Bush has already started to hit Kerry on the issue of the Iraq War. I heard him in a speech yesterday bring it up. In a hurry this morning so don't have time to look it up....I'm sure there will be several examples in the coming days.
I sense some fair and balanced reporting in this piece. Perhaps the concept is catching on?
Thank you Dan RAthER.
M
Reality Check: The Candidates’ Speeches
Sep 23, 2004 9:42 am US/Central
The candidates were in Rochester, Minn., just days apart. They gave standard campaign speeches, and much of what they said was inspiring and illuminating.
But, some of that is also QUESTIONABLE, like the Bush attack on Kerry.
“If he has his way, guess who’s going to get stuck with the bill? You’ve heard the rhetoric about taxing the rich before. Well, the rich hire accountants and lawyers for a reason—so you get stuck with the tab. We’re not going to let him raise your taxes. We’re going to win in November,” said Bush in a recent speech.
That’s MISLEADING. The President repeatedly tells audiences Kerry will raise their taxes to pay for his proposals, at costs he exaggerates.
Kerry is not proposing a tax hike on the vast majority of Americans. He is proposing to raise taxes on people who earn more than $200,000 a year.
That’s the top one percent of Americans.
Meanwhile, Kerry is also going after Bush.
“Only thing is, his new idea is a bad old idea. It’s called privatizing social security and cutting benefits. And I’ll tell you that’s what he announced,” said Kerry in a recent speech.
That’s FALSE. The President did not announce he would be cutting social security benefits.
Kerry distorts the facts of the President’s plan, which would not affect current retirees or anyone near retirement.
What’s true is the President does support allowing younger workers to invest part of their social security taxes in private accounts.
It could result in higher returns and bigger benefit checks, but there is also a risk of making bad investments that could result in smaller checks.
“Our economy has been growing at rates as fast as any in nearly 20 years. We’ve added 1.7 million new jobs in the last 12 months,” said Bush.
What the President said is technically accurate, but it’s NOT THE WHOLE STORY.
It is factually true the economy has added 1.7 million jobs, recently.
What President Bush doesn’t mention is that the country also lost 2.7 million jobs since he took office. That’s a net loss of about one million jobs.
“Losing millions of jobs overseas and only creating jobs that pay on average $9,000 less than the jobs that we are losing,” said Kerry.
That’s MISLEADING. Kerry’s using numbers from a Democratic-leaning think tank that uses average industry wages, not comparing lost jobs.
The latest labor statistics show the vast majority of American workers are not earning less.
The average wage increase is lower than it was when Bush took office, but about 80 percent of workers earn more today than they did then.
That’s Reality Check.
WCCO
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