FORD
10-15-2004, 06:37 PM
20 Lies to Tempe
Top Bush Lies and Distortions From the Third Debate
#1. BUSH CLAIMS: “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama Bin Laden. That’s kinda one of those exaggerations.”
REALITY:
Bush: “I Am Truly Not That Concerned About Him.” In 2002 Bush said: “Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I--I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.” [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html]
#2. BUSH CLAIMS: “three-quarters of Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice.” [Bush Remarks, Third Presidential Debate, 10/13/04]
REALITY:
Bush Claims To Have Wiped Out 3/4 Of Al Qaeda, Yet The Organization Is Resurging And Morphing. Despite Bush’s claims over the past several months that “much of Al Qaeda’s leadership has been killed or captured,” new evidence from Al Qaeda double-agent Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan’s computer, seized in Pakistan, shows that a “new generation of operatives…[appears] to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured.” According to intelligence analysts, “Al Qaeda’s upper ranks are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.” Al Qaeda is “more resilient than was previously understood and has sought to find replacements for operational commanders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, known as Khallad, all of whom have been captured.” Although several major leaders have been captured, “the new operatives appear as committed to striking the U.S.” [Bush Remarks, 9/14/04; New York Times, 8/10/04; Wall Street Journal, 8/16/04]
#3. BUSH CLAIMS: “We have a problem with litigation in the United States of America. Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued, and therefore they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine.”
REALITY:
Mergers, Not Lawsuits, To Blame for Lack of Vaccine Producing Companies. “Also, Bush blamed lawsuits for the shortage, but that's not the cause of frequent vaccine shortages, according to the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The problem is that vaccines aren't profitable and drug companies keep merging. In 1967, nearly 30 drug companies made vaccines. That was down to five last year, and of those only two make flu vaccines.” [Pioneer Press, 10/14/04]
#4. BUSH CLAIMS: “Most of the tax cuts went to low and middle income Americans, and now the tax code is more fair, 20 percent of the upper income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts.”
REALITY:
In 2004, Top One Percent Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $35,000; Middle Class Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $647. The benefits of Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the rich. The top one percent of households will receive tax cuts averaging almost $35,000--or 54 times more than middle-class families. Households with incomes above $1 million will receive tax cuts averaging about $123,600. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/14/04]
George Bush's Plan Shifts the Tax Burden to the Middle Class. In contrast, under the Bush plan the "Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle" according to a Washington Post headline, and "middle America - average annual income $75,600 - saw its share of the federal tax burden increase from 18.7 percent to 19.5 percent." In addition, George Bush has imposed a tax of thousands of dollars on families through higher costs for health care, gasoline, college tuition, and state and local taxes. [Washington Post, 8/13/04]
#5. BUSH CLAIMS: “I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust, and the compounding rate of interest effect will make it more likely that the social security system is solvent for our children and our grandchildren.”
REALITY:
CBO: Bush Plan Will Force Benefit Cuts. According to CBO, the President’s plan “would reduce expected retirement benefits relative to scheduled benefits, even when the benefits paid from IAs under CSSS Plan 2 are included… For example, benefits for the 1980s birth cohort would be 30 percent lower, and benefits for the 2000s cohort would be 45 percent lower.” [CBO, “Long-term Analysis of Plan 2 of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security,” 7/21/2004, page 15 and Table 2]
[i]#6. BUSH CLAIMS: “He [Kerry] voted to increase taxes 98 times.”
REALITY:
Bush Exaggerates Kerry’s Tax Record. “Bush recycled his charge that Kerry voted 98 times to raise taxes. But FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group, says nearly half were not for tax increases per se, and many others were on procedural motions. The Bush total also includes several votes on a single tax bill.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
Kerry has gone on the legislative record over 640 times for lower taxes. [Congressional Quarterly Votes; CQ's Congress And The Nation; CQ Almanacs; Senate Republican Policy Committee Vote Analysis; Congressional Research Service Bill Summaries (via thomas.loc.gov), bill texts (via thomas.loc.gov)]
#7. BUSH CLAIMS: “I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the constitution.”
