Thursday - October 11, 2007

Fred’s Facts Check Out

I only watched a few minutes of the debate this week, but what I saw was rather imporessive.  I feared Fred would get into that slow drawl mode and lose everyone’s interest, but he didn’t seem to.  I think he bobs and turns his head too much, but I can take that if the content is right on.

FactCheck.org has the skinny on whether Fred made up stuff or not.

Thompson stuck to the facts in his rookie outing. A number of his statements attracted our interest, but they all checked out.

Corporate Taxes 2nd Highest in the World: Thompson was correct when he said of the U.S., “We have the second highest corporate tax penalty in the world.” According to a study produced by the global consulting firm KPMG, the U.S. top corporate tax rate of 40 percent is just slightly below Japan’s 40.6 percent. The United States is resisting a worldwide trend that has seen most nations reduce corporate taxes during the last decade. As of Jan. 1, 2007, the German rate was 38.36 percent; the Italian rate was 37.25 percent; and the Canadian rate was 36.1 percent. The average for the 30 major industrial democracies was 27.8 percent.

WMDs in Iraq: Thompson corrected moderator Chris Matthews, who wrongly implied that the former senator had said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction “right before” the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq:

Matthews: You made a statement a couple of days ago, I believe, that alluded to the fact you believed that there were such weapons [WMDs] in Iraq. Do you believe they were there right before we got in – they were moved out somewhere? ...
Thompson: No, I didn’t say that. I was just stating what was obvious and that is that Saddam had had them prior. They used them against his own people – against the Kurds.

Thompson was correct. Matthews referred to remarks the senator made to about 60 persons in Newton, Iowa, last week. Both MSNBC and the Des Moines Register quoted him as saying, “We can’t forget the fact that although at a particular point in time we never found any WMD down there, he clearly had had WMD. He clearly had had the beginnings of a nuclear program.” Thompson didn’t say in the speech when Saddam “had had WMD.” The Register updated its article with a follow-up interview in which he made clear he was referring to a period long before the war:

Thompson (Des Moines Register): He [Hussein] acknowledged, I think, in filings made by the United Nations that prior to the invasion – sometime prior to the invasion – that he had chemical and biological weapons. I mean he used chemical weapons on the Kurds.

We can see how Thompson might have given the crowd in Newton the impression that he thought Iraq possessed WMD immediately before the 2003 invasion. Unless he saw the Register’s update, Matthews could well have been left with that impression, too.

Economic Growth: Thompson erred – but on the safe side – when he said, “We’re enjoying 22 quarters of successive economic growth.” Actually, the U.S. economy has grown for 23 successive quarters, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. And when preliminary figures on gross domestic product for July, August and September are released later this month, the official total is expected to reach 24.

Restraining Future Social Security Benefits: Thompson also was correct about the effect of restraining growth of Social Security benefits for future retirees:

Thompson: And then, lastly, one of the other things that could be done would be to index benefits to inflation. Index benefit to inflation for future retirees. It would not affect current or near retirement people. [It] would be indexed to inflation instead of wages, as it is today. And it would solve the problem for several years; it wouldn’t solve it indefinitely, but it would give us a window of opportunity to get our arms around the problem. It would be a major step in the right direction.

The Social Security actuaries calculate that it would require a tax increase of 1.95 percent of taxable payroll to pay benefits promised under current benefit formulas for the next 75 years. But most of that “actuarial imbalance” would disappear under various proposals to peg benefits of future retirees to inflation rather than to wage growth. One form of so-called “progressive” indexing would allow future retirement benefits for the lowest 40 percent of wage earners to keep growing under the current formula, which is pegged to wage growth, but slow down the growth of benefits for higher-income workers retiring after 2012 according to a sliding scale. Benefits for those at the very top would rise only enough to keep pace with inflation. Actuaries calculated that this would remove 1.21 percentage points from the 1.95 percent actuarial imbalance.

Opinions differ on whether any reduction in future benefit growth is a step “in the right direction,” and we take no position on that. Thompson was correct to say that proposals for inflation indexing would “solve the problem for years,” however.

Not a bad report card for his first time out.  How did the others fair?  Go and have a look.  There is a lot of detail, much of it aint pretty.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/11/2007 at 03:28 PM   
Filed Under: • Republicans •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner