Fact Checking

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back littleWednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flatteringpraise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproachand the praise stretched the truth.



Some other examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... andchampioned reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I toldthe Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere.

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled toWashington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million.In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million inspecial federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in thenation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridgefrom Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, thatopposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge tonowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listeningto him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored twomemoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the statesenate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama doeshave a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to passlegislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weaponsof mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. Thelegislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be toalso demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, arespected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leaderon two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling bypolice and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penaltycases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise incometaxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the deathtax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the Americanpeople by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the BrookingsInstitution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan wouldincrease after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across allincome levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers andthe elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit forminimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on thewealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above$250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that makemore than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percentof America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of thenation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we cankeep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehowcomparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he saidin an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of astate that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's nomore "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he wasgovernor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary poweris the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain couldas easily have called it the 47th largest state - by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has beenin charge, and she has had national security as one of her primaryresponsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, thatauthority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service.When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, theyassume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to theDefense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units havea total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guardorganizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayorof Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the UnitedStates."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, andgot 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden droppedout of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right _ changefrom a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have aprescription for every American who wants change in Washington _ throw outthe big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservativeRepublican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats havebeen in charge of the House and Senate