The Democratic convention might be history, but the
nonpartisan fact-checkers from PolitiFact are still on the job, trying to parse political truth from fiction.
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President Obama said this Wednesday night:
“Illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades.”
The data generally support his claim. But the numbers aren’t perfect.
There’s a hint of a recent uptick in crime based on partial and preliminary data from 2015 and 2016.
Estimates of illegal immigration have to rely on border patrol apprehensions because it’s impossible to directly count the number of people sneaking into the United States.
We rate Obama’s claim Mostly True.
Vice President Joe Biden said this:
“We have the most productive workers in the world.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tracks how much value comes out of each hour worked in the world’s higher income nations.
According to its data, Luxembourg and Norway have more productive workers than America. That ranking has been in place since 2010.
Third is not first. But to place in the top three out of the world’s 47 most wealthy nations is still an achievement.
Biden is wrong on the details, but the general point is correct.
We rate this claim Mostly True.
Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine said this:
“John McCain’s chief economic adviser during the ’08 race … estimated that Trump’s promises would cause America to lose 3.5 million jobs.”
Mark Zandi was a donor and economic adviser to the McCain campaign.
But he was not the chief adviser. And this isn’t the full picture of his political affiliations.
Turns out, Zandi is a registered Democrat and donated the maximum amount to Clinton’s primary campaign.
To identify Zandi only as a former adviser of McCain leaves out a lot of the story about Zandi’s political affiliations.
We rate Kaine’s claim Half True.
California congresswoman Karen Bass said this:
Donald Trump promised “the mass deportation of Latino families.”
Trump pledged to remove the undocumented population, which is certainly comprised of Latinos but is not exclusive to them.
The underlying issue is tough talk Trump offered earlier in his campaign about rounding up undocumented immigrants in the country and sending them back to their native countries.
Trump appears to have recently softened his view over the last month.
We rate Bass’ statement Half True.
Harry Reid said this:
Says “Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to gamble with your retirement benefits in the stock market.”
Pence has a record of supporting Republican proposals to change Social Security to allow for more investment into private funds.
But Trump has clearly and repeatedly said this campaign cycle he has no plans to modify Social Security or introduce elements similar to the Bush’s 2005 attempt to restructure the entitlement program.
We rate Reid’s statement Mostly False.
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