Confused about whether John McCain really predicted the fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? We don’t blame you. The McCain-Palin campaign says he did, and as proof, they point to a 2006 speech in which McCain exhorts his colleagues to vote for legislation he cosponsored, legislation that would have regulated the misbehaving mortgage giants. The Obama campaign says he did not and point out that McCain said in 2007 that he didn’t see the crisis coming.
Issues: economy
Stretching with Biden
Summary
Biden proved once again that it doesn’t take outright falsehoods to create a skewed impression of one’s opponent. We found in a Sept. 15 speech that:
Biden used partial quotes to support his charge that McCain wouldn’t help "small borrowers" suffering in the mortgage crisis but would "fight for those that lost their … real estate investments." In fact, McCain’s full quote said he would also fight for those who "lost their jobs" and "savings,"
Freddie, Fannie and Barack
Update, Sept. 19: Portions of this post were based on incomplete data. We have struck through the incorrect sections. Please see here for our corrected account. We apologize for the inconvenience.
In a Sept. 16 stump speech in Vienna, Ohio, Republican presidential nominee John McCain went after Barack Obama, his Democratic counterpart, charging that Obama can’t possibly hope to change Washington. After all, McCain said, Obama is a big part of the problem.
Can’t be Fired
We noticed John McCain saying today that he would fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission if he were president. But, fortunately for the SEC chairman, the president can’t fire him.
McCain (Sept. 18, Cedar Rapids, Iowa): The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president. And in my view has betrayed the public trust. If I were president today, I would fire him.
ABC News points out that “while the president nominates and the Senate confirms the SEC chair,
More on the Phantom 62 Percent
In our recent article “Sliming Palin,” we addressed the pervasive rumor that Gov. Palin slashed funding for special needs education. She didn’t. Instead, she increased funding. Here’s more detail on how an increase got mistaken for a 62 percent decrease.
The evidence that’s been cited to support the false decrease claim:
The special schools component of the education budget for fiscal year 2007, before Palin was governor, was $8.3 million.
The special schools budget for 2008 was $3.2 million.
Obama’s Iraqi Accounting Oversight
Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly conducted a sit-down interview with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that is airing in four installments. (Parts three and four of the interview will air tonight and tomorrow night.)
The first segment was broadcast Thursday, and we noticed an accounting error on Obama’s part. When speaking about how much the U.S. is spending in Iraq, Obama added, “They’ve got $79 billion,” alluding to Iraq’s financial deposits and budget surplus. But that’s false.
Distorting McCain’s Remarks
Summary
Obama’s campaign is running a TV ad in Indiana that asks the question: "How can John McCain fix the economy, when he doesn’t think it’s broken?" But the ad uses quotes from McCain that are old and taken out of context:
The ad shows McCain saying, "I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession." But McCain said that in January, and he also acknowledged at the time that the American economy was in "a rough patch."
Pork-barrel Spending
Q: What percentage of the national spending is pork?
A: About 1 percent.
Clinton and Economic Growth in the ’90s
Q: Were Clinton’s policies responsible for the 1990s’ economic growth?
A: He deserves part of the credit, but many factors were at work.
The Whoppers of 2004
Bush and Kerry repeat discredited claims in their final flurry of ads. Here’s our pre-election summary of the misinformation we found during the Bush-Kerry presidential campaign.