REALITY:
Bush Previously Claimed Gay Marriage Was a State Issue. In a 2000 Republican primary debate, Bush responded to a question about same-sex marriage as follows: "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue." [2/15/00 Republican primary debate, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/15/lkl.00.html;]
#8. BUSH CLAIMS: “He talks about PAYGO. I'll tell you what PAYGO means, when you're a senator from Massachusetts, when you're a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Increased Non-Defense Discretionary Spending By 36 Percent During His First Term. In total, non-defense discretionary outlays increased approximately 36 percent during Bush’s first term in office. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, estimates that government spending has climbed twice as fast under Bush as under Clinton. [Heritage study, 12/16/03; Cato Institute, 3/3/04; New York Times, 1/24/04]
Bush Has Not Vetoed A Single Spending Bill. During his first term in office, Bush has not vetoed any bills. [Heritage study, 12/16/03; Cato Institute, 3/3/04; New York Times, 1/24/04; Economist, 10/9/04; Denver Post, 8/29/04; Congressional Quarterly]
#9. BUSH CLAIMS: “It will be the largest increase in government health care ever.”
REALITY:
Bush’s Charges About Kerry’s Health Care Plan Have Been Roundly Discredited. ABC News said they were “not true.” “This is hardly a government takeover that would put bureaucrats in charge of your health care, as President Bush has shamelessly contended,” said the New York Times. The Washington Post said, “There is no evidence that the Kerry blueprint is a ‘government-run’ plan.” The Detroit News said they are “absurd accusations.” And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, “Mr. Bush's allegations are wildly inaccurate.” [ABC News World News Tonight, 9/13/04; New York Times Editorial, 10/3/04; Washington Post, 9/14/04; Detroit Free Press, 9/26/04; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial, 9/27/04]
#10. BUSH CLAIMS: “That’s why I am such a strong believer in medical liability reform. The last debate my opponent said the lawsuits only cause it to go up by 1 percent. He didn't include the defensive practice of medicine that costs the Federal government some $28 billion a year and costs our society between 60 and 100 billion a year.”
REALITY:
GAO Found No Evidence that Tort Reform Would Reduce Medical Spending. Both the General Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) criticize the 1996 study the Bush administration uses as their main support for that claim…When the CBO attempted to duplicate the Stanford economists’ methods for other types of ailments they found “no evidence that restrictions on tort liability reduce medical spending.” [FactCheck.org, 10/9/04]
#11. BUSH CLAIMS: “We ought…to make sure when they get out of high school there's Pell Grants available for them, which is what we've done.” [Bush, 10/13/04]
REALITY:
Bush Broke Campaign Promise to Increase Maximum Pell Grant Award Amount. Bush promised to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100 during the 2000 campaign. Bush’s FY 2005 budget is the third in a row that has refused to increase the value over the current $4,050. The maximum value of the Pell grant covers 68 percent of public two-year tuition, down from 94 percent three decades ago. [Bush Speech in Hampton, New Hampshire, 8/30/00; FY 2005 budget]
Bush Tried to Drop 84,000 Students From Pell Program By Changing Eligibility Formula. Department of Education proposed Pell Grant formula changes would have eliminated Pell Grants for 84,000 students and reduced the grants for 1.5 million additional students. Fortunately, implementation of the proposed changes was delayed by Congress. [American Council on Education, 12/8/03]
#12. BUSH CLAIMS: “Well, first of all, it is just not true that I haven't met with the Black Congressional Caucus. I met with the Black Congressional Caucus at the White House.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Purposely Ignored the Congressional Black Caucus. “Bush did meet with the Congressional Black Caucus during his first two weeks in office -- on Jan. 31, 2001 -- but Kerry's overall charge was correct: Bush has repeatedly turned down requests to meet with the group since then. Caucus members have complained that not only has Bush refused to meet with them on specific issues, including his plans to attack Iraq, but also the White House often has not even responded to their letters.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#13. BUSH CLAIMS: “And now this economy is growing. We added 1.9 million new jobs over the last 13 months.”
