• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Let the Fact Check begin

Help Support Ranchers.net:

Tam

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
12,759
Reaction score
0
Location
Sask
Fact-checking the 2012 State of the Union speech
Posted by Glenn Kessler at 01:45 AM ET, 01/25/2012

State of the Union address is often difficult to fact-check, no matter who is president. The speech is a product of many hands and is carefully vetted, so major errors of fact are so relatively rare that they sometimes can become big news (think of George W. Bush's "sixteen little words" about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger). At the same time, State of the Union addresses are very political speeches, an argument for the president's policies, so context (or the perspective of opponents) is often missing.

Here is a guide through some of President Obama's more fact-challenged claims, in the order in which he made them. As is our practice with live events, we do not award Pinocchio rankings, which are reserved for complete columns.

"For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda's top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home." The killing of bin Laden, which Obama used to open and close his speech, is an achievement that few partisans would quibble with. But the story about Iraq and Afghanistan is much more muddled.

Yes, U.S. troops have left Iraq, in part because the Obama administration was unwilling or unable — take your pick — to extend a security agreement with Iraq. Since the U.S. departure, Iraq has descended into violence as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has targeted Sunni opposition figures. The country at times appears to teeter on the edge of a new outbreak of sectarian violence.

Meanwhile, the president's claim that the Taliban's "momentum has been broken" is a highly debatable claim. U.S. intelligence agencies, for instance, recently concluded in a secret assessment that the war in Afghanistan "is mired in stalemate" and that security gains from an increase in American troops "have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan," according to the Los Angeles Times. Other U.S. officials have dissented from the report's conclusions, but the dispute is an indication of how fragile any momentum may be.

"In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we've agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again." Here, Obama tries to inoculate himself from the inevitable charge by the eventual GOP presidential nominee that he has the worst job-creation record of any president since World War II. (Let us stipulate that all of these job-creation claims are fairly bogus, given how every president is at the mercy of the business cycle, but it appears to be central to our politics.)

As Obama noted, some 4 million jobs were lost at the start of his administration, putting him in a deep hole if he wants to show positive job growth in his presidency. But the nearly $1 trillion stimulus was passed into law in February, and so the carefully phrased claim of "we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect" is a stretch.

That's because it took a full nine months to run up 4 million in job losses, some eight months after the stimulus was passed into law — and some four months after the official end of the recession, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. (The 4 million in losses before Obama took office occurred in the previous nine months, not six months as the president stated.)

Trying to change the focus from his overall job-creation record, the president focuses on private-sector jobs created since the recession ended. Those numbers are largely right, but they are relatively anemic given the depths of the recession. (Note that he describes a loss of 8 million jobs and then mentions a gain of only three million.)

Obama does not mention that Republicans forced him to accept $2 trillion in budget cuts during the debt-ceiling impasse. And he says "we've put in place" new rules on Wall Street, glossing over the fact that it had little Republican support and the GOP candidates have all vowed to repeal the Dodd-Frank law.

"We will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. … It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts and no copouts." These are clearly lines crafted by political operatives. Few economists would blame "outsourcing" for the economic crisis; it is also unclear how Obama has eliminated outsourcing during his presidency. "Bad debts" presumably would refer to irresponsible mortgage loans. "Phony financial profits" is also a bit puzzling. Perhaps it was not supposed to make sense.

The same goes for the other catch-phrase, uttered a bit later in the speech. The president, of course, supported massive bailouts before and after he took office, as will be demonstrated by the next quote.


"On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs." Here the president appears to celebrate a bailout, which actually was started under his predecessor George W. Bush. The claim that "some" wanted the auto industry to die is a bit of a straw man, though Obama appears to be really aiming at Mitt Romney's call at the time for the auto industry to go through a pre-packaged bankruptcy, which Democratic attack ads have turned into heartless-sounding proposal. (Ford, incidentally, did not accept a bailout.)

Some 200,000 auto workers were laid off during the recession, bringing the industry to a low of 550,000 workers; forecasts suggest it will climb back to the pre-recession level by 2015.


"A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock's unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity." This is true. An interesting article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this month explains that costs in China have risen because of labor unrest, higher shipping rates — and weakening of the yuan against the dollar because of political pressure by the United States.


"Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right — eight years. Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years." The first statement is a great statistic but not especially noteworthy because there has not been much change in the annual barrels produced in the United States since 2003; it essentially has been steady though it is slightly higher now than in previous years, according to the Energy Information Administration. Production is projected to increase in coming years.

The second claim made it into Obama's first campaign ad, and as we have noted, it is lacking context. The Energy Department cited a host of reasons why foreign oil imports have declined, noting the main reason was "a significant contraction in consumption" because of the poor economy and changes in efficiency that began "two years before the 2008 crisis" — ie, before Obama took office.


"Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home." This is fanciful budget math. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were funded with borrowed money, so what Obama is really asking for is an increase in domestic spending relative to the Pentagon. The United States is still running huge deficits, so none of this imagined savings would "pay down the debt" until the United States once again began running surpluses. Instead, his proposal would continue to add to the debt.


"Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households." The president, making his case for higher taxes on the wealthy, framed this better than the line in his Kansas City speech that earned him Three Pinocchios, but he is still making a broad claim on a narrow set of facts.

Most wealthy people pay a higher tax rate than most less-wealthy Americans, but there are always going to be some exceptions. The Congressional Research Service found that among millionaires, the average tax rate is almost 30 percent. But some 94, 500 millionaires —one quarter — do face a tax rate that is lower than 10.4 million moderate-income tax payers.


"That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program." Obama spent surprisingly little time in the speech defending his signature health care law, but he left out part of the story with this statement. About half of the 34 million people who will receive coverage under the new law will be placed on Medicaid, a federal-state government program for low-income Americans, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. The rest of the newly insured would get coverage through private markets.


"Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one." This is a more hopeful statement than the actual reality. The Obama administration has won U.N. approval for new sanctions, and just this week the European Union joined in an embargo of Iranian oil imports. But there are other key nations, in particular China, that have resisted a broad crackdown on trade with Tehran. There is also little evidence that the sanctions have had much effect in slowing Iranian nuclear ambitions.


"Our iron-clad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history." Obama has had tense relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially over peace talks with the Palestinians, but military cooperation has been one bright spot in the relationship. Still, the fact that the president could not even mention peace with the Palestinians in this speech suggests how much his dream of achieving a peace deal has faded.


"Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That's not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Cape Town to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they've been in years." Obama's self-congratulatory tone aside, the most striking thing about this list is that it does not include any cities in the Islamic world. Obama had made a high-profile speech in Cairo in 2009 designed to bolster the U.S. image; judging by recent polling, his effort has been a failure.

The Pew Research Center in May said that both the U.S. favorability rating and confidence in Obama had fallen sharply since 2009. In Turkey, a NATO ally, for instance, the confidence in Obama fell from 33 percent in 2009 to 11 percent in 2011; in Jordan, another key ally, the favorability rating for the United States fell from 25 percent in 2009 to 13 percent in 2011.

Numbers had even fallen in Indonesia, where Obama had lived for some years as a child. The survey said that Obama's handling of the political change spawned by the Arab Spring was a key factor in the slumping numbers.
 
FACT CHECK: 10 Dubious Claims from Obama's State of the Union
Lachlan Markay
January 25, 2012 at 2:23 pm
(0)


President Obama made a number of questionable statements in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Heritage experts took on some of the policy issues he raised, but we at Scribe thought we would address the simple factual accuracy of 10 of the more outlandish statements from the president.

Quotes are drawn from the president's prepared remarks.

Claim: "On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen … And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs."

Fact: Using the relevant dates, that number is actually between 33,000 and 63,000.

It appears the president is comparing today's auto industry employment with numbers from November 2009. The industry – vehicle and parts manufacturers, dealers, wholesalers, and repair and maintenance shops – employs 158,900 more people today than it did then, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But why choose November 2009? When comparing today's employment with the month the president took office or with the month during which the federal bailout took place, the numbers are not nearly as impressive. Since February 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the industry has added only 33,700 jobs. Since the following month, when General Motors and Chrysler were bailed out, it has added 63,100 – nearly 100,000 fewer than Obama claimed.

Claim: "It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized."

Fact: Obama has targeted manufacturers with punitive tax hikes.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, it is, on average, 20 percent more expensive to do business in the United States than it is abroad. The reasons: "our policies on taxes, energy, tort, and trade." American policies cause that imbalance, not subsidies by other countries.

And while Obama touted manufacturing on numerous occasions during his speech, he has backed policies that would deal body blows to American manufacturing. His incessant refrain to raise taxes on high-income individuals by allowing the Bush tax rates to expire would also ensnare more than 70 percent of manufacturers, according to NAM. "President Obama's call for tax increases on small businesses, individuals and investors is a poison pill for our economy," noted NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons.

Claim: "[M]y administration has put more boots on the border than ever before."

Fact: The vast majority of that increase was proposed and implemented before Obama took office.

Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004, which called for adding at least 2,000 border patrol agents per year. President Bush followed up by sending another 6,000 agents to the border. When that mandate was fulfilled, there were 20,119 active border patrol agents. As of last summer, there were 20,700.

Claim: "We're also making it easier for American businesses to sell products all over the world. Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. With the bipartisan trade agreements we signed into law, we're on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule."

Fact: Obama chose to delay seeking congressional approval of those agreements for more than two years.

Congress waited for the president to send the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. He "call[ed] on Congress to pass them without delay," but it was his administration that was delaying consideration of the measures while it worked to shore up political support and tie stimulus-like spending programs to the agreements.

Claim: "American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years."

Fact: No thanks to Obama.

The president made a similar claim while informing Americans that he would forego the economic windfalls of the Keystone XL pipeline. He did not mention, of course, that the vast majority of that production has occurred on private lands.

On federal land, over which the president has control, oil and gas production is down by 40% under Obama. He has actively pursued policies that limit oil and gas exploration on federal land. There were fewer onshore leases in 2010 than in any year since 1984. The Obama administration held only a single offshore lease sale in 2011.

Claim: "[W]ith only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough."

Fact: The United States has more recoverable oil than the rest of the non-North American world combined.

The 2 percent statistic is a frequent canard of this administration, but is woefully misleading when used to suggest, as Obama clearly did, that the country only has 2 percent of the world's oil. In fact, the 2 percent figure refers to the amount of oil that is recoverable at current prices and under lands currently available for development.

According to recent study by the Institute for Energy Research, the United States has more than 1.4 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, more than the rest of the world (excluding North America) combined. That's enough to fuel every passenger car in the country for 430 years. As IER explains, in what could be a direct response to the president's claim, "It is merely semantics—not a scientific assessment of what America has the capacity to produce—that allows critics to claim repeatedly that America is running out of energy."

Furthermore, Obama's Energy Information Administration, noted Heritage's David Kreutzer, predicts a steady rise in U.S. reserves even on land currently available for exploration. "It projects that improvements in technology and the economics of extraction, production, and sales actually will lead to a 23.7 percent increase in U.S. reserves," Kreutzer wrote, "even after extracting billions of barrels of oil in the interim."

Claim: "t was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."

Fact: Government funding only marginally contributed to the development of hydraulic fracturing.

The federal government began spending money on natural gas extraction research during the oil crisis in the late 1970s, noted CNN in its own "fact check." The methods they tested – which included setting off nuclear weapons underground – were expensive and ineffective. Federal support declined as gas prices went back down. Private companies, not the federal government, developed hydraulic fracturing technology that has allowed gas to be extracted inexpensively and en masse.

Claim: "[W]e don't have to choose between our environment and our economy."

Fact: Obama just rejected both.

The president killed TransCanada's application for the Keystone XL pipeline due, he claimed, to insufficient information on its environmental impact. But Obama's own State Department had already concluded that the pipeline posed "limited adverse environmental impacts during both construction and operation."

