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Category Archives: Smoke & Mirrors

Tax Reform or Tax Cut???


Apparently the Dupublican congressional leaders  had an epiphany The two leaders (?) are both now recanting the hype over the tax issue. They now recognize that their plan will not help the middle class (revelation?). The tax issue has been examined by many and yet these neer do wells kept insisting that this was good for us. Again I refer to pre WWII Germany, the Hitler regime, lie, lie,lie until people believe the lies. We all feel that the Government no matter who is President keeps many things from us. Yet we still elect and re-elect the same folks over and over, “therein lies the rub”! We have ignored their machinations for so long that they feel untouchable and we allowed it. Now we have a megalomaniacal Titular head of Government who cannot string 2  intelligible (informed or uninformed) words together without a writer. We have heard about tax reforms and tax cuts from both houses and  TOTUS for the better part of a year, now we see that the so called reforms and cuts do not and will not benefit the very people who elected them to office. An election based on the so far unfulfilled promises to get us a better deal. It is now clear as glass that these promises are impractical and unobtainable without hurting the working class of America financially and by extension the economy. The wake up alarm has been sounded and the administration is still trying to silence it with even more lies and deceit. How long will we stand for it? Article below tells more

McConnell Joins Ryan in Walking Back False Promise on Tax Bill

Steven T. Dennis

11/10/2017

 

(Bloomberg) — The top Republicans in the House and Senate have now walked back false promises about their tax bills’ impact on the middle class.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged to The New York Times Friday he erred when he said in an MSNBC appearance last week that “nobody in the middle class is going to get a tax increase.”
Now the Kentucky Republican says every income group would see a tax cut — on average.
“You can’t guarantee that absolutely no one sees a tax increase,” he told the newspaper.
McConnell joins House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in walking back their statements on taxes. Ryan had said in a radio interview Wednesday, “So actually, even though there’s a lot of false information out there, everybody gets a tax cut.”
That statement was false, as there are millions of people who would face higher tax bills from the loss of deductions like the one for state and local taxes, which is rolled back in the House bill and eliminated entirely in the Senate bill.
A day later, Ryan’s language changed.
“At every income level, there is a tax cut for the average family,” Ryan said in a statement Thursday, citing a study by the Joint Committee on Taxation.
AshLee Strong, a Ryan spokeswoman, told The Washington Post that he misspoke.
(Updates with quote from Donald Trump in ninth paragraph.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Kotuku’s in Singapore at jkoutsoukis2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net.
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

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NOTES


The advent of the Trump administration’s cabinet choices are beginning to bear fruit, bitter, bitter fruit. From education to the EPA we are being sent down a path that will harm us for years. The current attempt on tax reform is yet one more slap to the faces of Americans in the name of improvement and more money in the pockets of “middle class Americans”. All of the buzz words and sound bites put out on a daily basis are not worthy of being called information. The so called tax reform touted as being better benefits only the so called 1%. There is no real middle class anymore, there are the 99% which covers everyone who does not make the imaginary middle class wage. It is well to remember that Congressional members will not be affected by any tax reforms just as they would not be affected by any changes in the ACA (Obamacare). I contend that our faith in the elected members of the Government from the Whitehouse to the Congress is misplaced as they talk a good game but have not delivered in years. What they have delivered is a divide that pits most Americans against one another so that they (administration and Congress) can maintain power. We have been fed so much erroneous information that the truth is only one more lie from drowning. All of the activity on ACA and Tax reform is about campaign promises and staying in office. We the voters have an obligation to speak out and complain about what the Congress and the Administration is doing. Do not be fooled or ignore what is coming out of Washington as much of it is untrue or “alternate facts”. If you have been paying attention at all you must realize that we are in trouble and only we  voters can correct it. We must write, call, email, and tweet our representatives and Congress until we get their attention, do not wait for someone else to do it. The way to look at this except for a few, our Congress and TOTUS do not care about you and will continue to do things in your name without your permission.  Disregard the “titles” like conservative, progressive, liberal, right and left, these word wars are just distractions and  the usual smoke and mirrors of politics. Get real and pay attention. Remember what happens to one affects us all even if you don’t think so.