REALITY:
Bush “Oversimplifies” The Employment Picture. Bush “oversimplified” the employment picture by saying that the number of jobs has increased by 1.9 million in the past 13 months…Bush was referring to only a brief window of time. The latest job figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week showed that 96,000 jobs were added in September, fewer than the 145,000 predicted by economists, for a net loss of 821,000 during Bush's tenure. Bush is on track to be the first president in 72 years to preside over a loss of jobs.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#14. BUSH CLAIMS: “What he's asking me is, ‘Will I have a litmus test for my judges?’ And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Promised to Pack the Courts with Right Wing Judges. Bush has pledged to continue to pack the courts with his right wing judicial nominees and has said that Antonin Scalia is his role model for Supreme Court judges. At a GOP fundraiser in March 2002, Bush said, “First, we’ve got to get good, conservative judges appointed to the bench and approved by the United States Senate.” Non-partisan studies have found that in civil rights and civil liberties cases, Bush’s judges made liberal decisions only 26.5% of the time. [Bush Remarks at a Fundraiser for Senatorial Candidate John Cornyn; 3/28/02; Detroit Free Press, 6/19/00; “Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration”, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 9/04; Reuters, 9/9/04]
#15. BUSH CLAIMS: “He's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending…”
REALITY:
Bush Plans Would Cost $3 Trillion “Bush, making his case that Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal, charged that he has promised more than $2.2 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years. Kerry has disputed that estimate, and Bush's own tax-cut proposals and plan to create private Social Security accounts -- and his spending proposals -- would add more than $3 trillion to the deficit, according to administration figures.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#16. BUSH CLAIMS: “My biggest disappointment in Washington is how partisan the town is.”
REALITY:
Bush a “Divider Not Uniter”: The Washington Post reported, “As Bush begins the final year of his term with Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, partisans on both sides say the tone of political discourse is as bad as ever -- if not worse.” One senior administration official said, Bush could have built “trust and goodwill” by pursuing more broadly appealing initiatives. One former Bush aide said the White House “relished the ‘us versus them’ thing.” The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has also found that Bush has failed “to build common ground” and “missed opportunities to build consensus on key civil rights issues.” Instead he has “adopted policies that divide Americans.” [“Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration”, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 9/04;Washington Post, 1/18/04]
#17. BUSH CLAIMS: “Today in America more minorities own a home than ever before.”
REALITY:
Homeownership Gap Between African Americans And Whites Has Grown 6.4 Percent Under Bush. Despite Bush’s claims that he is focusing on narrowing disparities in minority home ownership, the gap between black and white homeowners has increased 6.4 percent since Bush took office, from 24.8 percentage pts in 2001 to 26.5 in the last period reported. What’s more, African Americans continue to be twice as likely as whites to be denied home loans. [U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, US Housing Market Conditions, www.hud.gov; Census Bureau Reports on Residential Vacancies and Homeownership, 7/29/04; Akron Beacon Journal, 10/16/03; Orlando Sentinel, 10/16/03; Columbus Dispatch, 10/16/03; CBS Market Watch, 10/16/03]
#18. BUSH CLAIMS: “In order to make sure people have jobs for the 21st century, we've got to get it right in the education system, and we're beginning to close a minority achievement gap now. “
REALITY:
Nationwide Achievement Gaps in Reading Have Not Closed Since NCLB. Although many groups began to close the achievement gap from 1998 to 2002, there is no nationwide evidence that the gaps in reading have closed after No Child Left Behind. In fact in 2003, the Nation’s Report Card shows that in grade 4, the gap between white and African American students grew slightly larger, while the achievement gap for Hispanics was unchanged. In grade 8, the gap between white and Hispanic students grew slightly larger while the achievement gap for African Americans was unchanged. [National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress]
Bush Exaggerates Evidence of Minority Gains. “There is fragmentary data to support Bush's claim that the additional federal dollars to schools and the new accountability standards have helped minority students improve their test scores relative to white students, but education specialists agree there is not yet enough evidence to declare the act a nationwide success. Besides, the ‘achievement gap’ has been getting narrower for roughly the past decade, said Paul Peterson, director of the Program in Education Policy and Governance at Harvard's Kennedy School.” [Boston Globe, 9/24/04]
#19. BUSH CLAIMS: “We are doing everything we can to protect our borders and ports. Absolutely we can be secure in the long run.”
