In a "Twitter Town Hall" event, President Barack Obama repeated a disputed claim about the electric car battery market, and he claimed that the payroll tax holiday is worth $1,000 to "almost every single American" when many will get less than that.
Obama took questions from Twitter users — limited to 140 characters, of course — and gave more verbose answers in the July 6 televised event at the White House. He touted the fact that the U.S.
Stories by Lori Robertson
Director, FactCheck.org
Dueling Economic Ads
A conservative group's ad makes the rise in unemployment under President Obama appear worse than it actually is. And in a counter-attack ad, a liberal group offers its spin on GOP economic plans.
Crossroads GPS, which spent heavily in the midterm elections to defeat Democrats, is spending $5 million to air its latest ad in 10 states and on national cable channels. It says it will spend a total of $20 million on similar messages in the next two months.
FactChecking Bachmann
We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Today's topic: Michele Bachmann.
The Republican representative from Minnesota announced during this week's debate that she was running for the nation's highest office. Several claims from Bachmann have appeared on our site before, including:
Earlier this year, Bachmann falsely claimed that $105 billion in spending was "hidden" in the federal health care law and that this was done "secretly, unbeknownst to members of Congress."
FactChecking Santorum
Next up in our occasional look at past misstatements by presidential candidates: Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator announced his candidacy today. We have checked just a few claims from Santorum, who served in the Senate from 1995 to 2007.
He wrongly claimed in March that "one in three pregnancies end in abortion" in the United States when saying that abortion was to blame for funding problems for Social Security and Medicare. Santorum said on a radio talk show: "The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees.
FactChecking Romney
We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates, and today it's Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is set to announce in New Hampshire that he'll seek the Republican nomination for the second time. Here's a recap of some of our fact-checking of Romney during the last campaign and since:
Most recently, we found Romney misrepresenting the federal health care law and the overhaul he signed into law in Massachusetts.
Palin Whoppers on Debt, Oil Imports
Sarah Palin made two wildly inaccurate claims on the debt accumulated under President Obama and oil imports. She wrongly said that the debt had grown more under Obama than "all those other presidents combined." She also was way off when she claimed that the U.S. is going to spend "$8 billion a day" on oil imports this year and next year to make up for declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. The actual amount is less than $20 million a day.
DNC Misquotes Pawlenty
The Democratic National Committee takes Tim Pawlenty's comments on his presidential campaign out of context. In a web video posted May 22, the DNC claimed that Pawlenty said, "I don't know," in response to a question about why he was running. But the reporter had asked when the former Minnesota governor knew that he wanted to be president — not why.
The DNC was quick to criticize Pawlenty, posting the video the same day he announced that he would run in another web video.
FactChecking Pawlenty
We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty released a web video, announcing that he was running for president, and he'll kick off his campaign in Iowa. In recent months, we have found him straying from the facts.
In a January interview on "Fox News Sunday," Pawlenty said that he "never did sign a bill relating to cap and trade" while governor of Minnesota. But that's false.
FactChecking Paul
Up next in our look at past claims made by the 2012 presidential candidates: Rep. Ron Paul. No stranger to presidential campaigns, the Texas Republican has made his share of factual flubs. Paul declared his 2012 candidacy May 13.
He falsely claimed last December that the estate tax "especially harms small and family-owned businesses." But if the estate tax was returned to 2009 levels, less than 8 percent of estates taxed in 2011 would be family farms and businesses,
FactChecking Obama
We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Up next: President Barack Obama.
The president officially launched his 2012 campaign on April 4, but we’ve been fact-checking his statements for about four years now. Among the major misstatements:
Obama has misrepresented Republican plans for Medicare. Recently, he made the exaggerated claim that Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal was "a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry."