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Do you use factcheck.org? You should. Its mission is to… well, its mission is in its title. Here’s what it had to say about the Republican debate (the millionth debate, right? Or the millionth and one?) that occurred on Sunday.
- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe’s. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney’s source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of “appeasement” toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
- Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
- Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants “are taking a large part of our health care dollars.” But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.
The site follows these summaries with longer and more substantive debunkings of the candidates’ claims. And, as it turns out factcheck.org has hit the Republicans before and even chided the Democrats. Must-read material after any debate, I would say.