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Hand Selected Attendees


What kind of National representation is it when town hall meetings are filled with Hand picked attendees? TOTUS has used hand selected attendees in his town hall meetings. This does not represent the American people. These folks are not even a microcosm of America. These engineered meetings are similar to Hitler’s “town hall” meetings in the 1930’s. These meetings while not representative of America as a whole amount to a captive audience. Their  enthusiasm is similar to the audience on a game show vying for a chance to be seen or heard. This use of the population based on their usefulness to the speaker speaks to the lack of honesty by this President. Apparently it is easier to keep up a barrage of outrageous Tweets that serve only to take the focus off the real issues rather than making even the slightest attempt to Govern. It is clear that this Resident of the Whitehouse has no interest in truly Governing and uses bully tactics to affect a sense of it which excites his ever shrinking base. The executive orders issued are not really  laws but they have not been challenged by Congress as many of Obama’s were. It is easy to state forward progress while Tweeting about so many extraneous issues that have nothing to do with Governance. It is easy to excite people with lies as they can contain anything as long as people believe them. It is coincidental that Trump’s Grandfather was an immigrant and had his Grandson been President at that time what would have become of him? The worst part of this Presidency is that all actions thus far are based on fulfilling campaign promises at any cost rather than actually governing a country. A major issue is the ACA and it’s repeal which was supposed to allow for tax reform. To explain: The offered Health care changes or replacement was supposed make funding available to reform the tax code. Now the methodology  is go at these important issues in a piece by piece manner that if completed will cause  long term problems that will take years to fix.

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What Have We Become?


The current administration along with outside interests have concocted a web of lies on everything they do and will do. There is no activity that is directed toward the good of the oft cited American People. For years now the political parties have underserved us and that under service allowed for an insidious group of people to take over the Presidency. This group has taken the tactic of another 1930’s dictator and that is tell lies until they become truth in the minds of the people. Once this conversion is complete the people will believe anything that is said. We now have the real possibility of war with a rogue nation and have hardened the lines of other countries. Our allies are not sure what we are doing and therefore have had to move ahead in world affairs without us. The administration has rolled back EPA protections that will spoil our air quality for years while producing no new jobs and will surely cause health issues. This Congress has all but suborned the rash actions of this administration with no thought of the what their duty to the country is. Considering the recent the weather related  events, there have been many statements of what will be done but  more attention on the activities on the Sports fields. It is as if the administration is promoting personal issues over National interests. This is merely more lies issued with smoke and mirrors. What we could become is a nation echoing 1930’s Europe.

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White House claims ‘dreamers’ take jobs away from blacks and Hispanics. Here’s the truth.


