In his remarks to small-business owners March 16 at the White House, President Obama repeated a statistic we’ve heard from both Democrats and Republicans. (Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
used it this month
on "Fox News Sunday.")
Obama said small businesses are responsible for creating "roughly 70 percent of all new jobs in the past decade."
That stat is one put forth by the Small Business Administration. The SBA says that small businesses "have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade."
Stories by Lori Robertson
Managing Editor, FactCheck.org
Education Spin
Last year, the president touted U.S. gains in education, saying that our “fourth- and eighth-graders achieved the highest math scores on record.” He bragged that “African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs.” Last week, the president said those eighth-graders weren’t so great at math after all …
Obama’s Misleading Education Stat
We’ve noticed that in talking about education, politicians like to use statistics that show the U.S. is way behind other countries. That certainly makes it easier to tout whatever education policies the pols are pushing. But sometimes kids in the U.S. perform better than politicians make it sound.
Our colleagues at PolitiFact.com caught President Obama misleadingly claiming last week that “In eighth grade math, we’ve fallen to ninth place.” U.S. eighth graders are in ninth place,
Stimulus for Illegal Immigrants?
Q: Will 300,000 illegal immigrants get construction jobs through the stimulus package?
A: There’s no way of knowing how many illegal immigrants may or may not end up with a job from stimulus funds. But this inflated estimate comes from conservative groups concerned about the absence of employee verification requirements in the final bill.
Half of the Wealthy Own Small Businesses?
President Obama’s proposed budget calls for rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for couples earning more than $250,000 (and individuals earning more than $200k). The increase would take effect in 2011. And, not so surprisingly, it has some Republicans up in arms. One of their main beefs: The move would hurt small businesses.
On "FOX News Sunday" on March 1, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told host Chris Wallace that "more than half of the people who pay these higher taxes are the small businesses of America."
Bad Bankruptcy Stat, Repeated
Last week on our main site, we pointed out that President Obama used an incorrect statistic on bankruptcies caused by medical expenses in his address to Congress. And yesterday, he repeated it,
as Jake Tapper at ABC News noted
:
Tapper: "The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds," President Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform just now.
As we said then (and Tapper kindly links to us in his report): Last year,
Doctor’s Orders?
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 …
Stimulus Bill Bravado
In recent weeks, in his pitches to Congress and the public on the need to pass the economic stimulus bill, Obama has made several claims about what it would do. (Republicans, too, have made stimulus boasts of their own.) But these pronouncements are not a sure thing. Obama repeatedly said …
Let Election 2010 Begin
Believe it or not, ads for the midterm elections are on the air already. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced radio ads this week that attack 28 House Republicans for voting against such how-could-they-possibly-oppose-them measures as “tax breaks … for American workers” and creating and saving “over 390,000 New York jobs.” But, as we pointed out today on our main site, these ads don’t tell the whole story.
Most of the radio spots refer to votes against the massive stimulus bill,
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.