I got this from the AP News, I was kinda surprised that a major media outlet was actually fact-checking the democrats in their debate. I was expecting the "Pre-approval" from all the media outlets. Here is the
Link, I got the link from Drudge.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic presidential contenders have some inconvenient truths to grapple with.
It’s
not easy, for example, to summon foreboding words on the economy —
accurately — when the U.S. has been having its longest expansion in
history.
Health care for all raises questions of costs to average taxpayers that the candidates are loath to confront head on.
And
in slamming President Donald Trump relentlessly for his treatment of
migrants, the Democrats gloss over the record of President Barack Obama
(and his vice president, Joe Biden), whose administration deported them
by the millions and housed many children in the border “cages” they
assail Trump for using now.
The
candidates will be pressed on the economy, health care, immigration and
much more in their second round of debates, this week in Detroit.
A sampling of the campaign rhetoric on a variety of subjects and how it compares with the facts:
THE CAGES
KAMALA
HARRIS: “You look at the fact that this is a president who has pushed
policies that’s been about putting babies in cages at the border in the
name of security when in fact what it is, is a human rights abuse being
committed by the United States government.” — remarks at NAACP forum
Wednesday in Detroit.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: “We should call out
hypocrisy when we see it. For a party that associates itself with
Christianity to say it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the
division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would
condone putting children in cages,” that party “has lost all claim to
ever use religious language.” —
June debate .
THE FACTS: There is hypocrisy to be called out here.
By
Buttigieg’s standard, the Democratic Party has also lost its claim to
invoke religion — because the “cages” were built and used by the Obama
administration. Harris, a California senator, calls them a human rights
abuse, but, like other Democrats, solely blames Trump.
The
facilities are sectioned-off, chain-link indoor pens where children who
come to the border without adults or who are separated from adults in
detention are temporarily housed. The children are divided by age and
sex.
A year ago, Associated Press photographs showing young people
in such enclosures were misrepresented online as depicting child
detentions by Trump and denounced by some Democrats and activists as
illustrating Trump’s cruelty. In fact, the photos were taken in 2014
during the Obama administration.
Many
Democrats continue to exploit the imagery of “babies in cages” — as
Harris put it — without acknowledging Obama used the facilities, too.
His administration built the McAllen, Texas, center with chain-link
holding areas in 2014.
Under Trump, journalists have witnessed
migrants crowded into fetid chain-link quarters. The maltreatment of
migrants is the responsibility of the Trump administration — and
arguably Congress, for not approving more money for better care.
But
the facilities are standard fare through administrations and the
caged-babies accusations stand as one of the most persistent distortions
by the 2020 Democrats.
___
JOE BIDEN: “Under Trump, there
have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages,
tear-gassing asylum seekers, ripping children from their mothers’ arms.”
— June 24 opinion piece in the Miami Herald about his Latin America
policy.
THE FACTS: Again, the scenes of kids in cages go back to the administration Biden served.
He
is correct that U.S. authorities have fired tear gas to repel migrants
trying to get across the border. Biden and other Democrats are also
correct in identifying widespread family separations as a consequence of
Trump’s policy. His now-suspended zero-tolerance policy resulted in
thousands of children being removed from their parents in holding
centers, something the Obama administration did not do routinely.
Another
form of family separation was seen, however, in the Obama years. The
record deportation of 3 million migrants during Obama’s presidency drove
many families apart as some members were forced out of the U.S. while
loved ones weren’t.
___
IMMIGRATION
BIDEN: “There’s 11
million undocumented (people), they’ve increased the solvency of the
Social Security system by 12 years, because they’re all paying in.” —
candidate forum in Iowa, July 16.
THE FACTS: He’s wrong that “all”
people in the country illegally are paying into Social Security and
that they’ve extended the program’s solvency by a dozen years.
He’s
right, though, that they help the nation’s retirement program because
millions do contribute to it and they are not permitted to draw
benefits.