Again the lies. MA

Wonkblog | Analysis
By Tracy Jan
September 6, 2017 at 4:46 PM
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke to reporters about President Trump’s change to immigration protection for “dreamers” on Sept. 5. (Reuters)
It’s a long-running talking point spouted by Trump administration members and the president himself: Undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from black and Hispanic Americans.
Hours after President Trump dismantled an Obama-era program that had granted 800,000 young undocumented immigrants permission to live and work in the United States, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders again made the claim.
“It’s a known fact that there are over 4 million unemployed Americans in the same age group as those that are DACA recipients; that over 950,000 of those are African Americans in the same age group; over 870,000 unemployed Hispanics in the same age group,” Sanders said during Tuesday’s press briefing. “Those are large groups of people that are unemployed that could possibly have those jobs.”
Here’s the problem: immigrant and native-born workers are imperfect substitutes. There is no evidence that the unemployed Americans, be they black, white or Hispanic, have the skills necessary to hold the same jobs occupied by the young beneficiaries of the five-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“It is one thing to say that there are hundreds of thousands of minorities the same age that are unemployed, and a very different thing for them to have the same education, skills and experience as the employed DACA workers,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign.
“And if they do,” he added, “it begs the question as to why they don’t have those jobs in the first place.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders arrives at the podium to give the daily briefing on Sept. 5 in Washington. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Contrary to Sanders’s assertion, he said, DACA improves the economic outlook for low-skilled, American-born workers. Without work permits, undocumented immigrants are more likely to take any job they can, even work that falls far below their skill or education level. DACA, on the other hand, allows those workers to move to jobs that better match their background, freeing up low-skilled positions.
There is just no compelling proof that immigration — legal or illegal — “squeezes out native-born workers in any systematic way,” Holtz-Eakin said. “We’ve experienced waves of immigration and still, on average, reached full employment.”
The number of jobs in the United States is not fixed. An influx of immigrant workers generates economic growth and employment opportunities by increasing productivity, said Jackie Varas, director of immigration and trade policy at American Action Forum.
“Many DACA recipients are also more skilled than other immigrants because they possess a college education, so they don’t compete with low-skilled Americans,” Varas said.
Furthermore, said Darrick Hamilton, an economics and urban policy professor at The New School, blacks and Latinos want access to quality jobs, not just jobs at the bottom of the labor market.
Related: [‘Dreamers’ can ‘rest easy,’ Ryan says, promising congressional action]
“Why do we reserve and presume the bottom of the labor market for blacks and Latinos?” Hamilton said. “Many DACA recipients are full-time students not engaged in taking away jobs.”
Of the DACA-eligible immigrants over 21 years old, 12 percent have bachelor’s degrees, 3 percent have advanced degrees, 84 percent have completed high school and some college, and 2 percent did not graduate from high school, according to an analysis by New American Economy.
The Trump administration is rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The Obama-era program granted two-year work permits to undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
A Moody’s Analytics analysis of Trump’s proposed economic policies last year showed that removing all undocumented immigrants from the labor force would trigger an economic recession within one year.
Another American Action Forum study found that if all undocumented immigrants were deported, there would not be enough American workers to fill all of the jobs that would be left open. And even if all available native workers filled the open slots, the country would still be short 4 million workers.
Trump and his supporters have often pitted minority groups against one another. But there is no broad economic justification to do so.
“Cannibalizing stigmatized and marginalized groups against each other serves the wealthy interests that benefit from such divisive colonial and labor segmenting tactics,” Hamilton said.
Tracy Jan covers the intersection of race and the economy for The Post. She previously was a national political reporter at The Boston Globe.

Cringing


With the ascension of the “Boss Baby” (apologies to the movie) to the white house it has been difficult for me not rant continuously about the idiocy of our Congress and the die hard followers of TOTUS. Many times in reading and writing including postings from others, I have felt the need to sanitize my keyboard and screens. The rhetoric that appears online from so many talking heads especially the likes of “FOX” commentators and Mr. Rust Limbaugh is absolutely as racist and divisive as you can get without wearing the robes of the Klan on the air. I was looking at the “Blond*” onslaught that we have evidenced as talkers for the right (often to extremes). I am amazed that the mouths and noses of the people can stand to remain on their faces. I do not know if they actually believe what they say but they say it with a seeming conviction that scares the crap out of me and it should you also. The idea that they have prime time spots that contacts millions who through issues that they have allowed to grow because they have paid no attention to the people they have elected over the years. These folks have every right to be upset and should be but they have allowed themselves to be converted to ignorance by the “Hitler-Goebbels” ploy of telling the same lies over and over until it become real to the people. All Americans listen and see the same news (even when it is skewed) but many understand that all news is not equal. A pretty face and great figure does not make lies true. There are too many problems that are being under reported and just ignored for the sake of sensational journalism(?). I have starred (*) Blonds earlier in this post and that refers to this list of presenters of “news” and opinions that do not represent most of us.                                                                                     The list: Tomi Lahren, Ann Coulter, Kellyanne Conwoman, Megyn Kelly and Lara Ingraham. To top of the list of Natterers we have former speaker “Newt Gingrich” seeking recognition for some reason known only to himself.  To be kind, these folks are not dumb they are either misinformed, under informed or just  out to push an agenda for money.

