PolitiFact: The Roundup

The fact check then moves on to a panel of editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.

PolitiFact Georgia took a break from the controversy over the Affordable Care Act this past week to delve into a few local fact checks.

We looked at Gwinnett County finances, Gov. Nathan Deal’s financial report card and a Georgia GOP congressman who claims he gives money back every year.

Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.

Full versions can be found at: www.politifact.com/georgia/.

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Gwinnett County Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Nash: Finance experts estimate that paying in cash for the $2.5 billion in projects funded by the sales tax saved Gwinnett County more than $1 billion in interest payments.

The election results are in, but we still had a question concerning a particular item on the ballot in Georgia’s second-largest county that seemed worthy of a fact check.

Here’s a passage about it from an interview with Nash in The Gwinnett Daily Post:

“SPLOST is the best tool that the Legislature has ever given local government,” Nash said, adding that finance experts estimate that paying in cash for the $2.5 billion in projects funded by the sales tax saved the county more than $1 billion in interest payments that would have been owed if debt had been issued. “It allowed us to work on those quality of life things, and we were able to do it without debt.”

Experts we interviewed agreed with the county’s methodology and math.

We did our own calculations, and it appeared to us that the county would have paid more than $1 billion in interest had it borrowed $2.5 billion.

We rated Nash’s claim True.

Michael Mule’: “Georgia has lost 14 percent of its jobs paying more than $50,000 a year and added 15 percent to its Medicaid rolls during the recovery.”

Gov. Nathan Deal’s re-election chances will largely rest on how voters view his economic stewardship of the state.

Deal held a campaign rally-type event to announce that Site Selection magazine rated Georgia as the best state to do business.

A top adviser to one of Deal’s opponents, though, said Georgians should not be too impressed.

“Georgia has lost 14 percent of its jobs paying more than $50,000 a year and added 15 percent to its Medicaid rolls during the recovery,” said Michael Mule’, an adviser to the gubernatorial campaign of Dalton Mayor David Pennington.

Mule’ is correct about the Medicaid numbers.

But his statement also leaves the impression Mule’ was saying Georgia has lost 14 percent of its jobs paying more than $50,000 since the recovery began. We could not find anything to back up this part of his statement.

Mule’s statement is partially accurate. But it takes things out of context when read as a whole.

We rated it Half True.

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland: “I have returned money every year since taking office.”

Westmoreland, a Republican from Coweta County who prides himself on being a fiscal conservative, made an interesting claim about his frugality in one recent article.

The congressman said his office “runs on as little money as possible to properly serve my constituents, and for that reason I have returned money every year since taking office.”

We took a look at the other members of Congress from Georgia, and each one of them had spent less money in 2012 than was budgeted. Westmoreland spent less than most of his Georgia colleagues in 2012.

To sum up, Westmoreland said he has returned money from his allotted budget each year he’s been in office. The numbers he sent — and that we independently reviewed — show he makes a good point.

Our rating: True.