Texas Textbook Wars
Fox News pumps up the 'Texas textbook war'
Coverage on the Fox News Channel says Texas officials are planning to eliminate references to Christmas and the Constitution from school textbooks. PolitiFact Texas finds the claim Pants-on-Fire wrong.
A scorecard separating fact from fiction
"House Appropriations Chair David Obey's partial earmark ban wouldn't apply to 90% of earmarks."
"Health insurance companies' costs are only 4 percent of all health care spending."
"We are the only industrialized nation that relies heavily on a for-profit medical insurance industry to provide basic health care."
"Obama has proposed a 1.4% pay increase for active duty military in 2011. This is THE LOWEST SINCE 1973 ... A LOWER PAY INCREASE THAN WELFARE RECIPIENTS!!!"
In the Senate version of the health reform bill, "Every enrollee in the Office of Personnel Management enrolled plan, every enrollee has to pay a minimum of $1 per month towards reproductive rights, which includes abortion."
"When we started this health care debate a year ago, 85 percent of the American people had health insurance, and 95 percent of the 85 percent were happy with it."
The Senate version of the health care reform bill "allows taxpayer money to pay directly for abortion in federal community health centers funded in the bill."
George W. Bush was "the least popular president in modern history."
The health care bill will "create 4 million jobs, 400,000 jobs almost immediately."
"When Social Security started, age expectancy for the average man was 58. It was 62 -- 62 for women."
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More changes to the Obameter list
We've made a few more changes to our Obameter data base:
We're deleting these promises:
* No. 190: Improve domestic intelligence gathering between federal ...
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The difference between Stalled and Promise Broken
We've been publishing lots of updates to our Obamater database of campaign promises and have been getting some questions about our rating system -- particularly ...
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We want to hear your suggestions and comments. For tips or comments on our campaign promise database, please e-mail the Obameter. If you are commenting on a specific promise, please include the promise number. For comments about our Truth-O-Meter or Flip-O-Meter items, please e-mail the Truth-O-Meter. We’re especially interested in seeing any chain e-mails you receive that you would like us to check out. If you send us a comment, we'll assume you don't mind us publishing it unless you tell us otherwise.
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-O-Meter. We’re also tracking more than 500 of Barack Obama’s campaign promises and are rating their progress on our new Obameter. >> More
“I want you to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable.” — Barack Obama
“Okay, we will.” — PolitiFact
Tracking Obama’s promises
Promises we have rated recently
No. 511:
Recognize the Armenian genocide
No. 431:
Reduce earmarks to 1994 levels
No. 221:
Double the Peace Corps
No. 41:
Freeze the 2009 estate tax law
No. 339:
Support human mission to moon by 2020
Says the Texas State Board of Education is considering eliminating references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks. — Gretchen Carlson
"Crist stays in $2,000 a night luxury hotel suites where he racks up $1,300 in mini-bar charges, and doesn't pay for a dime of it himself." — Marco Rubio
"Individuals and small businesses will be hit by increases in health insurance premiums as high as 39 percent." — Americans United for Change
Charges on the Republican Party of Florida credit card were made with "my money." — Marco Rubio
"If we just froze spending at 2007 levels ... by 2013 we would balance the budget ... and by 2020 we would cut the national debt in half." — George LeMieux
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