According to a 2013
Social Security Administration report
, the most recent of its kind, roughly 3 million immigrants living in
the U.S. illegally were contributing to Social Security through their
work. Others were not working or were employed in the underground
economy.
Biden is correct in suggesting that illegal immigration
has significantly boosted the program. His campaign clarified to The
Associated Press that he misspoke when he said people in the country
illegally increased Social Security’s solvency by 12 years. He meant to
say they’ve added $12 billion to Social Security’s finances.
They’ve
actually supported the Social Security system by even more than that.
The agency’s 2013 report estimated the system gained $12 billion from
immigrants and their employers over just one year, 2010. Employers and
workers evenly split the 12.4 percent contribution to the system.
Another
government estimate says “half of undocumented immigrants are working
on the books” but that may be outdated; it’s from 2005.
___
HEALTH CARE
BERNIE
SANDERS: ”‘Medicare for All’ would reduce overall health care spending
in our country.” — July 17 speech on his health plan.
THE FACTS: That remains to be seen. Savings from Medicare for All are not a slam dunk.
The
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report this year that
total spending under a single-payer system, such as the one proposed by
the Vermont senator, “might be higher or lower than under the current
system depending on the key features of the new system.”
Those
features involve payment rates for hospitals and doctors, which are not
fully spelled out by Sanders, as well as the estimated cost of generous
benefits that include long-term care services and no copays and
deductibles.
Sanders’ figure of $5 trillion over 10 years in
health cost savings comes from a study by the Political Economy Research
Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The lead author
has been a Sanders political supporter.
Sanders also cites a
savings estimate of $2 trillion over 10 years taken from a study from
the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia.
But the author of that study says that Medicare for All advocates are
mischaracterizing his conclusions.
A report this year by the
nonprofit Rand think tank estimated that Medicare for All would do the
opposite of what Sanders is promising, modestly raising national health
spending.
Part of the reason is the generous benefits. Virtually free comprehensive medical care would lead to big increases in demand.
The Rand study modeled a hypothetical scenario in which a plan similar to Sanders’ legislation had taken effect this year.
___
SANDERS,
on the effects of his health plan and other expensive proposals on the
public: “Yes, they will pay more in taxes but less in health care.” —
June debate.
THE FACTS: This is almost surely true.
Although
he had to be pressed on the question, Sanders is almost alone among the
candidates who support Medicare for All in acknowledging that broadly
higher taxes would be needed to pay for it. He would consider — and
probably not be able to avoid — a tax increase on the middle class in
exchange for health care without copayments, deductibles and the like.
It’s a given that consumers will pay less for health care if the
government is picking up the bills.
Several of Sanders’ rivals
have dodged the tough financing questions, speaking only of taxing rich
people and “Wall Street.” Analysts say that’s not going to cover the
costs of government-financed universal care.
___
ECONOMY
ELIZABETH
WARREN: “When I look at the economy today, I see a lot to worry about.
... I see a manufacturing sector in recession. ... A generation of
stagnant wages and rising costs for basics like housing, child care, and
education (has) forced American families to take on more debt than ever
before.... Whether it’s this year or next year, the odds of another
economic downturn are high — and growing.” —
Medium blog Monday.
THE
FACTS: The Massachusetts senator is exaggerating some of these threats.
It’s true that U.S. manufacturers are struggling as a result of slower
overseas growth and the Trump administration’s trade wars, which have
meant that many U.S. goods face retaliatory tariffs overseas. But U.S.
factories have faced rough spots before during the current expansion,
particularly in late 2015 and 2016, when their output actually declined.
Yet economic growth continued. Manufacturing is no longer large enough
to necessarily pull the rest of the economy into recession.
And
Americans are in better financial shape than Warren suggests. While
household debt has risen 6.8% in the past decade, that figure isn’t
adjusted for population growth or inflation. On a per capita basis,
household debt levels have actually fallen.
Economists typically
compare debt with income as a way of gauging Americans’ ability to pay
off their loans. Currently such household debt is equivalent to 101% of
disposable income. While that number may seem high, it actually peaked
at 136% in the fourth quarter of 2007, just as the recession began, and
has fallen steadily since.
Also, interest rates are at
historically low levels, making it easier for borrowers to manage their
debts. Currently, households are devoting less than 10% of their incomes
to debt service, down from roughly 13% a decade ago.
As for what
she calls a manufacturing recession, that’s a judgment call, not a
clearly defined standard. Factory output actually has risen slightly
over the past year. She defines a manufacturing recession as two
straight declines in quarterly production as measured by the Federal
Reserve, and that’s what happened in the first half of this year.
___
HARRIS:
“People are working, they’re working two and three jobs. In our America
people should only have to work one job to have a roof over their head
and be able to put food on their table.” — July 12 radio interview.
THE
FACTS: Most Americans, by far, only work one job, and the numbers who
juggle more than one have declined over a quarter century.
In the mid-1990s, the percentage of workers holding multiple jobs peaked at 6.5%.
The rate dropped significantly , even through the Great Recession, and has been hovering for a nearly a decade at about 5% or a little lower.
In the latest monthly figures , from June, 5.2% of workers were holding more than one job.
Hispanic
and Asian workers are consistently less likely than white and black
workers to be holding multiple jobs. Women are more likely to be doing
so than men, though the gap narrowed slightly during Trump’s first year.
Multiple jobholding rates in
June 2019 : women, 5.6%; men, 4.6%; black, 5.1%; white, 5.2%; Hispanic, 3.7%; Asian, 3.0%.
Kirsten
Allen, speaking for the Harris campaign, said the senator often hears
from people who have to work more than one job to make ends meet,
“teachers specifically,” and has a plan for teachers to be paid more.
But in her rhetoric about Americans “working two and three jobs,” Harris
does not make that distinction.
___
LAW ENFORCEMENT
BUTTIGIEG:
“When I took office, we had no recognizable promotion or accountability
system for promotions in the department. We couldn’t even find and
publish numbers on cases involving use of force. So we started doing
that.”— at the NAACP forum Wednesday in Detroit.
THE FACTS: Those
changes at the South Bend, Indiana, Police Department, which Buttigieg
oversees as the mayor, didn’t happen swiftly or without prompting.
Buttigieg fired his police chief shortly after he became mayor in 2012 and installed a new one.
But
it wasn’t until September 2018 that the city established a promotion
policy, following a 2015 complaint from a female officer who said she
was passed over for a promotion and complaints in 2016 from two black
officers who said they were held back from promotions at the police
agency, according to local news reports.
The city didn’t begin
publishing use of force data — which shows how many times an officer
used force on a civilian — until 2017, five years after Buttigieg got
into office and after complaints about police brutality, including a
federal lawsuit that was settled in 2018. The use of force data include
the time, date, and type of force.
___
AUTO INDUSTRY
HARRIS:
“Some estimate that as many as 700,000 autoworkers are going to lose
their job before the end of the year.” — remarks in July 12 radio
interview.
THE FACTS: This isn’t happening. Harris mischaracterized the findings of a study that is also outdated.
In
July 2018 the Center for Automotive Research laid out a variety of
scenarios for potential job losses across all U.S. industries touched by
the auto business — not just autoworkers — if a number of new tariffs
and policies that Trump threatened were enacted. The worst case was
750,000. But those hypothetical losses went well beyond autoworkers, to
include workers at restaurants, retail stores and any business that
benefits from the auto industry.
In any event, the center revised
its study in February 2019, with a worst-case scenario down to 367,000
job losses across all industries. And since then, the administration
lifted tariffs on steel and aluminum products coming from Canada and
Mexico, further minimizing the impact on the auto industry.
The
auto industry has grown under Obama and Trump both. Although it’s facing
a leveling off in demand, it still posts strong numbers. It is not at
risk of the catastrophe Harris raises as a possibility — the loss of 3
in 4 autoworkers in the remainder of this year.
___
Associated
Press writers Christopher Rugaber, Josh Boak and Ricardo
Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to
this report.