REALITY:
American Borders Less Secure Since 9-11. “In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the 375-mile border between Arizona and Mexico each day…The U.S.’s borders, rather than becoming more secure since 9/11 have grown more porous. And the trend has accelerated in the past year. The number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million…the largest wave since 2001.” [Time, 9/20/04]
#20. BUSH CLAIMS: “Why should they insure somebody when the government's going to insure it for them? It's estimated that 8 million people will go from private insurance to government insurance.”
REALITY:
97% of Americans Keep Existing Health Coverage Under Kerry Plan. “Lewin's vice president John Sheils told FactCheck.org that his computer model projects that only 8.2 million (of the 243 million who currently have private or government health insurance) would change their insurance plans under Kerry's plan.” [FactCheck.org, 10/4/04]
Bush Citing Study Produced By His Own Health Care Advisor From 2000 Campaign. John Goodman, the chief author of the study Bush cites, was a health care adviser to the Bush campaign in 2000. He still works informally for Bush and Congressional Republicans as an advocate for Bush’s health savings accounts. Goodman appeared as recently as July 30, 2004 on “Ludlow and Cramer” as a Bush adviser. [National Journal, 2/7/04; CNBC Transcript, “Ludlow & Cramer,” 7/30/04; Insight on the News, 1/5/04, New York Times, 4/24/00]
Top Bush Lies and Distortions From the Third Debate
#1. BUSH CLAIMS: “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama Bin Laden. That’s kinda one of those exaggerations.”
REALITY:
Bush: “I Am Truly Not That Concerned About Him.” In 2002 Bush said: “Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I--I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.” [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html]
#2. BUSH CLAIMS: “three-quarters of Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice.” [Bush Remarks, Third Presidential Debate, 10/13/04]
REALITY:
Bush Claims To Have Wiped Out 3/4 Of Al Qaeda, Yet The Organization Is Resurging And Morphing. Despite Bush’s claims over the past several months that “much of Al Qaeda’s leadership has been killed or captured,” new evidence from Al Qaeda double-agent Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan’s computer, seized in Pakistan, shows that a “new generation of operatives…[appears] to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured.” According to intelligence analysts, “Al Qaeda’s upper ranks are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.” Al Qaeda is “more resilient than was previously understood and has sought to find replacements for operational commanders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, known as Khallad, all of whom have been captured.” Although several major leaders have been captured, “the new operatives appear as committed to striking the U.S.” [Bush Remarks, 9/14/04; New York Times, 8/10/04; Wall Street Journal, 8/16/04]
#3. BUSH CLAIMS: “We have a problem with litigation in the United States of America. Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued, and therefore they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine.”
REALITY:
Mergers, Not Lawsuits, To Blame for Lack of Vaccine Producing Companies. “Also, Bush blamed lawsuits for the shortage, but that's not the cause of frequent vaccine shortages, according to the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The problem is that vaccines aren't profitable and drug companies keep merging. In 1967, nearly 30 drug companies made vaccines. That was down to five last year, and of those only two make flu vaccines.” [Pioneer Press, 10/14/04]
#4. BUSH CLAIMS: “Most of the tax cuts went to low and middle income Americans, and now the tax code is more fair, 20 percent of the upper income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts.”
REALITY:
In 2004, Top One Percent Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $35,000; Middle Class Will Receive Average Tax Cut Of $647. The benefits of Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefit the rich. The top one percent of households will receive tax cuts averaging almost $35,000--or 54 times more than middle-class families. Households with incomes above $1 million will receive tax cuts averaging about $123,600. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/14/04]
George Bush's Plan Shifts the Tax Burden to the Middle Class. In contrast, under the Bush plan the "Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle" according to a Washington Post headline, and "middle America - average annual income $75,600 - saw its share of the federal tax burden increase from 18.7 percent to 19.5 percent." In addition, George Bush has imposed a tax of thousands of dollars on families through higher costs for health care, gasoline, college tuition, and state and local taxes. [Washington Post, 8/13/04]
#5. BUSH CLAIMS: “I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust, and the compounding rate of interest effect will make it more likely that the social security system is solvent for our children and our grandchildren.”
REALITY:
CBO: Bush Plan Will Force Benefit Cuts. According to CBO, the President’s plan “would reduce expected retirement benefits relative to scheduled benefits, even when the benefits paid from IAs under CSSS Plan 2 are included… For example, benefits for the 1980s birth cohort would be 30 percent lower, and benefits for the 2000s cohort would be 45 percent lower.” [CBO, “Long-term Analysis of Plan 2 of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security,” 7/21/2004, page 15 and Table 2]
[i]#6. BUSH CLAIMS: “He [Kerry] voted to increase taxes 98 times.”
REALITY:
Bush Exaggerates Kerry’s Tax Record. “Bush recycled his charge that Kerry voted 98 times to raise taxes. But FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group, says nearly half were not for tax increases per se, and many others were on procedural motions. The Bush total also includes several votes on a single tax bill.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
Kerry has gone on the legislative record over 640 times for lower taxes. [Congressional Quarterly Votes; CQ's Congress And The Nation; CQ Almanacs; Senate Republican Policy Committee Vote Analysis; Congressional Research Service Bill Summaries (via thomas.loc.gov), bill texts (via thomas.loc.gov)]
#7. BUSH CLAIMS: “I proposed a constitutional amendment. The reason I did so was because I was worried that activist judges are actually defining the definition of marriage, and the surest way to protect marriage between a man and woman is to amend the constitution.”
REALITY:
Bush Previously Claimed Gay Marriage Was a State Issue. In a 2000 Republican primary debate, Bush responded to a question about same-sex marriage as follows: "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue." [2/15/00 Republican primary debate, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/15/lkl.00.html;]
#8. BUSH CLAIMS: “He talks about PAYGO. I'll tell you what PAYGO means, when you're a senator from Massachusetts, when you're a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Increased Non-Defense Discretionary Spending By 36 Percent During His First Term. In total, non-defense discretionary outlays increased approximately 36 percent during Bush’s first term in office. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, estimates that government spending has climbed twice as fast under Bush as under Clinton. [Heritage study, 12/16/03; Cato Institute, 3/3/04; New York Times, 1/24/04]
Bush Has Not Vetoed A Single Spending Bill. During his first term in office, Bush has not vetoed any bills. [Heritage study, 12/16/03; Cato Institute, 3/3/04; New York Times, 1/24/04; Economist, 10/9/04; Denver Post, 8/29/04; Congressional Quarterly]
#9. BUSH CLAIMS: “It will be the largest increase in government health care ever.”
REALITY:
Bush’s Charges About Kerry’s Health Care Plan Have Been Roundly Discredited. ABC News said they were “not true.” “This is hardly a government takeover that would put bureaucrats in charge of your health care, as President Bush has shamelessly contended,” said the New York Times. The Washington Post said, “There is no evidence that the Kerry blueprint is a ‘government-run’ plan.” The Detroit News said they are “absurd accusations.” And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said, “Mr. Bush's allegations are wildly inaccurate.” [ABC News World News Tonight, 9/13/04; New York Times Editorial, 10/3/04; Washington Post, 9/14/04; Detroit Free Press, 9/26/04; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial, 9/27/04]
#10. BUSH CLAIMS: “That’s why I am such a strong believer in medical liability reform. The last debate my opponent said the lawsuits only cause it to go up by 1 percent. He didn't include the defensive practice of medicine that costs the Federal government some $28 billion a year and costs our society between 60 and 100 billion a year.”
