PolitiFact: Roundup for past week

HOW DOES POLITIFACT GEORGIA’S TRUTH-O-METER WORK?

Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.

To fact-check the claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.

The fact check then moves on to a three-member 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 and the AJC Truth-O-Meter checked out four claims last week ranging from guns to health care.

Our reporters examined the African-American male prison population for a claim made by former President and Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter. We explored the amount of time and money taxpayers — individuals and businesses — are spending to comply with the federal tax code. We published an item investigated by our national PolitiFact colleagues comparing bans of assault weapons to those of a children’s book. And we completed a fact check of a health care claim by U.S. Senate candidate Karen Handel days before she used the information in the first paid ad of the campaign.

Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below. Full versions can be found at: www.politifact.com/georgia/.

To comment on our rulings or suggest one of your own, go to our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/politifact.georgia). You can also find us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/politifactga).

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Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America: The book “Little Red Riding Hood” is something “that’s been banned in America,” but not assault weapons.

The pro-gun control group, founded after the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., made this claim recently in an ad shared on social media. The provocative spot features two children sitting in a library, one holding a fairy-tale book; the other holding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The caption: “One child is holding something that’s been banned in America to protect them. Guess which one.”

We understood what the ad was trying to do, but its language obscures that the “bans” being compared are not so clear-cut.

“Little Red Riding Hood” was banned only in two school districts and nearly a quarter century ago; many books have been banned much more recently and frequently. And there’s no national assault-weapons ban, but more than a quarter of Americans live in states that have banned them.

The claim contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

We rated Moms Demand Action’s statement Mostly False.

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Karen Handel: Congress secured special Obamacare rules “to prevent their health care costs from rising.”

Handel, a U.S. Senate candidate, made this statement to highlight an example of what she considers hypocrisy in the place where she wants to work.

Our research found that Congress, according to several news accounts and a GOP senator, was pushing to get this done, although it came from an order by the Obama administration. Most conservatives describe the decision as an exemption. The Office of Personnel Management says the rule is a continuation of past policies for funding health care coverage for congressional workers and their bosses.

Handel’s basic claim was in the ballpark but needed a lot of context to be fully understood.

It’s true that members of Congress and some of their staffs will continue to have an employer contribution toward their health insurance premiums. But they will also still have to go through the health care exchanges like other people.

We rated Handel’s claim Half True.

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Tom Price: Americans spend more than $160 billion and 6 billion hours per year complying with the tax code.

The Republican congressman from Roswell made these claims in a couple of Twitter posts recently as an argument for comprehensive tax reform. Politicos on both sides of the aisle have called for an overhaul of a tax system that many say is too complex and onerous for businesses and individuals. The goal is to eliminate or reduce tax breaks and use the additional revenue to lower tax rates across the board.

The figures in Price’s claim can be traced to annual reports to Congress by the IRS’ independent ombudsman. That office actually found that taxpayers spent $163 billion complying with 2008 tax rules, and $168 billion by 2010. The compliance figure of 6.1 billion annual hours also didn’t include millions of extra hours taxpayers spent responding to IRS notices or audits.

Those figures, while difficult to quantify, have become the accepted standard for calculating compliance time and costs.

We rated Price’s claim True.

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Former President Jimmy Carter: The number of African-American men in prison has increased fivefold since he left office.

In his comments last month commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and its leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., former President Carter made this claim about an issue he believed would upset the slain civil rights leader.

In 1981, when Carter left office, the number of black men incarcerated was approximately 160,000. By 2010, a federal report put the amount at 841,000.