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 a 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 panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
Claims about the economy and jobs kept our fact-checkers busy last week. Some, like our picks for last night’s lottery drawing, came up just a little short. See Rand Paul’s claim that the U.S. is borrowing $1 million a minute or President Barack Obama’s boast that “the economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office.” David Perdue, Georgia’s newest U.S. senator, hit the Truth-O-Meter with a claim that the National Technical Information Service has outlived its usefulness and should be abolished.
We continued our series on the 2016 presidential candidates with a look at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who entered the crowded GOP field on July 13. On Monday, the spotlight falls on Bernie Sanders, the junior U.S. senator from Vermont and an announced Democratic candidate for president.
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
“The economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office.”
Barack Obama on July 21, 2015, in an interview with Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show”
During his farewell visit to Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show, ” President Barack Obama took a bit of a victory lap.
At one point in the extended interview posted online, Obama said: “Here’s the thing I can say, Jon. I can say this unequivocally: The VA is better now than when I came into office; government works better than when I came into office; the economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office.”
It was the last of those claims — that “the economy, by every metric, is better than when I came into office” — that caught our attention. That’s a pretty strong statement. Is it correct?
Three common economic statistics that are widely considered important are gross domestic product, the unemployment rate and the employment level. And looking just at these three measurements, Obama has a strong record in office.
For example, inflation-adjusted GDP per capita — that is, all economic activity in the United States divided by the number of U.S. residents — has increased from $47,002 in 2009 to $54,630 in 2014, an increase of 16 percent since Obama took office.
But we also found several important measurements that went in the wrong direction during his tenure, including real median weekly income, median income, percentage of people living in poverty, median weeks unemployed and the number of people on food stamps.
For example, 13.2 percent of Americans were living in poverty in March 2009, 14.5 percent in March 2014.
We found Obama’s claim was too sweeping. We rated it Mostly False.
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“We borrow a million dollars every minute.”
— Rand Paul on July 17, 2015
At a campaign rally in Houston, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., talked about one of his favorite dislikes: the national debt.
“You have people in Washington who do things you would never, ever approve of, ” Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, said in his July 17 remarks. “I’ll give you an idea. Does anybody here think it’s a good idea to borrow money from China to send it to Pakistan? We borrow a million dollars every minute.”
Does the country really borrow $1 million a minute? We decided to check it out.
For the country to borrow $1 million a minute, the annual government deficit would have to be about $525 billion. In 2014, the deficit was $483 billion, and it’s projected to be $486 billion in 2015.
Paul’s estimate is a little on the high side.
On balance, we rated it Mostly True.
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The National Technical Information Service spends millions of taxpayer dollars to print and sell government documents that are available free in online searches.
— David Perdue on June 22, 2015, in a press release
Don’t worry if you have never heard of the National Technical Information Service. You can look it up online.
That’s a big part of the point of Senate Bill 1636, the Just Google It Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga. The bill would eliminate that obscure office within the U.S. Commerce Department.
The office’s mandate, as of its 1950 creation: serve as the main repository for an estimated 3 million government-funded technical, scientific and business reports. The agency’s own website encourages users to check with other government agencies and conduct an Internet search before requesting documents.
In 2012, the Government Accountability Office found that 74 percent of the NTIS reports between 1990 and 2011 were “readily available” elsewhere, usually from the originating agency’s website. And 95 percent of that 74 percent of reports were free, the GAO estimated, while the NTIS lost an average of $1 million a year for the past decade.
NTIS Director Bruce Borzino has made the point that his office is the one posting many of those reports to the Web. And many other federal departments do not have the technical expertise to maintain the permanent access of their information.
Perdue’s statement hit on a popular topic, attacking what appears to be government waste. It’s accurate but omits some information that adds nuance to the debate.
We rated Perdue’s claim Mostly True.
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Since Volvo spurned Georgia for South Carolina in early May, some 3,455 jobs promising more than $800 million in investments have come to the Peach State.
— Chris Riley in a July 17, 2015, post of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Political Insider blog
Job creation was one of the main issues in Gov. Nathan Deal’s successful re-election bid last year, with wins from the state’s focus on recruiting automakers a key element of the talk.
But in May, Volvo rejected Georgia and went with South Carolina for a new $500 million factory that will employ 4,000 workers.
State leaders were disappointed but called it a speed bump, not a crash, and pledged to focus on other economic development projects.
This month, Deal’s chief of staff, Chris Riley, repeated the point: Since the May 11 Volvo announcement, Riley said those other projects have brought more than $800 million in investments and the promise of 3,455 jobs. We wanted to see the details.
Riley was unavailable for comment, but a spokeswoman for Deal’s office said the governor’s top aide drew the numbers from the state’s Department of Economic Development.
Between May 11 and Riley’s statement, the department tallied 3,728 jobs — or 273 more than Riley claimed. Of that total, 300 came on the same day that Volvo spurned Georgia.
We rate his claim True.
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