REALITY:
GAO Found No Evidence that Tort Reform Would Reduce Medical Spending. Both the General Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) criticize the 1996 study the Bush administration uses as their main support for that claim…When the CBO attempted to duplicate the Stanford economists’ methods for other types of ailments they found “no evidence that restrictions on tort liability reduce medical spending.” [FactCheck.org, 10/9/04]
#11. BUSH CLAIMS: “We ought…to make sure when they get out of high school there's Pell Grants available for them, which is what we've done.” [Bush, 10/13/04]
REALITY:
Bush Broke Campaign Promise to Increase Maximum Pell Grant Award Amount. Bush promised to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100 during the 2000 campaign. Bush’s FY 2005 budget is the third in a row that has refused to increase the value over the current $4,050. The maximum value of the Pell grant covers 68 percent of public two-year tuition, down from 94 percent three decades ago. [Bush Speech in Hampton, New Hampshire, 8/30/00; FY 2005 budget]
Bush Tried to Drop 84,000 Students From Pell Program By Changing Eligibility Formula. Department of Education proposed Pell Grant formula changes would have eliminated Pell Grants for 84,000 students and reduced the grants for 1.5 million additional students. Fortunately, implementation of the proposed changes was delayed by Congress. [American Council on Education, 12/8/03]
#12. BUSH CLAIMS: “Well, first of all, it is just not true that I haven't met with the Black Congressional Caucus. I met with the Black Congressional Caucus at the White House.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Purposely Ignored the Congressional Black Caucus. “Bush did meet with the Congressional Black Caucus during his first two weeks in office -- on Jan. 31, 2001 -- but Kerry's overall charge was correct: Bush has repeatedly turned down requests to meet with the group since then. Caucus members have complained that not only has Bush refused to meet with them on specific issues, including his plans to attack Iraq, but also the White House often has not even responded to their letters.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#13. BUSH CLAIMS: “And now this economy is growing. We added 1.9 million new jobs over the last 13 months.”
REALITY:
Bush “Oversimplifies” The Employment Picture. Bush “oversimplified” the employment picture by saying that the number of jobs has increased by 1.9 million in the past 13 months…Bush was referring to only a brief window of time. The latest job figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week showed that 96,000 jobs were added in September, fewer than the 145,000 predicted by economists, for a net loss of 821,000 during Bush's tenure. Bush is on track to be the first president in 72 years to preside over a loss of jobs.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#14. BUSH CLAIMS: “What he's asking me is, ‘Will I have a litmus test for my judges?’ And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test.”
REALITY:
Bush Has Promised to Pack the Courts with Right Wing Judges. Bush has pledged to continue to pack the courts with his right wing judicial nominees and has said that Antonin Scalia is his role model for Supreme Court judges. At a GOP fundraiser in March 2002, Bush said, “First, we’ve got to get good, conservative judges appointed to the bench and approved by the United States Senate.” Non-partisan studies have found that in civil rights and civil liberties cases, Bush’s judges made liberal decisions only 26.5% of the time. [Bush Remarks at a Fundraiser for Senatorial Candidate John Cornyn; 3/28/02; Detroit Free Press, 6/19/00; “Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration”, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 9/04; Reuters, 9/9/04]
#15. BUSH CLAIMS: “He's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending…”
REALITY:
Bush Plans Would Cost $3 Trillion “Bush, making his case that Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal, charged that he has promised more than $2.2 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years. Kerry has disputed that estimate, and Bush's own tax-cut proposals and plan to create private Social Security accounts -- and his spending proposals -- would add more than $3 trillion to the deficit, according to administration figures.” [Washington Post, 10/14/04]
#16. BUSH CLAIMS: “My biggest disappointment in Washington is how partisan the town is.”
REALITY:
Bush a “Divider Not Uniter”: The Washington Post reported, “As Bush begins the final year of his term with Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, partisans on both sides say the tone of political discourse is as bad as ever -- if not worse.” One senior administration official said, Bush could have built “trust and goodwill” by pursuing more broadly appealing initiatives. One former Bush aide said the White House “relished the ‘us versus them’ thing.” The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has also found that Bush has failed “to build common ground” and “missed opportunities to build consensus on key civil rights issues.” Instead he has “adopted policies that divide Americans.” [“Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration”, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 9/04;Washington Post, 1/18/04]
#17. BUSH CLAIMS: “Today in America more minorities own a home than ever before.”
REALITY:
Homeownership Gap Between African Americans And Whites Has Grown 6.4 Percent Under Bush. Despite Bush’s claims that he is focusing on narrowing disparities in minority home ownership, the gap between black and white homeowners has increased 6.4 percent since Bush took office, from 24.8 percentage pts in 2001 to 26.5 in the last period reported. What’s more, African Americans continue to be twice as likely as whites to be denied home loans. [U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, US Housing Market Conditions, www.hud.gov; Census Bureau Reports on Residential Vacancies and Homeownership, 7/29/04; Akron Beacon Journal, 10/16/03; Orlando Sentinel, 10/16/03; Columbus Dispatch, 10/16/03; CBS Market Watch, 10/16/03]
#18. BUSH CLAIMS: “In order to make sure people have jobs for the 21st century, we've got to get it right in the education system, and we're beginning to close a minority achievement gap now. “
REALITY:
Nationwide Achievement Gaps in Reading Have Not Closed Since NCLB. Although many groups began to close the achievement gap from 1998 to 2002, there is no nationwide evidence that the gaps in reading have closed after No Child Left Behind. In fact in 2003, the Nation’s Report Card shows that in grade 4, the gap between white and African American students grew slightly larger, while the achievement gap for Hispanics was unchanged. In grade 8, the gap between white and Hispanic students grew slightly larger while the achievement gap for African Americans was unchanged. [National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress]
Bush Exaggerates Evidence of Minority Gains. “There is fragmentary data to support Bush's claim that the additional federal dollars to schools and the new accountability standards have helped minority students improve their test scores relative to white students, but education specialists agree there is not yet enough evidence to declare the act a nationwide success. Besides, the ‘achievement gap’ has been getting narrower for roughly the past decade, said Paul Peterson, director of the Program in Education Policy and Governance at Harvard's Kennedy School.” [Boston Globe, 9/24/04]
#19. BUSH CLAIMS: “We are doing everything we can to protect our borders and ports. Absolutely we can be secure in the long run.”
REALITY:
American Borders Less Secure Since 9-11. “In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the 375-mile border between Arizona and Mexico each day…The U.S.’s borders, rather than becoming more secure since 9/11 have grown more porous. And the trend has accelerated in the past year. The number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million…the largest wave since 2001.” [Time, 9/20/04]
#20. BUSH CLAIMS: “Why should they insure somebody when the government's going to insure it for them? It's estimated that 8 million people will go from private insurance to government insurance.”
REALITY:
97% of Americans Keep Existing Health Coverage Under Kerry Plan. “Lewin's vice president John Sheils told FactCheck.org that his computer model projects that only 8.2 million (of the 243 million who currently have private or government health insurance) would change their insurance plans under Kerry's plan.” [FactCheck.org, 10/4/04]
Bush Citing Study Produced By His Own Health Care Advisor From 2000 Campaign. John Goodman, the chief author of the study Bush cites, was a health care adviser to the Bush campaign in 2000. He still works informally for Bush and Congressional Republicans as an advocate for Bush’s health savings accounts. Goodman appeared as recently as July 30, 2004 on “Ludlow and Cramer” as a Bush adviser. [National Journal, 2/7/04; CNBC Transcript, “Ludlow & Cramer,” 7/30/04; Insight on the News, 1/5/04, New York Times, 4/24/00]