President Biden is facing backlash from fact-checkers over a recent speech he gave in Virginia about the economic progress his administration has made during his tenure in the White House.
Speaking at Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield on Thursday, Biden made several claims about the current state of the economy that have fact-checkers — from both CNN and the House Ways and Means Committee — sounding the alarm.
Following his remarks, CNN reporter Daniel Dale, who works to fact-check political claims for the outlet, accused Biden of making “false and misleading claims”.
“Some of Biden’s claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking significant context, although others were correct,” Dale wrote In a piece examining Biden’s comments.
President Biden speaks at the Steamfitters Local 602 United Association Mechanical Trades School on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, in Springfield, Virginia.
(Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
At the top of the fact-check list from Dell was Biden’s claim that his administration has funded “700,000 major construction projects — 700,000 across America,” which white House It is accepted that this is not the case.
Dell wrote, “Biden’s ‘700,000’ figure is wildly wrong; it adds an extra two zeros to the correct figure used by Biden in a speech last week and the White House has used before: 7,000 projects.” speech transcript To show the exact number.
Dale also took aim at Biden for his claim that “only 3.5 million people — even their first — got their vaccinations” when the former President Donald Trump Left office in January 2021.
the actual number of people against whom he got his first shot COVID-19 According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, there were about 19 million in January 2021 when Trump leaves office. The 3.5 million figure refers to people who got two rounds of shots.
Biden also faced scrutiny from CNN over his claim that billionaires “now only pay 3% of their income — 3%, they pay,” a comment that was later retracted by the White House.
“Biden’s ‘3%’ claim is wrong. For the second time in less than a week, Biden incorrectly described a Discovery of 2021 Dale wrote, “After CNN questioned on Thursday about Biden’s ‘3%’ claim, economists in his administration told the wealthiest 400 billionaire households the average of their income in federal personal income taxes between 2010 and 2018.” Paid 8.2%.” House published a corrected official transcript that uses ‘8%’ instead.”
Biden faced scrutiny from CNN over his claim that billionaires “now only pay 3% of their income — 3%, they pay,” a comment that was later retracted by the White House.
(Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Pointing to comments made by Biden about the federal debt under Trump and that his administration “decreased the debt by $1.7 trillion, the largest reduction in debt in American history,” Dale stressed that it was ” highly questionable” about how much credit Biden deserves.
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“Biden’s boasting leaves out important context. It is true that the federal deficit under Biden fell by a total of $1.7 trillion in the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years, including a record $1.4 trillion drop in 2022 – but this is highly exaggerated. Questionable how much credit Biden deserves for this shortfall,” Dale wrote. “Biden didn’t mention that the primary reason the deficit fell so much that it hit a record high under Trump in 2020 was because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected, because the spending plan Independent analysts say Biden’s actions, including his laws and executive orders, have had the overall effect of adding to current and projected future deficits, not reducing those deficits.”
In addition to CNN, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee Biden’s remarks targeted with fact-checking from Thursday, claiming that the president “didn’t let the facts get in the way of his speech in Springfield.”
“While Biden claimed the economy was strengthening, the latest report on economic growth shows that under his administration’s policies the economy has fallen short of expectations on seven of the last eight economic growth reports,” the committee wrote. “In fact, the entirety of 2022 was worse than expected for economic growth. According to the latest Leading Economic Index report, even more trouble lies ahead.”
Listing five recent “misleading” claims by the president that the committee found fault with, the Republican wrote: “President Biden is making false allegations about Republicans and is afraid to intimidate superiors when Republicans have clarified That we’re not going to touch their retirement security.” Biden is also making Medicare and Social Security worse – not protecting them. Medicare premiums have risen for seniors through 2020, while Biden’s ongoing inflation crisis has pushed Social Security toward bankruptcy. ,
President Biden speaks to members of the United States Conference of Mayors in the East Room of the White House on January 20, 2023.
(Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Biden recently faced Criticism from FactCheck.org On the claims he made regarding unemployment during his speech at the US Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting last week.
According to FactCheck.org, during the speech, Biden “fudged a statistic on the number of people receiving unemployment benefits, misidentifying them as the number of people ‘out of work’.”
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The non-profit website concluded, “His comments leave the false impression that unemployment decreased by more than 16 million people on his watch, when the decline was actually less than 5 million.” “And a major reason for the large decline in unemployment benefits is the end of the pandemic-related expansion of such benefits.”
“Two years ago this week, 18 million people were out of work — two years ago this week,” Biden said at the conference. “Now – that number is less than 1.6 million, which is near the lowest level in decades.”
FactCheck.org said, “White House transcript notes line applauded.” “But it’s not accurate. According to Bureau of Labor StatisticsThe number of people ‘out of work’ or officially unemployed in the US in January 2021 is expected to be approximately 10.2 million, and in December 2022 the number will be 5.7 million.”