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Laura Ingraham: ‘AMERICANS Are Dreamers, Too’


My Question is: What about the Native Americans? MA.

By Craig Bannister | September 5, 2017 | 12:19 PM EDT

Laura Ingraham says illegal aliens aren’t the only ones who want “a better life.”
“Americans are dreamers, too,” conservative pundit Laura Ingraham declared Tuesday as Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for illegal aliens (DACA) is being “rescinded.”

Appearing on Fox News Channel, Ingraham argued that Americans’ dreams are being compromised by the acceptance and coddling of illegal aliens:
“Americans are dreamers, too. They have a lot of dreams that have not been fulfilled because of a variety of reasons — a lot of them have to do with politicians not doing what they said they were going to do.”

“So American citizens want a better life. They want their kids to be in schools that aren’t overcrowded. They want health care that doesn’t rise in its cost [by] 20 percent, 18 percent a year.”

“We don’t rule by emotion. We rule by law,” Ingraham said. She also dispelled the notion that DACA was simply protect pre-teen illegal aliens, noting that the program even protects 36 year-olds.
Ingraham suggested that, if Congress passes an amnesty bill, the American public won’t stand for it:

“So if Congress wants to push basically a de facto amnesty of a million people and think that somehow Middle America is going to stand up and cheer, good luck.”

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says It’s Not Appropriate To Lie…


Was there a fire extinguisher nearby during this press conference? MA

Politics

Jenna Amatulli, HuffPost 12 hours ago

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at Wednesday’s briefing that she didn’t think it was “appropriate to lie from the podium or any other place.”
Sanders’ job is to defend President Donald Trump’s actions, and defend she does. But despite her saying that her job is to “communicate the president’s agenda” and “answer questions as honestly” as she can, Sanders has a history of not doing that with complete truth.
Here are just a few examples of Sanders giving us reasons to pause:
1. When she said at Wednesday’s press briefing that Trump didn’t lie about calls from the Mexican president and leaders of Boy Scouts of America.
Trump said Monday that the president of Mexico called him directly to offer praise for his immigration policies. President Enrique Peña Nieto said in a statement that he “has not had any recent telephone communication with President Donald Trump.” Sanders said in the briefing that this call Trump claimed to have had was actually a reference to a conversation the two presidents shared at the G20 summit. As for the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America, Sanders said they “congratulated” and “praised” Trump after his controversial speech at the National Scout Jamboree last week (though the group says this never happened).
Sanders then admitted that no “actual phone calls” took place; rather, they were in-person conversations. When ABC News’ Cecilia Vega indicated that the president lied, Sanders said she “wouldn’t say it was a lie.”
2. When she said “the president is not a liar.”
In June, former FBI Director James Comey said in his Senate testimony that the Trump administration had spread ‘‘lies, plain and simple,’’ “defaming’’ him at the agency. Sanders then disputed this testimony amid an off-camera briefing at the White House by saying, “The president’s not a liar.’’
According to The New York Times, Trump “told public lies or falsehoods every day for his first 40 days.”
3. When she said that the White House heard from “countless members” of the FBI about their respective lack of confidence in James Comey.
The acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, told lawmakers in a congressional hearing May 11 that that was inaccurate and said that Comey “enjoyed broad support within the FBI, and still does to this day.”
4. When she said that Trump has never “promoted or encouraged violence” after a slew of tweets about the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
During his presidential campaign, in February 2016, Trump said to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?”
“Seriously. Just knock the hell … I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees,” he added.
5. When she said “multiple news outlets” reported that former President Barack Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump.
Sanders said “high-profile sources” like The New York Times and BBC had reported this, but the only claim appears to have come from “a November 2016 blog post based on anonymous sources that has not been corroborated by independent U.S. journalists.”
Sanders clearly needs to rethink her definition of honesty ― we’re not even 200 days into this administration.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost .

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The Irony


The neer do wells have decided to repeal the ACA (Obamacare) since their replacement did not happen. The past 7 to 8 years afforded more than enough time to tweak the ACA but in their own incredibly stupid fashion the Dupublican Congress has used race baiting and fear to turn people against the closest we have come to universal heath care. The people who are covered under the ACA are happy and have voiced their opinion to their representatives and everywhere else they could. The worst part of this whole deal is that  many do not realize the ACA and Obamacare are the same, this lack of knowledge is steeped in the massive advertising against it by the most prominent members of the GOP. Now the GOP has been unable to replace and now want to repeal it to the detriment of millions. With this information why would the voters listen to anything the GOP or any other politician has to say about what they are doing for us? We have “leaders” in politics who have one (1) goal and that is to take care of themselves and what ever legacy they perceive as more important than doing the job they were elected to do. As an aside the Congress and staff would have been exempted from the proposed (and failed)  “new” health care bill. I would like to see more of us reading and viewing the real truth about our Congress and  vote for people who really want to serve. Party loyalty is a liability not an asset, vote for the truth , not a sound bite.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump and missions unaccomplished


Trump supporters and others have been led down the garden path to the Mad hatter’s tea party where the available quaff is “poisoned Kool-Aid”. All of this with the financial and media outpourings of the people who own conglomerates whose sole purpose is to keep the flow of money to themselves and away from the people. TOTUS has assisted with this because he in a smaller way is one of them. In my opinion the TOTUS wants to play with the “big Boys” but does not have the wealth so acting as surrogate will do whatever it takes to gain favor.MA

