Obama asked why McCain would "define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year"? Actually, McCain meant that comment as a joke, getting a laugh and following up by saying, "But seriously ..."

• Obama noted that McCain’s health care plan would "tax people’s benefits" but didn’t say that it also would provide up to a $5,000 tax credit for families.
  
  
• He said McCain, far from being a maverick who’s "broken with his party," has voted to support Bush policies 90 percent of the time. True enough, but by the same measure Obama has voted with fellow Democrats in the Senate 97 percent of the time.
  
  
• Obama said "average family income" went down $2,000 under Bush, which isn't correct. An aide said he was really talking only about "working" families and not retired couples. And – math teachers, please note – he meant median (or midpoint) and not really the mean or average. Median family income actually has inched up slightly under Bush.
  

Analysis

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination Aug. 28, speaking before more than 84,000 people in Denver's Mile High football stadium. Some of his comments were worthy of a ref's yellow flag.

Not Quite Every Dime

Obama reassured voters that he can pay for all his spending proposals:

Obama: Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime – by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow.

This is misleading. Even by his own campaign’s estimates, closing corporate loopholes and tax havens won’t pay for all of Obama’s new plans. In July, the campaign told the Los Angeles Times that they estimate the yearly cost of their proposed tax cuts at $130 billion. They put revenue from closing tax loopholes at just $80 billion. Obama also proposes to raise taxes to pre-Bush levels for families earning more than $250,000 a year and singles making more than $200,000, yielding additional revenue. But he didn't mention that in his speech.

But Obama’s claim is misleading on another level. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, "without substantial cuts in government spending" Obama’s plan – and McCain's, too – "would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years." Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor told FactCheck.org that the Tax Policy Center's analysis "fails to take in account Senator Obama's spending cuts, including ending the Iraq war." That's true, but Obama's proposed cuts are dwarfed by the Tax Policy Center's projected deficits. Obama’s new spending programs might be completely offset by new revenue and spending cuts. But overall spending will still exceed overall revenue, and the nation would face at least 10 more years of annual deficits.

Afghan Muddle

Obama twisted McCain's words about Afghanistan, incorrectly implying that McCain saw no need for more troops there.

Obama: When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11

Actually, McCain said in 2003 that the U.S. "may" muddle through, not that we could or would. He also said he was very concerned about a rise in al Qaeda activity there. He said then that he was "guardedly optimistic" that the government could handle it.

McCain, 2003: I think Afghanistan is dicey. I think that there are certain areas of the country, particularly along the Pakistani border, that are clearly not under the control of either Pakistan or the Afghan government. ... There has been a rise in al Qaeda activity along the border. There has been some increase in U.S. casualties. I am concerned about it, but I'm not as concerned as I am about Iraq today, obviously, or I'd be talking about Afghanistan. But I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that – in the long term, we may muddle through in Afghanistan.

So I'm guardedly optimistic, but I am also realistic that the central government in Kabul has very little effect on the policies and practices of the warlords who control the surrounding areas.

Recently, however, both candidates have called for an increased troop presence in Afghanistan. In July, Obama proposed sending two more combat brigades, drawn down from Iraq. McCain immediately followed this with a call for three more brigades, but later clarified that some of those troops would be NATO forces. A McCain spokeswoman said that the U.S. would "contribute" troops to the increase under McCain's plan.

Tax Spin

Obama said: “I will cut taxes ... for 95 percent of all working families.” And he said McCain proposes “not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans,” a claim his running mate, Joe Biden, made the night before.

Obama is right about his plan's effect on working families. More broadly, though, the plan cuts taxes for 81.3 percent of all households in 2009, according to the Tax Policy Center. The TPC also says McCain’s tax plan would leave 65.8 million households without a cut, not 100 million.

The TPC’s calculations factor in what's in effect a hidden tax on individuals that results from taxing corporations. McCain proposes to lower the corporate income tax rate, and Obama proposes billions of dollars in increased corporate taxes in the form of “loophole closings.” Individuals wouldn’t experience those changes as an increased tax bill from the government, but both the Congressional Budget Office and TPC allocate all corporate tax to owners of capital rather than to consumers. That means rather than flowing through to consumers in the form of higher prices or lower wages, corporate tax changes would show up as higher or lower returns on investments, which typically come in the form of corporate dividends, and profits or losses from stock sales.

Only by ignoring the hidden benefit to individuals can McCain’s plan be said to produce no cut for 100 million households. According to a calculation the TPC did at FactCheck's request, 101.9 million see no benefit if the effects of a corporate reduction are set aside.

For the record, Obama aides say the indirect effect on holders of capital won't be as large as TPC says. "We dispute TPC's methodology here," says Brian Deese of the Obama campaign. He says several of the "loophole closers" that Obama is proposing won't affect corporations or are on offshore activity that will not directly filter through.

We'd also note that retirees would fare quite a bit less well than working families under Obama's tax plan: The TPC estimates that 32 percent of households with a person over age 65 would see a tax increase.

Rich Humor

Obama used a clumsy attempt at humor by McCain as evidence of his supposed insensitivity to middle-class economic realities:

Obama: Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year?

What McCain actually said at the Saddleback Church forum on Aug. 16 was that he favors low taxes for all income levels. He drew a laugh, then said, "but seriously" as he struggled to make his point:

Pastor Rick Warren, Aug. 16: [G]ive me a number, give me a specific number - where do you move from middle class to rich?

McCain: I don't want to take any money from the rich – I want everybody to get rich. ... So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?

(LAUGHTER)

But seriously, I don't think you can - I don't think seriously that - the point is that I'm trying to make here, seriously – and I'm sure that comment will be distorted – but the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues.

Health Care Half Truths

Obama gave only half the story when he described a feature of McCain's health care plan:

Obama: How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people’s benefits...

McCain proposes to grant families up to a $5,000 tax credit to use for health benefits. The flip side of that proposal, which McCain seldom if ever mentions, is that the value of employer-sponsored benefits would also become taxable. Both candidates are trading in half-truths here; McCain talks only about the pleasurable side of his plan, while Obama's speech mentioned only the painful aspect. Neither gives a complete picture.

Party Hearties

Obama painted McCain as a Republican partisan who's supported the unpopular President Bush consistently:

Obama: And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need. But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.

It's true that McCain's voting support for Bush policies has averaged slightly above 89 percent since Bush took office, according to Congressional Quarterly’s vote studies. But it has ebbed and flowed. It reached a low of 77 percent in 2005. Last year it was 95 percent. By comparison, Obama's own record of supporting Bush policies has averaged slightly under 41 percent since the senator took office. However, Obama's voting record is no less partisan than McCain's. He has voted in line with his party an average of nearly 97 percent of the time. The truth is that neither candidate can claim a strong record of "breaking with his party" if Senate votes are the measure.

He Didn't Mean It

Obama also pulled some sleight of hand when he stated that "the average American family" saw its income "go down $2,000" under George Bush. That's not correct. Census figures show average family income went down $348.

As it turns out, when Obama said "average family income," he didn't mean "average," and he didn't mean "family," either. An Obama aide says he was really referring to median income – which is the midpoint – and not to the average. And Obama was talking only about "working families," not retired couples.

For all families, median family income actually inched up under Bush by $272.

– by Brooks Jackson, with Viveca Novak, Justin Bank, Jess Henig, Emi Kolawole, Joe Miller, Lori Robertson and D'Angelo Gore

Sources

Burman, Len, et. al. “An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans: Revised August 15, 2008.” Tax Policy Center, 15 Aug. 2008.

Table T08-0182, Senator McCain’s Tax Proposals as Described by his Economic Advisors, Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Cash Income Percentile, 2009. Tax Policy Center, 19 July 2008.

Gleckman, Roberton Williams and Howard. "An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans." 28 August 2008. The Tax Policy Center. 29 August 2008

Nicholas, Peter. "Adding Up the Cost of Obama's agenda." 8 July 2008. The Los Angeles Times. 29 August 2008

CQ member Profiles: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). 1 Apr. 2007. Congressional Quarterly, 9 June 2008.

CQ member Profiles: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill). February 2008. Congressional Quarterly, 12 June 2008.

Transcript, "Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum" CNN.com 16 Aug. 2008.

Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, "Table T08-0203 - Senator Obama's Tax Proposals of August 14, 2008: Economic Advisers' Version (No Payroll Surtax), Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Cash Income Percentile, 2009" 14 Aug 2008.

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Again, Obama is falsely accused of planning to impose more taxes on the middles class. Here is an unbiased account of Obama's policy. www.factcheck.org

"A McCain ad wrongly claims Obama plans "painful tax increases" for working families. And who's talking about deficits?

Summary

McCain's new ad puts another stitch in what we've called his pattern of deceit on Obama's tax plan. This one claims Obama and congressional Democrats plan to push forward "painful tax increases on working American families" and that they will bring about "years of deficits," "no balanced budgets" and "billions in new government spending."

The ad is plain wrong about higher taxes on working families. In fact, Obama's economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most. As for "years of deficits," exactly the same claim could be made about McCain's program. It's unlikely either Obama or McCain would balance the budget, and both are projected to increase the debt by trillions.

Analysis

We've already reported on at least three other ads, in both Spanish and English, from Sen. John McCain's campaign that distort his rival's tax policy. The ads claim that, for example, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would raise taxes "on the sale of your home" and that he has a "history of raising taxes" and that he wanted to raise taxes on "families" making just $42,000 a year.

Claims like these have led us to say that McCain's campaign is engaging in a "pattern of deceit" when it comes to describing Obama's tax plan. This most recent ad fits right into the template.

Tax Counter-Spin

The ad says Obama and “out of touch Congressional leaders” plan to implement “painful tax increases on working American families,” and it shows an image of a family presumably upset about an impending tax increase. But, as we've reported numerous times, Obama proposes a tax cut for the vast majority of households.

John McCain 2008 Ad:
"Expensive Plans"

Crowd: Obama, Obama…
Announcer: Take away the crowds, the chants. All that’s left are costly words. Barack Obama and out of touch congressional leaders have expensive plans. Billions in government spending, years of deficits, no balanced budgets, and painful tax increases on working American families. They’re ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead.

We spoke with Len Berman, director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which has produced one of the most authoritative analyses of the two candidates’ tax plans. When we asked him if Obama’s claim that he would “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families” was true, Berman told FactCheck.org that it was “consistent with our estimates.” Overall, the TPC found that Obama’s plan would produce a tax cut for 81.3 percent of all households, and a cut for 95.5 percent of all households with children.

Under Obama's plan, the TPC estimates that people (or couples) making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year would see an average savings of $1,118 on their taxes.

Under McCain's plan, on the other hand, those same individuals would save $325 on average — $793 less than the average savings under Obama's plan.

Put It on Our Tab

The ad also claims that Obama and congressional Democrats would bring about "years of deficits." But (and we've reported this before, too), the fact is both candidates' economic plans would fail to bring an end to deficit spending, and by that measure, McCain's is worse than Obama's. According to the TPC analysis, Obama's tax plan would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion by 2018, while McCain's plan would bring about a projected $5 trillion increase in the same time frame. The TPC also found that:

Tax Policy Center (Aug 28): Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.

The Obama campaign maintains that the Tax Policy Center's estimates don't account for Obama's proposed spending cuts, including things like ending the Iraq war. But those cuts will not come close to balancing the budget, and Obama has avoided promising a balanced budget during his first term.

McCain, however, has said he will balance the budget by 2013. Experts remain skeptical. In early July, The New York Times quoted Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition — a bipartisan fiscal responsibility advocacy group — as saying the claim was "unlikely":

Robert L. Bixby (as quoted by The New York Times, July 8): It’s feasible to balance the budget by 2013, but very unlikely under the policies Senator McCain has proposed. The spending cuts are far too vague to be counted on for significant savings and, even if they were more specific, I can’t see how they would come close to offsetting the level of tax cuts he recommends.

McCain senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin sent The Washington Post's editorial board a copy of McCain's plan in support of the candidate's claim. But the board concluded, in its July 14 editorial, that the plan was "not credible."

So the ad's claims about deficit spending and "no balanced budgets"? They could be applied just as easily to McCain as to Obama and the Dems. And we're not sure McCain really wants to go there."

