IN GOP DEBATES, THE REAL “FACTS” ARE IRREVELANT

…The logo of a divided political party

 

The “No-Trump Debate” had more falsehoods than when Trump is in attendance.

 

Thank goodness we have organizations whose sole purpose is to check that what was being said by the politicians was an honest response.  Unfortunately, according to the fact checkers, even with the Circus Ring-Leader, Donald Trump, not in attendance, the statements by the remaining debaters were collectively about 65% false.  The organization called THE FACT CHECKER has already reviewed many of the statements from this latest debate and published their results, and folks, they ain’t pretty.

 

Here I will offer an abridged version of some of the politician’s claims from the debate versus what is offered as the real facts by THE FACT CHECKER (FC). 

 

First, per Ted Cruz:

 

“First of all we have seen how in six years of Obamacare that it’s been a disaster. It is the biggest job killer in this country. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums sky rocket.”

 

FC: First, he doesn’t mention that the Affordable Care Act has added nearly 18 million people to the health-insurance rolls over the last five years.  Recent, detailed studies have found the Affordable Care Act had little impact on employment patterns.  In the latest journal by Health Affairs, in the examined Census data, they found no increase in the likelihood of working part time, except for a 0.18% increase, a trend that predated the ACA.  After the ACA, the annual premium increases were much lower than in previous years and the number of insured that lost their doctors also did not increase more than in previous years.

 

Marco Rubio:

 

“[The US has] the smallest Navy in 100 years.”

 

FC: This was repeatedly debunked in the 2012 presidential election, and now it’s the turn of the senator from Florida.

 

The current number of ships in the Navy is 273. It is the lowest count since 1916, when there were 245 ships.  But a lot has changed in 100 years, including the need and capacity of ships.

 

There are other ways to measure sea-power than just the sheer number of ships, according to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus: “That’s pretty irrelevant. We also have fewer telegraph machines than we did in World War I and we seem to be doing fine without that. … Don't look at the number, look at the capability. Look at the missions that we do.”

 

The Navy is on track to grow to just over 300 ships, approximately the size that a bipartisan congressional panel has recommended for the current Navy.

 

Chris Christie:

“There have been three different investigations that have proven that I knew nothing [about Bridgegate]”

 

FC: Only one of the investigations conclusively found that the New Jersey governor had no knowledge of the massive traffic jams in Fort Lee, as a result of a two-lane shutdown on the George Washington bridge.  The one “investigation” that found Christie had no knowledge of the scandal before or during the lane closures was not surprisingly, a study that Christie’s own administration had commissioned, through the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.  PolitiFACT said: “The U.S. Attorney’s investigation did not find criminal evidence that Christie was involved in the scandal, but did not say the case is closed.”

 

A number of Christie appointed members of the Port Authority are still expected to be indicted for improprieties discovered during the Bridgegate investigation.

 

Marco Rubio:

 

“The only budget that Ted [Cruz] ever voted for was a budget that Rand Paul sponsored, that brags about cutting defense spending.”

 

FC: The proposal reads: “This budget proposal does not simply reduce military spending, but provides directives to realign the military for the 21st Century.” But it also proposes to raise discretionary national defense funding from $521 billion in 2014 to $634 billion in 2023.  So how is it a “cut” in defense funding?

 

Ted Cruz:

 

“Just two weeks ago was the 25th anniversary of the first Persian Gulf war. When that war began, we had 8,000 planes. Today, we have about 4,000.”

 

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a 25% cut in military spending which was engineered by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.  But the current aircraft inventory for the Defense Department shows nearly 14,000 aircraft, including 3,290 fighter/attack, 859 attack helicopters and 4,563 airlift and cargo planes. That’s much higher than “4,000 planes”.

 

Marco Rubio:

 

“Hillary Clinton lied to the families of those four brave Americans who lost their life in Benghazi.”

 

Rubio again and again claims that then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton lied to the families of the victims of the Benghazi attacks and asserted that the attack took place because of a YouTube video.