The Keystone XL pipeline would have been an economic windfall, and an environmentally sound project. So the president is correct that we don't have to choose between a strong economy and environmental stewardship. He seems intent on choosing neither.

Claim: "I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days."

Fact: The president has already demonstrated his complete lack of respect for the separation of powers.

After making his four illegal recess appointments to federal office, the president now wants to impose a timeline on the Senate's advice and consent duties. And while it's heartening that he will at least pay lip service to those duties, Obama's insistence that he will pursue his agenda "with or without this Congress" suggests he is ready and willing to yet again spurn the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

Claim: "Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else – like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both."

Fact: Entitlements drive our national debt, not discretionary spending or tax rates.

This false dichotomy underscores one of the largest omissions of the State of the Union speech. It is not tax cuts that threaten the "investments" the president describes; it is entitlement spending, especially Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In less than 10 years, as Heritage's Patrick Louis Knudsen noted last night, total entitlement spending will cost almost as much as the entire federal budget today, crowding out other programs (such as national defense).

Reforming entitlements would eliminate the need for either cuts to Obama's favorite federal programs or ruinous tax hikes. But the president neglected to discuss entitlement reform in the State of the Union.
 
AP fact check: Obama's State of the Union speech
11:00 PM, Jan. 24, 2012 |
OBAMA: "We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that's rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that's never been more promising."

THE FACTS: This is at least Obama's third run at stripping subsidies from the oil industry. Back when fellow Democrats formed the House and Senate majorities, he sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request.
Health care
OBAMA: "Our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a government program."
THE FACTS: That's only half true. About half of the more than 30 million uninsured Americans expected to gain coverage through the health care law will be enrolled in a government program. Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, will be expanded starting in 2014 to cover childless adults living near the poverty line.
The other half will be enrolled in private health plans through new state-based insurance markets. But many of them will be receiving federal subsidies to make their premiums more affordable. And that's a government program, too.
Manufacturing
OBAMA: "Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last — an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values."
THE FACTS: Economists do see manufacturing growth as a necessary component of any U.S. recovery. U.S. manufacturing output climbed 0.9 percent in December, the biggest gain since December 2010. Yet Obama's apparent vision of a nation once again propelled by manufacturing — a vision shared by many Republicans — may already have slipped into the past.
About 90 percent of American workers are employed in the service sector, a profound shift in the nature of the workforce over many decades.
The overall trade deficit through the first 11 months of 2011 ran at an annual rate of nearly $600 billion, up almost 12 percent from the year before.


Afghanistan
OBAMA: "The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home."

THE FACTS: Obama is more sanguine about progress in Afghanistan than his own intelligence apparatus. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using fledgling talks with the U.S. to gain credibility and stall until U.S. troops leave, while continuing to fight for more territory.
Auto industry
OBAMA: "On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs."
THE FACTS: He left out some key details. The bailout of General Motors and Chrysler began under Republican President George W. Bush. Obama picked up the ball, earmarked more money, and finished the job. But Ford, which Obama mentions as well, never asked for a federal bailout and never got one.
 
The president killed TransCanada's application for the Keystone XL pipeline due, he claimed, to insufficient information on its environmental impact. But Obama's own State Department had already concluded that the pipeline posed "limited adverse environmental impacts during both construction and operation."

BUT- you have to remember that was before the Nebraska farmer/rancher landowner NIMBY's crawled in bed with the Greeny Weeny international enviromentalist groups- and had all their Republican political party of Nebraskan politicians opposing the pipeline and trying to make it a partisan issue...Until the Nebraskan NIMBY's and politicians opposed it the XL folks told us- it was a done deal...

Which now the XL folks have to come up with a new route thru the holier than thou Nebraska country- and do a new study for that route- and propose it -- none of which they have yet done... So how can you say they have "sufficient information" if they have not even found a suitable route or put up a new proposal yet :???:

If its true in the tentative approval of the pipeline that the State Dept did that there was "limited adverse environmental impacts during both construction and operation."- Why did the Nebraska NIMBY's and all the Nebraska politicians after years of knowing where it was going -come out at the last minute against it :???:
 
Fact check: Obama's State of the Union Address 2012
By Aamer Madhani, Gregory Korte and Timothy Mullaney,
USA TODAY
President Obama continues to battle high unemployment and frosty relations with Congress just as Americans begin to weigh whether to give him a second term. But he made the case that the nation has made progress on several fronts under his stewardship. Here's a look behind the rhetoric:
statement

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

Reality check: This isn't the first time Obama has framed the defining societal challenge as one of economic fairness.