-by Emi Kolawole

Sources

Burman, Len, et. al. “An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans: Revised August 15, 2008.” Tax Policy Center, 15 Aug. 2008.

Table T08-0182, Senator McCain’s Tax Proposals as Described by his Economic Advisors, Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Cash Income Percentile, 2009. Tax Policy Center, 19 July 2008.

Gleckman, Roberton Williams and Howard. "An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans." 28 August 2008. The Tax Policy Center. 29 August 2008

Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, "Table T08-0203 - Senator Obama's Tax Proposals of August 14, 2008: Economic Advisers' Version (No Payroll Surtax), Distribution of Federal Tax Change by Cash Income Percentile, 2009" 14 Aug 2008.

Rohter, Larry. Will the Real Tax-and-Spender Please 'Fess Up?. 13 Jun. 2008. The New York Times. 2 Sep. 2008.

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The following is from www.factcheck.org

"Republicans claim Obama "voted 94 times for higher taxes." But their count is inflated and misleading.

Summary

The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee both claim that Obama has voted 94 times “for higher taxes.” We find that their count is padded.

After looking at every one of the 94 votes that the RNC includes in its tally, we find:

• Twenty-three were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
  
  
• Seven of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals.
  
  
• Eleven votes the GOP is counting would have increased taxes on those making more than $1 million a year – in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans’ health care.
  

• The GOP sometimes counted two, three and even four votes on the same measure. We found their tally included a total of 17 votes on seven measures, effectively padding their total by 10.
  
  
• The majority of the 94 votes – 53 of them, including some mentioned above – were on budget measures, not tax bills, and would not have resulted in any tax change. Four other votes were non-binding motions related to conference report negotiations.
  

It's true that most of the votes the GOP counts would either have increased taxes for some, or set budget targets calling for such increases. But by repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, the McCain campaign and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he's voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers. That's consistent with what he's said he'd do as president, which is to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year.

Analysis

In a June 9 press release, Tucker Bounds, spokesman for Sen. John McCain's campaign said that "during just three years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has already voted 94 times for higher taxes." The same day, the RNC, which researched Obama’s votes and is the original source of the claim, issued its own release, saying "Obama Voted At Least 94 Times For Higher Taxes" and that he had voted "For A Tax Increase Approximately Once Every Five Days Congress Has Been In Session." A few days later, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin and other campaign staffers repeated the charge, which was quoted in various news stories. We suspect we'll be hearing this figure a lot more as the campaign wears on.

If this type of claim sounds familiar, it’s because George W. Bush's campaign used a similar refrain against John Kerry in 2004, charging that Kerry voted for "higher taxes" a whopping 350 times. We found that claim to be incorrect as well. This time around, Republicans are using some of the same tricky accounting to beef up the number of votes.

Higher Than My Taxes Are Now?

By our count, about a quarter of these votes for "higher taxes" – 23 to be exact – are votes Obama cast against changing tax rates from what they were at the time. Taxes would not have gone up. They would have been "higher" only compared to the cuts being proposed.

The RNC admits as much in its documentation on the 94 votes, faulting Obama for voting nine times against lowering the capital gains tax rate, seven times against implementing tax incentives for small businesses, six times against lowering the estate tax and three times against repealing a more than decade-old increase in taxes on Social Security benefits, among other votes. The RNC counts these as votes "for higher taxes" even though Obama voted to keep taxes right where they were.

Win Some, Lose Some

Seven votes on the RNC's list were votes Obama cast for measures that called for lowering certain taxes broadly and would have paid for the cuts by raising taxes on high-income individuals or corporations. The RNC didn't give Obama credit for voting for the lower taxes, of course.

Two votes were in favor of a "windfall profit tax" on oil companies and handing out the revenue in the form of rebate checks or nonrefundable tax credits to the public. Another favored giving tax benefits to areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and extending several other tax relief provisions, all of it financed by closing corporate and individual "loopholes" and extending Superfund taxes on corporations, used to pay for toxic waste cleanups. Obama also voted for a refundable tax credit for farmers, paid for by closing a loophole that gives a foreign income tax credit to oil companies. Yet another of these pieces of legislation, an amendment to the 2007 energy bill, would have extended and expanded all kinds of renewable energy tax credits and covered the cost by increasing taxes on oil companies. All of the measures were rejected.

Raising Taxes? Or Wages?

Along the same lines, two of the items the RNC calls votes "against tax incentives for small businesses" were actually votes against Republican counter-measures to Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage. While Democrats were voting for a measure to raise the minimum wage to $7.25, for example, Republicans offered a substitute that would have held the increase to $6.25 and thrown in a bundle of tax breaks for small businesses as well. Because Obama favored the higher wage package over the Republican alternative, the GOP and McCain count his vote against the GOP alternative as one for "higher taxes."

Higher Taxes for Whom? And for What?

Several of Obama's votes did indeed favor raising taxes above current levels. But in most cases these increases would have fallen on upper-income individuals or on corporations. And in many cases, the legislation in question called for increasing taxes in order to fund popular programs, a fact not mentioned by the Republican opposition researchers. One such amendment by Sen. Christopher Dodd to a 2006 bill, for example, proposed the creation of a "veterans hospital improvement fund," financed by increasing the capital gains and dividend tax rates on those earning $1 million a year or more. An amendment to a 2009 budget resolution called for restoring the income tax rate on million-dollar-a-year incomes to pre-2001 levels to fund children's education efforts, such as Head Start and school nutrition programs. Amendments to a 2007 budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 83) aimed to set aside $5 billion for emergency responders' communication equipment or funds for port security, both of which said they would be offset by "closing tax loopholes." Others called for increasing funding for a low-income home energy assistance program or restoring cuts slated for vocational education and student loan programs, paid for by closing "corporate tax loopholes."

What do you call a vote to raise taxes on couples earning more than $1 million a year in order to set up a fund to help children in poverty? We counted it, along with all of the other votes mentioned in the last paragraph, as a vote to increase taxes. But it was, of course, more than that.

Double, Triple and Quadruple Counting

The 94-vote list includes 17 votes that applied to only seven separate measures, effectively padding the GOP's list by 10. Two or three votes on the same measure are not uncommon in the Senate. The most egregious example is a series of four votes on amendment No. 4189 to a Senate budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 70) in March of this year. First, the Senate voted on the amendment (vote #45), and it was rejected. Then, it voted on a motion to table a motion to reconsider vote #45 (that's vote #46), and then voted on the actual motion to reconsider vote #45 (we're up to vote #47 now). And finally, the Senate voted on the same amendment again (vote #48). It was still rejected.

The RNC counts these as four separate votes for "higher taxes."

Non-Binding Votes

Worth noting is that most of the votes on the RNC's list could not have resulted by themselves in raising taxes. Of the total, 53 votes were on amendments to budget resolutions or the resolutions themselves. Budget resolutions merely set targets for tax-writing and appropriations committees and don't alter the tax code directly. Another four votes were on motions to instruct House-Senate conferees, which aren't binding either, and are seldom followed.

We agree that many of Obama's votes on these budget measures were clear statements of approval for increased taxes. But those 57 non-binding votes wouldn't have raised anybody's taxes.

The Final Tally

Cataloging some of these votes isn't cut-and-dried, and the exercise underscores how easily a campaign can spin the opponent's record. In the end, we listed votes on 54 measures under the "for higher taxes" category (and another seven votes in favor of lowering some taxes and increasing others); but even if the RNC used that figure in its claim, we'd have plenty to say about it. As we mentioned, most of those were measures to tax the rich or corporations; many aimed to fund government programs; and most didn’t actually raise taxes in and of themselves.

The standard we use is fairly generous to the GOP. Twelve votes by Obama in the RNC's list favored extending tax cuts that were slated to expire. We counted those as votes for increasing taxes, since taxpayers would see their rates increase as a result of failing to pass the legislation. Many Democrats argue that such a vote would not raise taxes above what current law provides, and therefore should not be counted as a vote for a tax increase. However, taxpayers aren’t privy to such philosophical legislative discussions and would indeed see their taxes increase if the cuts aren’t extended."

-by Lori Robertson

Sources

Sources for this article include THOMAS.gov, GovTrack.us and the Congressional Record for all 94 votes in question.