 

As has been noted, the evidence for this claim is murky and open to interpretation. Here’s the rundown of what we know regarding the four Americans that died in Benghazi:

·       U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, his father says Clinton did not mention a video.

·       State Department Information Specialist Sean Smith, his mother says every administration official, including Clinton, cited the video.

·       Former Navy Seal Tyrone Woods, his father says Clinton cited the video as the cause, his mother says Clinton did not mention the video.

·       Former Navy Seal Glen Doherty, his mother says Clinton did not mention a video, his sister says she did not mention a video but referenced a “spontaneous protest.”

At the very least, Rubio cannot so sweepingly declare that she made such statements to “the families of those four victims.” Some of those family members say they did not hear that.

 

Carly Fiorina:

 

“We know that 307,000 veterans have died waiting for health care.”

 

The Veterans Health Administration’s Health Eligibility Center, maintains about 22.3 million records in its system. Out of those records, about 867,000 records were in a “pending” status. That means the veteran applied for enrollment but the VA needed additional information (often financial) before approving the veteran for benefits. Of those, 307,173 were for people who were reported as deceased by the Social Security Administration.  That sounds like 307,000 veterans died waiting for care, right? Nope.

 

There’s no way to know whether those 307,000 veterans who died ever applied for health care through the VA. The database also includes records of veterans who died even before the VA’s health care enrollment began in 1998. In addition, there are records of veterans who never sought care from the VA.  In short, it’s an unreliable data system, which is exactly what the VA’s Inspector General found.

 

Mike Huckabee:

 

 “I cut 94 taxes in a state that had never had a general major tax decrease in its history.”

 

Huckabee has repeated this line since 2007. What he doesn’t say is that there was a net tax increase under his leadership.  There were 90 tax cuts when Huckabee was Arkansas governor, from 1996 to 2007. Many of them were narrowly tailored. The tax cuts ranged from tiny cuts to gigantic cuts.

 

But the effect of these cuts was offset by 21 tax increases. That resulted in a $505 million net tax increase while Huckabee was the Arkansas governor.

 

Carly Fiorina:

 

“Hillary Clinton famously asked, what difference does it make how four Americans died in Benghazi?”

 

This comment by Hillary Clinton, made during a hearing on May 8, 2013, is frequently taken totally out of context.  Here’s her full statement:

 

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” Clinton responded. “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.” She added that it was “less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.”

 

Carly Fiorina:

 

 “[At H-P], we saved 80,000 jobs. We went on to grow to 160,000 jobs.”

 

This was Fiorina falsely defending her record as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.  Fiorina has used a talking point that has many times been found to be misleading.

 

The number of H-P employees was 84,800 in 1999 and 151,000 in 2004, according to the 10-K reports. On paper, that certainly looks like an increase in jobs. But the growth came from H-P’s ill-fated merger with Compaq Computer.

 

Before the merger with Compaq, HP had 86,200 employees and Compaq had 63,700 employees. That adds up to 149,900. HP’s filings show that the combined company had 141,000 employees in 2002 and 142,000 employees in 2003. By 2005, the number was 150,000. In other words, the number of employees barely budged from the pre-merger total.  Many people at both companies lost their jobs as a result.

 

Then, Fiorina ultimately fired more than 30,000 workers in the wake of the Compaq merger.

 

The Los Angeles Times, in evaluating Fiorina’s record when she ran for the Senate in 2010, noted that during her tenure, HP also acquired more than a dozen other companies with at least 8,000 employees.

PolitiFACT has given Fiorina “4 Pinocchio’s” for her statements on this subject.

 

 

So, here you have a slice of some of the bogus comments that were made during the latest FOX / GOP debate.

 

Debates are important for finding out who you should vote for in an important election.  But when that information is found to be bogus, what’s the point of having a debate?

 

Democracies require that the voters receive good information for making good decision.  Thank goodness we have fact checkers that are available to everyone via the internet.  But everyone should take the time to check the organizations that are doing the fact checking and what their reputations are for accuracy.

 

Remember the old saying still holds true: “Buyer Beware”.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016