February 2009
Feb. 26 marked the beginning of the Conservative Political Action Committee (or CPAC) annual convention. Conference speakers include leading figures from the Republican Party as well as conservative columnists, pundits and activists. Among yesterday’s speakers was John Bolton, U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush and now a senior fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. During his speech, Bolton repeated a bit of old bunk from the 2008 campaign, falsely claiming... Click to read more
Before he gave the Republican rebuttal to Tuesday night’s presidential address, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was making headlines by saying he would leave some of President Obama’s stimulus funds on the table. Other southern GOP governors, such as Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, said they may follow his lead. Jindal announced last week, and reiterated Feb. 22 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that he would not be applying for some unemployment... Click to read more
Q: Did Obama require that all infrastructure jobs in the stimulus bill go to union workers? A: Obama didn’t set a requirement. He issued an executive order that "encourage[s] executive agencies to consider requiring" union labor for "large-scale" government contracts. Click to read more Read More →
The Air Force’s much-criticized F-22 has been a favorite subject of much of the blogosphere, particularly since Mark Bowden’s feature article praising the fighter appeared in the March issue of The Atlantic . Tuesday night the discussion went mainstream, with Obama’s oblique reference to “Cold War weapons we don’t use.” As we said in our article over on the main site, Obama is right to describe the F-22 this way. Development on the fighter began in 1981, and it... Click to read more
The belated attacks on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 keep on coming. For the second time in less than a week, the American Issues Project has released a television ad criticizing the stimulus legislation recently signed by President Obama. In our article “GOP Stimulus Myths,” we discussed the group’s first anti-stimulus ad that contained misleading claims about “pork and pet projects” in the legislation, as well as a one-sided characterization of... Click to read more
We’ve been telling you for the last couple of weeks how economists are divided over the virtues of the stimulus bill. But, as former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and current Harvard Professor Greg Mankiw reminds us, we shouldn’t get too carried away with our skepticism of economists. While they might have differing views of macroeconomics, there are still a lot of areas where they agree. Mankiw provides us with a list of principles that most economists accept, with the percentage... Click to read more
Summary President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements. He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That’s untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today. He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those... Click to read more
Summary Do some of the Republican claims you’ve heard about the stimulus bill sound too awful to be true? We find a few that are wildly exaggerated or downright false. It’s not true that the bill contains spending for "golf carts." It has $300 million to buy fuel-efficient vehicles, some of which may be electric cart-like utility vehicles like those already in use on military bases and at other government facilities. Money claimed to be for "remodeled federal offices"... Click to read more
Q: Is Congress going to require a federal license to own a handgun? A: A Chicago congressman’s bill, H.R. 45, would require that, but it has little support. The same bill died quietly in a House subcommittee last year. Click to read more Read More →
Summary Conservative politicians have claimed that the stimulus bill requires that doctors follow government orders on what medical treatments can and can’t be prescribed. But the bill doesn’t say that. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia says the measure creates "a national health care rationing board." Not true. What it creates is a council to coordinate research into which treatments work best, and are most effective for the money. And in fact, the new law states quite specifically... Click to read more
