Newspaper stories are often used to misleading effect in political ads, but a new one-minute ad from New York City comptroller candidate Eliot Spitzer puts a twist on the theme by actually doctoring a New York Times headline.
Sen. Ted Cruz says there will be “20 or 30 million” people living in the U.S. illegally “in another 10, 20 years” if the Senate immigration bill becomes law. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill, if enacted, will reduce future illegal immigration by 33 percent to 50 percent compared with current law.
House Speaker John Boehner, among other Republicans, wrongly tweeted that a recent “study” found “74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under #Obamacare.” Actually, no more than 13 percent of the small businesses surveyed said that.
Rep. Louie Gohmert went on Fox News and accused President Obama of a pattern of discrimination against Christians, particularly in the military, but many of his examples were false, distorted or incomplete.
This week, readers sent us letters about penalties in the federal health care law and the new look of our website.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the email we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
On Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Managing Editor Lori Robertson explains who would be exempt from the requirement to have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The so-called individual mandate kicks in next year, with monetary penalties for those who don’t comply. But some will be exempt from the mandate.
For more on this topic, see our June 28, 2012, Ask FactCheck, “How Much Is the Obamacare ‘Tax’?“
Eliot Spitzer falsely claimed that allowing immigrants living in the United States illegally to obtain driver’s licenses — a policy he attempted to implement as governor of New York in 2007 — is now the “law of the land.”
President Barack Obama presented a glowing but incomplete view of how much Americans can save on premiums thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
This is another in our series of regular quarterly updates of key statistical indicators of the Obama presidency. Our intent is to provide accurate measures of what’s changed — for better or worse — since Obama first took office in January 2009.