Obama and McCain Stretch Facts During Debate

Barack Obama and John McCain stretched facts, sometimes past the breaking point, as they addressed the financial crisis and more during their second presidential debate Tuesday night. Some examples are:

• McCain said "one way out of the financial crisis is to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us." He was referring to purchases of oil from countries hostile to the U.S. The real fact is that the U.S. is not spending nearly that much on oil imports and roughly one-third of what it does spend goes to friendly countries such as Canada, Mexico and Britain.

• Obama said "I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It hasn't worked out that way. And so now we've got to take some decisive action." McCain has indeed favored less regulation over the years but supported tighter rules and accountability on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years before the start of a financial crisis prompted in part by those giant mortgage underwriters. The real fact is that some of the current problems can be traced to legislation passed in 1999 that lifted many regulations over the financial industry. That deregulation was championed by then - Senator Phil Gramm, a McCain supporter, but also by President Clinton, who signed the legislation, and by former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now a top Obama economic adviser.
  

• McCain said that the last president to raise taxes during difficult economic times was Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. The real fact is Bill Clinton raised taxes in the early 90's when the recession happened which led to the greatest economic expansion in the country's history.

• McCain said he would provide a $5,000 refundable tax credit for families to buy health insurance "rather than mandates or fines for small businesses as Senator Obama's plan calls for." The real fact is that Obama's health care plan does not impose mandates or fines on small business. He would provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on health premiums paid on behalf of their employees. Also, large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or contribute to the cost of coverage would be required to pay a percentage of payroll toward the costs of a public insurance plan. But small businesses would be exempt from that requirement.

• Obama said McCain's proposal to give people a tax credit in exchange for treating employers' health insurance contributions as taxable wages amounts to "what one hand giveth, the other hand taketh away." The real fact is that McCain offers families a $5,000 tax credit to help them buy health insurance. The corresponding increase in taxable wages would result in a much smaller cost than the value of the tax credit, at least at first. Over time, the value of the tax credit may diminish as premiums rise. However, the Tax Policy Center estimates that McCain's plan would increase the federal deficit by $1.3 trillion over 10 years — mainly because it would lead to less tax revenue coming in, meaning it is a true tax break overall.

• Obama said "Actually I'm cutting more than I'm spending so that it will be a net spending cut." The fact is that Obama has many ambitious plans to spend more taxpayer dollars on a variety of federal programs, including clean energy technologies and job training. He's said he'll cut pork-barrel programs and the costs of the war in Iraq to pay for it — as well as raise taxes on the wealthy — but the specifics of his new spending plans greatly outweigh the few spending cuts he's identified.

• McCain said Obama supported a congressional earmark of "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?" The fact is that the money was for an overhaul of the theater system, which projects images of stars and planets for educational shows at Chicago's Adler Planetarium. When he announced the $3 million earmark last year, Obama said the planetarium's 40-year-old projection system "has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience."

Newsworthy Values:
Timeliness - 4
Currency - 5
Impact on People - 3
Proximity - 4
Prominence - 3
Uniqueness - 0
Conflict - 4
Sensationalism and Emotionalism - 0
Education and Public Service - 2