AP FACT CHECK: Trump and missions unaccomplished
JIM DRINKARD and CALVIN WOODWARD,Associated Press 21 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has a way of presenting missions as accomplished even when they’re not.
So it was when he told Iowans he’s put farmers back at their plows, secured a historic increase in military spending and empowered homebuilders to swing their hammers again. Those all remain aspirations, not achievements.
Trump is also known to propose something already in effect, as when he declared “the time has come” for a welfare moratorium for immigrants. President Bill Clinton signed such a moratorium into law in 1996.
A look at a variety of Trump’s statements from the public square over the past week:
TRUMP: “We’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall so it creates energy and pays for itself. And this way, Mexico will have to pay much less money. And that’s good right? … Pretty good imagination, right? Good? My idea.” — in Iowa on Wednesday.
THE FACTS: His idea? Others came forward with such proposals back when he was criticizing solar power as too expensive.
The notion of adding solar panels to the wall he wants to build along the Mexico border was explored in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March. Vasilis Fthenakis, director of the Center for Life Cycle Analysis at Columbia University, and Ken Zweibel, former director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University, concluded it was “not only technically and economically feasible, it might even be more practical than a traditional wall.”
They said a 2,000-mile solar wall could cost less than $1 billion, instead of tens of billions for a traditional border wall, and possibly become “wildly profitable.” The writers were studying a concept laid out by Homero Aridjis and James Ramey in the online World Post in December.
The idea also was proposed by one of the companies that submitted its design to the government as a border wall prototype. Las Vegas-based Gleason Partners proposed covering some sections of the wall with solar panels and said that selling electricity from it could eventually cover the cost of construction.
Trump repeatedly described solar power in the campaign as “very, very expensive” and “not working so good.”
___
TRUMP: “So, we’ve achieved a historic increase in defense spending.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: He hasn’t. He is proposing a large increase but Congress is still debating — and is nowhere near deciding on — more money for defense for 2018.
All that’s been achieved is a $25 billion increase for this year and there’s nothing remotely historic about that. The Pentagon has received annual budget increases equal to or greater than $25 billion seven times in the past 15 years alone.
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TRUMP: “The time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years. And we’ll be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: A federal law passed in 1996 already has that effect. It bars most foreigners who enter the country on immigrant visas from being eligible for federal benefits like Social Security and food stamps for the first five years. States typically have the authority to determine eligibility for local programs. As for people in the country illegally, they are generally prohibited from those benefits altogether. Same with foreigners who are in the U.S. on nonimmigrant visas.
___
TRUMP: Addressing why he raised the possibility that his Oval Office conversation with fired FBI Director James Comey might have been recorded: “When he found out that I, you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether it’s governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, I think his story may have changed.” — Fox News interview aired Friday.
THE FACTS: There’s no evidence of any change in what Comey testified on June 8 before the Senate Intelligence committee. In that appearance — the only time Comey has publicly addressed the subject — his story was consistent. He said that on three occasions beginning in January he’d told the president that he was not then the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation on him as part of its work to probe Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election.
Since then, it has been reported that Trump is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller over his May 9 firing of Comey and whether that or other actions by the president constitute obstruction of justice.
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TRUMP: “You see what we’ve already done. Homebuilders are starting to build again. We’re not confiscating their land with ridiculous rules and regulations that don’t make sense.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Housing starts as tracked by the Census Bureau have actually fallen over the past three months. Trump seems a bit mixed up on deregulation. Some of the biggest constraints on homebuilders come from local governments, rather than federal rules.
___
TRUMP: On cutting regulations to help farmers: “Farmers are able to plow their field. If they have a puddle in the middle of their field, a little puddle the size of this, it’s considered a lake and you can’t touch it. And if you touch it, bad, bad things happen to you and your family. We got rid of that one, too, OK?” — Iowa speech
THE FACTS: He didn’t get rid of the regulations he’s talking about. He signed an executive order in February directing the Environmental Protection Agency to review a rule protecting clean water. The rule can stop some farmers from using pesticides and herbicides. It’s still in place, pending the review.
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TRUMP: “Former Homeland Security Advisor Jeh Johnson is latest top intelligence official to state there was no grand scheme between Trump & Russia.” — tweet Thursday.
THE FACTS: Johnson did not state that conclusion. He was homeland security secretary (not adviser) from December 2013 to January 2017. He was asked at a House Intelligence committee hearing Wednesday whether he knew of any evidence of collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.
Johnson said he was not aware of any information beyond what’s been reported publicly and what the U.S. intelligence community has gathered. That is not a statement of belief that no collusion took place. Pressed on the matter, he said Comey probably had some information to go on when the FBI opened an investigation into possible collusion.
___
TRUMP: “Unemployment is at a 16-year low.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Unemployment is indeed that low, at 4.3 percent.
___
TRUMP: “We are 5 and 0, as you know, in these special elections. And I think the Democrats thought it would be a lot different than that. 5-0 is a big — that’s a big margin.” — Fox News interview aired Friday.
THE FACTS: Wrong score. Right score: 4-1. Republicans won open House seats in Kansas, Georgia, Montana and South Carolina. Democrats held onto a seat in California.