But Obama is proposing more specific tax changes to deal with the income inequality: A 30% effective income tax rate on millionaires and billionaires in what has been described as the "Buffett Rule," and a limit to the number of deductions that households making more than $1 million can take.

"It's interesting that what counts as wealthy has gradually moved upwards and upwards and upwards," said Elizabeth Jacobs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "During the campaign it was $250,000, and now it's a millionaire or a billionaire."

The prospects for a significant individual tax overhaul this year are slim, which opens him up to criticism that his tax proposals are more of a campaign platform than a legislative agenda.

Statement

"Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations."

Reality check: Obama certainly has had his share of foreign policy successes over the last year. He followed through with a campaign promise to end the war in Iraq, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden in May, and the U.S. supported a NATO-led operation in Libya that culminated with the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.

But at least one potential national security land mine lies ahead: Iran. GOP presidential hopefuls have hammered Obama on his Iran policy, suggesting his administration has been feckless in thwarting Iran's purported ambition to become a nuclear-armed country and was slow to embrace Iranian democracy protests in 2009.

"Iran will loom large in months ahead and the presidential election as well," said James Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "This is where Obama's foreign policy is most vulnerable."

Statement:

"Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my administration to open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right — eight years. Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years."

Reality check: With his call for more efforts to increase domestic oil and natural gas production, Obama offered a rebuttal to GOP criticism of his energy security policy.

The president called for developing a "roadmap" for safe development of shale gas, which he said could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade and called for the new incentives for the private sector to upgrade equipment — which could save companies $100 billion over 10 years.

Republican lawmakers have lashed out at his decision to reject — for now — permitting of the 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring tar sands oil from Canada to Texas.

Obama did not speak on the Keystone controversy, but he noted that the American oil production is at an eight-year high. Domestic crude oil production is expected to jump more than 20% in the coming decade, from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2010 to 6.7 million in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

U.S. dependence on foreign oil is below 50% for the first time in 13 years. Oil industry experts quibble with the notion that Obama should get any credit for the declining oil dependence.

Lower imports are the result of lower demand caused by a sluggish economy, and growth in production is largely due to industry's ability to extract oil from shale rock in North Dakota's Bakken area, according to Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

Statement:

"I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. "

Reality check: The president's plan appears to be a significant expansion of previous efforts to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. The problem, as many homeowners know, is that many homes are worth less than the mortgage payoff — making it difficult to refinance to take advantage of interest rates that are now below 4%.

Obama would pay for the program with a new fee on banks, but Eric Belsky of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University said it's unclear how the program will be an improvement. "As always, the details need to follow."

Statement:

"If you're an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you're a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here."

Reality check: Generally, economists say tax breaks to encourage specific investment decisions are a bad idea, and rarely effective. Business investment plunged early in the last decade despite tax breaks to prop up software and technology investment after the technology bust of 2000, and investment in software and related equipment lags behind 1990s levels, adjusted for inflation, according to Barclays Capital. Generally, the market would be better off if government reduced corporate tax rates and offered fewer, rather than more deductions, Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said.
 
all the fact check that is needed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDRiGIUYQo


He has not moved towards the goals spoke about in the SUTO of 2011. He is a failed leader and never was a leader.

One of my first posts on obama spoke about a "manager" that would play both sides, yet get nothing done. He has proven himself to be everything I thought and more.
 
too bad oldtimer cannot get a grasp on the fact he (obama) as well as he (oldtimer) are both natural LIARS
 
OT, the man is a compulsive and habitual liar. I can cite example after example, and you know I can. Therefore, why defend him? He isn't worth it.
 

Latest posts

Top