Fox News host Chris Wallace caught Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi drastically overstating the employment situation on January 18:
PELOSI: But in terms of what we have to do in the first 100 days, we must address the needs of this country. Five hundred million people will lose their jobs each month until we have an economic package.
WALLACE: No, 500,000.
PELOSI: What did I say, million?
WALLACE: Yes, 500 million. That would really be a recession.
Year: 2009
Will the Stimulus Work?
A lot of readers have asked us to sort through the various arguments about whether or not the stimulus bill (which, at the moment, is actually two different bills, one in the House and one in the Senate) will actually work. But we just don’t know the answer to this one. For that matter, even the experts don’t know. On one side, Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz argue that the only problem with the stimulus bill is that it needs more spending and fewer tax cuts.
Children’s Clothing Resale
Q: Is the government outlawing the resale of children’s clothing?
A: Not explicitly. A recently passed law won’t ban resale, but it will hold resellers responsible for selling items with lead content that exceeds new limits. Some resellers are fearful this will force them out of business.
Obama’s Speech and Those Frivolous Earmarks
President Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, and we caught several factual errors and misstatements in his remarks. See our full story on FactCheck.org for all the details. Here’s just one item we found:
Obama exaggerated a bit in describing the Children’s Health Insurance Program that was recently reauthorized by Congress:
Obama: When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for 11 million American children whose parents work full time.
The $79 Billion Iraqi Surplus, Re-reconsidered
During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly called out then-candidate Barack Obama for complaining that the U.S. was spending billions in Iraq while the Iraqi government sat on a projected $79 billion surplus. We said that Obama’s projection didn’t account for updates to the Iraqi budget. But things were slightly more complicated than we originally thought: On paper, Iraq’s budget showed a surplus of up to $57 billion, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office pointed out that the Iraqi government had shown little ability to spend all that it had budgeted.
Harry Reid’s Outlaw Ancestor?
Q: Was Harry Reid’s ancestor a horse thief?
A: That’s a hoax. Sen. Reid is only the most recent political figure to be accused of fabricated outlaw ancestry.
Mining the Minnesota Recount
Republican incumbent Norm Coleman headed into the Minnesota U.S. Senate recount leading Democratic challenger Al Franken by more than 200 votes. But on Jan. 5, the state Canvassing Board certified recount results showing Franken received 225 more votes than Coleman in the general election, out of nearly 2.9 million votes …
American Legion’s Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball
Q: Did Obama snub Medal of Honor recipients at the Inaugural Balls?
A: Obama is the first president since Eisenhower to miss the American Legion’s Salute to Heroes ball. A Legion spokesman says it "does not feel offended or ‘snubbed,’" and Medal of Honor recipients were invited to the Commander in Chief’s ball, which Obama did attend.
‘Clean Coal’ Confrontation
On the campaign trail, President Obama embraced the coal industry’s vision of “clean coal” technology. But even before he took office, a coalition of environmental groups (including Al Gore’s) launched ads ridiculing the idea as a myth: “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal.” We’re sure to hear …
Comparing Inauguration Costs
Q: Did Barack Obama’s inauguration really cost 4 times as much as George Bush’s 2005 inauguration?
A: Claims of a huge disparity are untrue. Actually, an apples-to-apples comparison shows that the two inaugurations likely cost about the same.