Trump’s miscount wasn’t a one-time gaffe. It was also a line that roused supporters in his Iowa speech. “So, we’re 5 and 0. We’re 5 and 0,” he said to applause Wednesday night. “Five and 0. Five and 0,” he said at another point.
___
TRUMP: “Since I was elected, illegal border crossings — and this is without the wall, before the wall — have decreased by more than 75 percent, a historic and unprecedented achievement.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: That’s overblown, according to government figures about the Mexico border. The decrease in his first four full months in office is about 59 percent, still substantial but not more than 75 percent.
More than 56,600 foreigners have been caught crossing from Mexico illegally between February and May, down from 137,800 people in the same period during President Barack Obama’s last year in office.
The number of illegal crossings is not known because some people slip in undetected. Officials consider the number arrested to be representative of the broader trend of attempts to cross illegally.
In bragging that the numbers are down “without the wall,” Trump omits the fact that there already are roughly 650 miles of fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile long Mexican border.
___
TRUMP: “We’re working really hard on massive tax cuts. It would be, if I get it the way I want it, the largest tax cut in the history of the United States of America. Because right now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Really on a large-scale basis, we are the highest tax nation in the world. … And I think it’s going to happen.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: The overall U.S. tax burden is actually one of the lowest among the 32 developed and large emerging-market economies tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Taxes made up 26.4 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2015, according to the OECD. That’s far below Denmark’s tax burden of 46.6 percent, Britain’s 32.5 percent or Germany’s 36.9 percent. Just four OECD countries had a lower tax bite than the U.S.: South Korea, Ireland, Chile and Mexico.
It’s not clear Trump will sign the largest tax cut in U.S. history. His administration has yet to settle on enough details of any planned overhaul to make that claim. To put the claim in context, President Ronald Reagan essentially cut taxes during his first term by slightly more than 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. For Trump to surpass that, his tax cut would essentially have to be more than $400 billion a year.
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TRUMP: “We have Gary Cohn, who’s the president of Goldman Sachs. That’s somebody. He’s the president of Goldman Sachs. He had to pay over $200 million in taxes to take the job, right? … This is the president of Goldman Sachs, smart. Having him represent us. He went from massive paydays to peanuts. … But these are people that are great, brilliant business minds. And that’s what we need.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: Trump appears to be confusing taxes paid with stocks sold. Cohn and his family members held about $220 million in Goldman stock, which he had to divest in order to resolve possible conflicts of interest before becoming White House economic adviser. He would have had to pay taxes on any capital gains from the sale, but that sum would only be a fraction of the figure cited by Trump. Moreover, Cohn had to divest the stock in pieces, so the final tally from his sales is unclear, as the stock has declined from highs in March.
It’s also worth noting the president’s about-face praise for Wall Street. His campaign routinely criticized Goldman Sachs and its ties to Hillary Clinton, even using it as a villain in a political ad that included video of the bank’s chairman and CEO.
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TRUMP: “You have a gang called MS-13. … They do things that nobody can believe. These are true animals. We are moving them out of the country by the thousands, by the thousands. … We’re getting them out, MS-13.” — Iowa speech.
THE FACTS: There is no publicly available evidence to support this claim about the violent gang. In recent weeks, federal authorities have arrested hundreds of suspected MS-13 gang members. Many of those arrested have been identified by the government as immigrants, but it is unclear if they have yet been deported. Any suspected gang members who are U.S. citizens cannot be kicked out of the country. The gang was formed decades ago in Los Angeles and has spread.
Overall arrests of immigrants in the country illegally have increased in recent months, but deportations have declined slightly, according to the most recently available government data.
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SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER, on Republican health care legislation: “They want to bring the bill to the floor, rush it in the dark of night, for a simple reason — they are ashamed of their bill. They don’t want anybody to see it, least of all the public. … They can’t even whisper what it’s about they are so, so ashamed of it.” — Senate speech Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Both parties resort to secrecy in Congress at times, especially when hard-fought legislation is at stake. When Democrats grappled with a conservative uproar over President Barack Obama’s health care bill, they held private meetings to iron out details and reach agreements to clinch the legislation’s approval. That said, they also held scores of hearings and staged many days of debate in 2009 and 1010. The Senate’s Republican leadership has held no hearings on its legislation, the contents of which are unknown. It’s unusual for such a major bill to be written from scratch behind closed doors then rushed through Congress in a few days.
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VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “I like that line that says, you know, the Internal Revenue Code is twice as long as the Bible, with none of the good news.” — speech Tuesday to manufacturers.
HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: “You know, there’s this old line about the tax code. Our tax code is about five times as long as the Bible but with none of the good news.” — speech to the same group Tuesday.
THE FACTS: Ryan has the ratio about right: The tax code runs nearly 4 million words, according to a 2013 government report, while the Bible has 700,000 to about 800,000, depending on the version and variations in translation. Pence understated the difference. Both got laughs.
A number of Republicans over the years have compared the size of the texts to make the point that Americans are under an unholy burden from the IRS.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Alicia A. Caldwell, Jill Colvin and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.
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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd
EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures