Ohio today has the fewest number of state employees since the Reagan administration.
For much of this gubernatorial campaign, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has been defending his record against charges from Republican challenger John Kasich that he has done too little to stem job losses in Ohio and responding to accusations that he still oversees a bloated state government.Stricklands running mate, Yvettee McGee Brown, in her own campaign speeches has echoed the governors. Recently she tackled a charge by Republicans that Ohio still has too many employees on the state payroll by evoking the name of one of the GOPs favorite sons.Ohio today has the fewest number of state employees since the Reagan administration, McGee Brown said in an Aug. 4 speech at a candidates forum in Columbus.Clearly, recent well-chronicled state layoffs and hiring freezes almost assure Ohio has fewer state employees than when Strickland took office in 2007. But could it be fewer than in the 1980s when Reagan was president, as Brown contends?The Strickland campaign is looking to reverse long-held Republican opinion that Democrats favor higher taxes and bigger government.The higher taxes issue will loom for whomever is Ohios next governor, given that the state faces up to an $8 billion budget deficit in the next operating budget with seemingly few options other than raising personal income taxes.But the big government question is something Strickland has dealt with since 2009 when the last biennial budget was set and the administration laid off state workers, froze hiring in some areas and otherwise shrunk government by attrition.Now McGee Brown has gone a step further by stating that under Strickland, Ohio now has the fewest state employees since Reagan, who was president from 1981 through 1988.Stricklands campaign communications team offered uneven explanations for where McGee Brown got her information. It first stated it came from a state data chart that officials could not find until, PolitiFact began inquiring three weeks after McGee Browns speech. It then said the information was in an October 2009 news release from the Strickland administration that the campaign never produced.But the Ohio Department of Administrative Services bailed them out. It discovered annual employee data in a trends report that contained information dating back to 1983 and updated to include recent years.The report shows that as of December 2009, Ohio had 58,622 employees, the lowest number since 1983 when the state had 60,292 workers. That 28-year stretch includes a period from 1991 through 2006 when Ohios governors were Republicans and the state had more than 65,000 employees.We rate McGee Browns statement as True. Comment on this item.
A popular "Did you know?"-style assertion holds that penguin mating rituals closely mimic human courtship, in that the male's finding just the right symbolic gift to present to his female of choice is of the utmost importance: When a male penguin falls in love with a female penguin, he searches the entire beach to find the perfect pebble to present her. When he finally finds it, he waddles over to her and places the pebble right in front of her. It is like a proposal.  According to the story (which can be found on multiple amusing, if not very credible, fact-based social media accounts as well in the 2007 film Good Luck, Chuck), when male penguins fall in love, they search an entire beach for the "perfect pebble." (No specific criteria determine what makes a pebble "perfect" by penguin standards, such as size or color.) After evaluating every pebble on the beach, the courting male penguin then lays the prize at the feet of his selected mate, a rite that is typically framed as an avian version of the human custom of engagement rings. Marine life theme park franchise SeaWorld maintains a virtual exhibit on penguins, part of which chronicles their mating habits. While pebbles do get a mention in that exhibit, it does not describe the stones' supposed perfection as having much to do with the process of wooing a mate: exhibit [Adlie penguins] build nests of small stones that they use to line depressions in the ground. Some chinstrap and gentoos also construct nests out of stones. The stones help keep the eggs above the surface when the rookery floods from melting snow. Adlie, gentoo, and chinstrap penguins are known to take stones from other nests. A penguin returning to the nest sometimes brings its mate a stone as a courtship gesture ... One medium-sized gentoo nest was composed of 1,700 pebbles and 70 molted tail feathers. According to SeaWorld, stones and pebbles are about as romantic as stucco or siding to various species of penguin, although they do seem to serve occasionally as practical gifts. Antarctic researcher Guillaume Dargaud (who says that he "lived with penguins for more than a year" but is "no substitute for a real ornithologist") addressed the rumor on his comprehensive page devoted to Adlie and Emperor penguins. Dargaud dismissed the rumor as a myth attached to the nest-building habits of Adlie penguins, opining that the collection of pebbles runs coincident with the mating process, but that any pebble would suffice for the purposes of mate evaluation: addressed Q: I heard that when Adelie penguins are choosing a mate the male searches for the perfect pebble and presents it to the one he wants as his mate. A: It's a myth based on the fact that Adelie penguins build nests out of pebbles. And they build the nest while they do the courting, so it's actually partly true. I guess a penguin who doesn't bring any pebble wouldn't stand a chance, but any pebble will do and both mates bring them in! We also contacted penguin expert Dyan DeNapoli for further clarification on the penguin pebble presentation rumor. DeNapoli explained that stones can play a role in the mating rites of penguins, but typically penguins aren't partial about what types of pebbles end up in their collections: Some, but not all, penguin species collect rocks for their nests. Of those that do, the purpose of the rock collecting is to build an elevated nest so the eggs and/or chicks wont get wet or drown when it rains or when the snows melt. Some penguin species collect twigs and other plant materials, and the two largest penguin species  the King and the Emperor  dont build any nest at all. They carry and incubate their single egg on top of their feet. As for the searching the beach for the perfect rock, some penguins do seem to be selective in choosing rocks, and will trot off some distance in search of the right one. Other penguins, however, are quite content stealing rocks at random from neighboring nests. Theyre not usually very selective  its done very quickly before the neighbor returns to their nest. In most instances, the males arrives at the breeding colony before the females, and begin building their nests. Once the females have arrived though, both birds will often still do some nest building and maintenance. And there does seem to be a bonding aspect of presenting the rock to the mate  it is often accompanied by head bowing and shaking, as well as vocalizing  which are all bonding behaviors. DeNapoli confirmed that rocks are frequently gifted to mates but again didn't mention the lengthy "perfect rock" search central to the penguin courtship rumor. Courtship has been observed in penguins, but typically pebble presentation is not a significant part of it: "Once a female chooses her mate, the pair will go through an important courtship ritual, in which the penguins bow, preen and call to each other. The ritual helps the birds get to know one another, and learn their respective calls so that they can always find each other." observed A 2013 Slate animal blog post examined whether the same Adlie penguins were some of the animal kingdom's most egregious sexual deviants, an observation similarly made through the lens of comparison with human habits: examined Shocking behavior isnt the sole province of marine mammals. One naturalist was so thoroughly disgusted with the sexual behaviors of Adlie penguins that his observations were hidden from view for almost a century. Known as Pygoscelis adeliae to scientists ... the Adlie penguin was one of the subjects that caught the attention of scientist George Murray Levick while he ventured to the South Pole with the 1910-13 Scott Antarctic Expedition ... the species shocked and horrified Levick so much so that his four-page report Sexual Habits of the Adlie Penguin was purposefully omitted from the official expedition findings and distributed only to a small group of researchers considered learned and discreet enough to handle the graphic content. While visiting Adlie penguins rookeries, Levick was shocked by the activities of what he called hooligan cocks. Males accosted and copulated with other males, females that were injured, chicks that had tumbled from their nests, and corpses. In desperation, some male Adlie penguins tried to mate with the ground until they ejaculated. Levick recorded these behaviors as aberrations from the norm of nature. There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins, he confided to his journal. Later researchers rediscovered what Levick had seen. Rather than being deviant, the behaviors were a regular part of penguin life, triggered by males associating a rather flexible interpretation of a females mating posture with receptiveness. As Natural History Museum, London ornithologist Douglas Russell and colleagues reported in a preface to Levicks belatedly-released report, this behavior is so ingrained that when a researcher set out a dead penguin that had been frozen in such a position, many males found the corpse irresistible. In a bit of weird field work, the same researcher found that just the frozen head of the penguin, with self-adhesive white Os for eye rings, propped upright on wire with a large rock for a body, was sufficient stimulus for males to copulate and deposit sperm on the rock. As Douglas and colleagues stressed in their preface to Levicks report, though, the behavior [displayed by hooligan males] is clearly not analogous to necrophilia in the human context. That fact can easily be lost when one is appalled by an animal acting out a human taboo. Levick was aghast because he viewed the penguins in human terms, as little gents and dames dressed to the nines, and applied sentiments about proper human behavior to the penguins (and vice versa). For if such awful displays occurred in nature, what might that say about our own actions? Slate's rehash wasn't the only less-than-romantic take on penguins' sex lives. A 1998 BBC article suggested that not all penguin partner pebble exchanges were quite so romantic: article Penguins are turning to prostitution. But instead of doing it for money, Antarctic dolly-birds are turning tricks to get rocks off their menfolk ... Stones are essential for penguins to build their nests. A shortage has led to the unorthodox tactics. "Stones are the valuable currency in penguin terms," said Dr Fiona Hunter, a researcher in the Zoology Department at Cambridge University, who has spent five years observing the birds' mating patterns ... Prostitution is described as the world's oldest profession. But Dr Hunter is convinced it is the first time it has been seen in animals. All of the female penguins Dr Hunter observed trading sex for stones had partners ... Penguins stick to the same mate, she said, but none of the males twigged what was happening. "There was no suspicion on the part of the males. Females quite often go off on their own to collect stones, so as far as the males are concerned there is no reason to suspect ... It tends to be females targeting single males, otherwise the partner female would beat the intruder up." On some occasions the prostitute penguins trick the males. They carry out the elaborate courtship ritual, which usually leads to mating. Having bagged their stone, they would then run off [Hunter] said she does not think the female penguins are doing it just for the stones. "The female only takes one or two stones ... It takes hundreds to build the nest to get their eggs off the ground. I think what they are doing is having copulation for another reason and just taking the stones as well. We don't know exactly why, but they are using the males." It's human nature to anthropomorphize animals, and penguins are no exception. However, while penguins courtships are perhaps less human than once thought, they are no less interesting for it. Penguins are often observed deviating from expected sexual norms and even purportedly trade pebbles for sexual favors, but the primary purpose of exchanging pebbles and stones between penguins involves physical construction of a nest and not "romance." And while female penguins may occasionally be picky about the nest-construction usefulness of certain proffered pebbles, that doesn't mean males regularly traverse entire beaches to ensure finding unspecified "perfect pebbles" for their beloved lady-penguins. Castro, Joseph.  "Animal Sex: How Penguins Do It."
  Live Science.  1 November 2013. Dargaud, Guillaume.  "The Penguins FAQ."
  Guillaume Dargaud.  23 June 2014. McKee, Maggie.  "Mating in a Material World."
  National Wildlife.  1 February 2005. Switek, Brian.  "Sea Otters Are Jerks. So Are Dolphins, Penguins, And Other Adorable Animals."
  Slate.  28 October 2013. BBC News.  "Pick Up A Penguin."
  26 February 1998. SeaWorld Animal InfoBooks.  "Penguins: Reproduction."
  Accessed 1 June 2016. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here In September 2020, social media users began circulating a text meme charting the decrease in abortion rates in the U.S. during previous presidential administrations, attributing the greater drop in those rates during Democratic administrations to a difference in approach (i.e., making it illegal vs. making it unnecessary):     As we noted in an earlier article on a similar topic, following the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that protected a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction, the abortion rate rose immediately afterward until it peaked in the 1980s, and it has fairly consistently declined since that peak through presidential administrations of both parties: article Following nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the total number, rate (number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 1544 years), and ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) of reported abortions increased rapidly, reaching the highest levels in the 1980s before decreasing at a slow yet steady pace.     Although it is true that the abortion rate has experienced greater declines during Democratic administrations than Republican ones, we can't draw any definitive conclusion that, as the meme tries to suggest, this difference is primarily due to varying approaches by the two main political parties. The simple idea presented by the meme has a number of flaws, chief among them that political factors that might influence the abortion rate (e.g., policies, legislation, judicial appointments and rulings) do not neatly conform to presidential terms of office -- what takes place during one administration generally continues to have an effect throughout subsequent administrations. As well, events occurring at state and local levels (not necessarily directly tied to federal actions) can have a substantial impact on the availability and prevalence of abortions. More important, though, is that we cannot definitively determine to what extent political factors influence the abortion rate. As the Guttmacher Institute (a pro-abortion-rights research organization) observed, recent declines in the abortion rate appear to have been driven not primarily by abortion restrictions but by a broader decline in pregnancies: observed Abortion restrictions target either individuals ability to access the procedure (such as by imposing coercive waiting periods and counseling requirements) or providers ability to offer it (such as through unnecessary and intentionally burdensome regulations). Any one of these restrictions could result in some people being forced to continue pregnancies they were seeking to end; this could, in theory, lower the abortion rate. With the available evidence, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly which factors drove recent declines, and to what degree. However, previous Guttmacher analyses have documented that abortion restrictions, while incredibly harmful at an individual level, were not the main driver of national declines in the abortion rate ... Rather, the decline in abortions appears to be part of a broader decline in pregnancies, as evidenced by fewer births over the same period. What's driving that decline in pregnancies, then? We don't know that for sure, either, but likely a combination of social, cultural, economic, medical, and political factors: combination Experts say the decline isnt due to a single cause, but rather a combination of several factors, including changing economics, delays in childbirth by women pursuing jobs and education, the greater availability of contraception, and a decline in teen pregnancies. The trend seen in the United States is also seen in much of the developed world, including Western Europe, said Dr. John Rowe, a professor at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health. One important factor driving this is the changing roles of women in society, Rowe said. In general women are getting married later in life, he explained. They are leaving the home and launching their families later. [Dr. Helen Kim, an associate professor at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine] said the concept of the ideal family size may be changing. There are shifts where having smaller families is a trend, she added. I cant speak on this as a sociologist, but this is what Ive seen among my peers and colleagues. One of the biggest factors is the decline in teen pregnancies, Rowe said. Thats good news ... And that makes a huge difference to their lives. The Guttmacher Institute posited a similar mix of factors to explain the decline in the abortion rate: Because both abortions and births [have] declined, it is clear that there were fewer pregnancies overall in the United States ... The big question is why. One possible contributing factor is contraceptive access and use. Since 2011, contraception has become more accessible, as most private health insurance plans are now required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to cover contraceptives without out-of-pocket costs. In addition, thanks to expansions in Medicaid and private insurance coverage under the ACA, the proportion of women aged 1544 nationwide who were uninsured dropped more than 40% between 2013 and 2017. There is evidence that use of long-acting reversible contraceptive methods -- specifically IUDs and implants -- increased through at least 2014, especially among women in their early 20s, a population that accounts for a significant proportion of all abortions Another possible contributing factor might be a decline in sexual activity. Findings from one national survey suggest a long-term increase in the number of people in the United States -- mostly younger men -- reporting not having sex in the past year. Yet another possibility is that infertility is increasing in the United States, thereby reducing the chances of getting pregnant and subsequently seeking to obtain an abortion. More generally, there are a host of other potential factors that could be driving declines in pregnancy rates, from individuals evolving desires about whether and when to become parents to peoples changing economic and social circumstances. Finally, it is possible that ... there could have been an increase in self-managed abortions happening outside of medical facilities, which the census would be unable to capture. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also offered a combination of potential explanations for lower abortion rates: combination Multiple factors influence the incidence of abortion including the availability of abortion providers; state regulations, such as mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and legal restrictions on abortion providers; increasing acceptance of nonmarital childbearing; shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population; and changes in the economy and the resulting impact on fertility preferences and access to health care services, including contraception. As we stated four years ago, "causation between the presidency and abortion rates [is] difficult to demonstrate in any case, because it is hard to draw a straight line between federal government policy (let alone presidential policy) and abortion procurement." That observation remains true today. Carroll, Linda and Shamard Charles, M.D.  "Americans Aren't Making Enough Babies to Replace Ourselves."
  NBC News.  13 January 2019. Nash, Elizabeth and Joerg Dreweke.  "The U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Drop: Once Again, State Abortion Restrictions Are Not the Main Driver."
  Guttmacher Institute.  18 September 2019. Kasprak, Alex.  "Abortion Rates Fall During Democratic Administrations and Rise During Republican Ones."
  Snopes.com.  11 November 2016. The idea that potatoes can be a catch-all form of sustenance for human beings has been popularized at various times by public campaigns and movies, but health experts are split on the potential impact of "surviving" on just one type of food. This claim has been widely circulated online in meme form, with the slight modification of adding butter to the "menu" of the all-potato diet:   Katherine Basbaum, a cardiovascular dietitian for the University of Virginia health system, is skeptical of this meme's assertion. She told us that potatoes and butter would provide enough macronutrients for the body at a "very basic level," but added that remaining alive and remaining healthy are two very different things:  There's a big difference between what your body needs to survive and what your body needs to work as best as it possibly can  to be as efficient, to be as healthy, to be as strong and it possibly can. There's a big difference between that and merely surviving. If you were hard-pressed and you had to do it, you could absolutely survive on it. Is it nutritious? Is it healthy and balanced? Absolutely not. Dana Hunnes, senior dietitian at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, disagreed slightly. She told us that this type of diet could be sustainable for persons who consumed enough potatoes to support their body weight and muscle mass. However, she said she would advise anyone looking to pursue that kind of regimen to instead eat a wider variety of fruits and vegetables. "You can certainly survive healthily  it's been done," Hunnes said. "Would I recommend it for people? No. Because I think you'd be bored in that diet." At least two public campaigns have touted the supposed merits of an all-potato diet. In 2010 Chris Voigt, head of the Washington State Potato Commission, promoted the merits of tubers by living off of them for two months. promoted "I'm not encouraging anyone to go on this crazy diet, nor would my doctor," he said at the time. "This diet was just a bold statement to remind people that there is a lot of nutrition in a potato." Voigt lost 23 pounds during that experience and denied rumors that he had abandoned his plan early. lost That type of short-term effort, Basbaum said, was unlikely to cause a person much damage provided that they not only had a clean bill of health but also no family history or risk of heart or kidney disease. Butter, she told us, is extremely high in saturated fats and can lead to unhealthy cholesterol levels.  "If somebody came in here saying, 'I heard about this potato and butter diet,' I would tell them not to touch it with a 10-foot pole," she said.  Similarly, potatoes on their own are rich in potassium but are best enjoyed in moderation because of the threat they pose to the kidneys, which manage potassium intake for the body. "If someone goes from a regular balanced diet getting the normal amount of potassium to just eating potatoes (like 20 a day or whatever), that's dangerous. It's not a good idea. You're overloading your kidneys with all of this potassium," Basbaum said. "If you have someone with pre-diabetes or diabetes or at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, I don't really want to put them on an all-starch diet. You're risking increased levels of blood sugar and the body producing way too much insulin for your own good." Six years after Voigt's efforts, an Australian man, Andrew Taylor, also made news when he announced that he lost 114 pounds after spending the year eating around eight or nine pounds of  potatoes per day on a "spud fit" diet. announced Taylor posted before-and-after pictures touting his weight loss, but Basbaum did not interpret the results as being fully positive. "As a dietitian I don't look at that picture and [say] 'That dude lost a bunch of weight, good for him," she said. "I look at the before and after photo and I can tell this guy is malnourished. You can see the wasting in his shoulder and his clavicle area. You can see that he's lost muscle tone, he's got barely any muscle tone in his arms. Obviously I couldn't diagnose him, but we do nutrition-based physical exams with our patients and you can tell that that guy wasn't optimum health. Not by a long shot."  Heavily-restricted diets gain popularity, Hunnes told us, because some people are seeking "the magic bullet" to keep them healthy. "If someone says anecdotally, 'This works for me,' I think there's a lot of power in people being able to see with their own eyes what's happening to someone else," she said. "I think that's the makings of a fad, particularly if a celebrity gets caught on to it or if a person has a lot of followers on Facebook or Instagram social media, posting those types of images is very powerful for people." For her part, Basbaum said that restricting oneself to that extent gives some dieters a feeling of control because it limits their margin of error.  "But at the end of the day, these diets that ask you to either eat only one thing or ask you to eliminate an entire nutrient  take no fat or no carbohydrates at all  they don't work. They work for a time just like all diets," she added. "But they don't work for everybody and they're not sustainable. What happens when you go off of it?" In popular culture, the popular novel The Martian (which was adapted into a 2015 feature film) featured a subplot in which stranded astronaut Mark Watney grew potatoes on the surface of Mars and ate them to keep himself alive. Subsequent research by the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru produced "encouraging results" regarding the prospect of growing potato crops on the red planet. research produced "With this study, we have the basis for contributing to the so-called 'Bioregenerative Food System' proposed by space agencies, based on a space agriculture using local resources  such as soil  in future missions to Mars," lead researcher David Ramirez said at the time. Pawlowski, A.  "'Spud Fit': Man Loses 115 Pounds Eating Nothing But Potatoes for a Year."
  The Today Show.  19 December 2016. BBC News.  "Is a Potato-Only Diet Good for You?"
  29 November 2010. Saltzman, Sammy.  "Chris Voigt Ends Potato-Only Protest Diet: Why?"
  CBS News.  30 November 2010. International Potato Center.  "Crop Harvested Under Red Planet Conditions Will Set Course for Martian Farming."
  18 December 2015. International Potato Center.  "Research Reveals Potential for Growing Potatoes on Mars, And Challenging Areas of Earth."
  9 February 2018. One of President Barack Obamas signature issues at the moment is a push to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour. Its such a popular policy, he said in aspeechon March 5, 2014, that even Republicans have little quarrel with it. When I talk about (raising the) minimum wage, Obama said, not only is it good policy, but the majority of the country, including half of Republicans, agree with it. We wondered whether polling data backed up this claim. So we looked at independent polls taken recently that asked about the minimum wage. A review of the polling data suggests a more nuanced situation than Obamas claim suggests. Our first look at the data showed that a minimum-wage hike is popular among Americans broadly. For instance, when theCBS News-New York Timespollasked, Do you favor or oppose raising the minimum wage to $10.10? in February 2014, the poll found 65 percent support. And that was actually down a bit from the 72 percent support registered in the January edition of the poll. Similarly, aPew Research Center/USA Todaypoll from January asked whether respondents supported an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour and found 73 percent support. But what about Republicans specifically? More than half of Republicans favor a minimum-wage increase, polls found, but in most of these polls, less than half of Republicans supported raising the wage to $10.10, the amount Obama is seeking. One poll that did not specify a target amount for the minimum-wage hike was conducted byQuinnipiac University. It asked, Would you support or oppose raising the national minimum wage, which is now $7.25 an hour? Among Republicans, 52 percent expressed support, while 45 percent said they opposed it. That provides some support to Obamas claim. But once respondents were asked by other pollsters about the $10.10 figure -- a roughly 40 percent increase from todays federal minimum wage -- Republican support sagged. The clearest example is aCBS-New York Timespollfrom February that asked, As you may know, the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour. Do you favor or oppose raising the minimum wage to $10.10? Republicans expressed 42 percent support, 54 percent opposition. Another clear example was anABC News-Washington Postpollfrom December, 2013 that asked, The minimum wage in this country is now $7.25 an hour. What do you think it should be? Among Republicans, only 21 percent favored keeping it the same or lowering it, but even fewer respondents -- 7 percent -- favored a minimum wage in excess of $10. Two other polls showed Republican support close to 50 percent, but falling just short. However, the differences were within the margin of sampling error -- it's possible that more than half of Republicans were in support of a $10.10 wage, though also possible that the actual support level was even lower than the official result. ACBS-New York Timespollfrom January that asked the same question as the February poll found that Republicans expressed 48 percent support, 51 percent opposition to a $10.10 wage. And anNBC News-Wall Street Journalpollfrom December 2013asked, I'm going to mention a number of different amounts and for each one, please tell me if you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose raising the hourly minimum wage to that amount. When presented with the $10.10 rate, 47 percent of Republicans expressed support. One poll clearly supported Obamas position. The JanuaryPew Research Center/USA Todaypoll found 53 percent of Republicans backing a $10.10 minimum wage, with 43 percent opposed. The significance of the $10.10 figure is not academic. According to a March 6accountin theWashington Post, early last year, White House strategists rejected (the $10.10 figure), worried that it could destroy jobs and anger the business community just as the regulation-heavy Affordable Care Act was about to take effect. Instead, former officials say, the White House settled on a more cautious path,unveiling a $9-an-hour minimum wageproposal  a target even lower than Obamahad proposedduring the 2008 campaign. However, thePostreported, the lower amount disappointed advocates for the working poor, as well as congressional Democrats, who were already pushing to set the $7.25 wage closer to $10 an hour. Over the past year, Obama reconsidered, casting off initial concerns in favor of unifying his party ahead of this falls midterm elections. In other words, White House officials had long realized there was a difference in the degree of public support for a $10.10 minimum wage and a smaller hike, so it would be misleading for Obama to now imply that majority Republican support for an unspecified minimum-wage hike means that Republicans automatically support the presidents proposal to raise the wage to $10.10. Our ruling Obama said, When I talk about (raising the) minimum wage ... half of Republicans agree with it. Republicans do support a minimum-wage hike if you don't specify a dollar figure. But once you mention the $10.10 target Obama wants, his case gets shakier. We rate the claim Mostly True. Florida Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a record $615 million from the 2011-12 state budget on May 26, 2011, targeting an array of money for projects such as university buildings, arainwater studyand$4.8 million for public broadcasting.The latter cut causedstation managers across the stateto worry about possible layoffs, station closings and an increased reliance on private donations.In a June 2 interview, ABC 27 reporter Jerry Hume in Tallahassee asked Scott if vetoing public broadcasting dollars was a hard choice compared to other line items. Here is Scott's full response (available byvideo):I don't think the state ought to be paying for that. But the easy ones are things like studying how to collect rainwater, stuff like that, and a new barn and things like that. But there's a lot of tough ones. But the way I thought about it was, what should state government be doing? I mean, there's a lot of good things in there, but they were local issues, or charity should be doing it, or there's a better way of doing it, or we're already doing it a different way.And on top of that, I don't want to increase the debt in the state. We already have $23 billion worth of debt, so those are things I thought about. But really, it was how do we get jobs going?Scott mentions the state debt as support for his big cuts, even though the state wasn't going to issue new debt just for public broadcasting. But it got us thinking: How big is the state debt, anyway?Turns out, this isn't the first time Scott has bemoaned the state's debt. In late May,Scott warned he was thinking about vetoingPublic Education Capital Outlay projects, which pay for college and university construction projects and represent the state's largest bond program. He said the added debt of $134 million could jeopardize the state's credit rating and increase costs of future borrowing.I'm clearly focused on the amount of debt the state has, Scott said then. I'm clearly focused on the debt rating.Where does he get that number?Our search for the state debt level starts with Scott spokesman Lane Wright. He directed us to aDecember 2010 report on Florida's debt affordability, written by the State Board of Administration's Division of Bond Finance.The division is responsible for executing bonds authorized by the Legislature and administers financing programs for educational facilities and transportation projects, among other programs.As of June 30, 2010, the state's total overall debt outstanding stood at $28.2 billion.Now, this doesn't mean Scott's figure is off from the get-go. That $28.2 billion figure includes $23.6 billion for net tax-supported debt and $4.6 billion for self-supporting debt.These are important differences to understand (page 7of the document is helpful).Net tax-supported debt, which Scott seems to reference in his TV interview, is debt accrued when the state issues bonds to raise money for spending on projects such as PECO, Everglades restoration, right-of-way acquisition for roads and bridge construction.Self-supporting debt is made up of bonds that include a source of revenue, and is excluded when calculating the state's benchmark debt ratio. Examples of this are bonds to build toll roads, covered by the tolls, or university dorm maintenance, covered by student fees.Net tax-supported debt is paid off through the state's ability to tax all residents and tourists, while self-supporting debt is paid off by the people who pay to use the facilities.The benchmark debt ratio is important SBA jargon for measuring the state's annual payment on borrowed money, said Ben Watkins, the division's director. The annual payment, called debt service, works kind of like a mortgage, in which you pay off a chunk each year over a certain span of years. Debt service is based on tax-supported debt.To calculate the benchmark debt ratio, the division divides the annual debt service -- for tax-supported debt only -- by available state revenues.Florida Statutes say the ratio should not exceed a target of 6 percent and a cap of 7 percent. But in 2010, it was over the cap at 7.91 percent. That did not happen as a result of outstanding debt, Watkins said, but declining state revenues (the denominator of the benchmark ratio equation). The Legislature authorized more borrowing in 2010 due to a critical state emergency, pursuant to state law.The law on benchmark debt ratios is really a soft policy limit to give lawmakers perspective on how much debt the state can afford, Watkins said. The cap is seen as a planning tool and not an absolute ceiling, though other states have hard limits. Still, exceeding the soft cap should signal the state has borrowed all it should, and more borrowing should happen for absolutely essential projects, Watkins said.Anyway, Florida pays about $2.1 billion a year for debt service on the state's tax-supported debt.There's another type of debt to consider, called indirect debt. Unlike tax-supported and self-supported debt, this category does not get as much attention because the debt obligation lies with a separate legal entity such as Citizens Property Insurance, Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund Finance Corporation, water management districts or the Florida Housing Finance Corporation -- not the state. As of June 30, 2010, the indirect debt total was $16.4 billion. It is a whopping figure, but it is not included in the state's debt ratios or debt burden, according to the report.We mention all of this to explain that Scott is essentially short-handing the state's debt by describing it as $23 billion. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.This is the debt (figure) that matters to the state from a financial management perspective, Watkins said.Putting Florida debt in contextNow that we've considered the 2010 financial report, we looked for another opinion to make sure we understood all the context. Florida TaxWatch, a group that analyzes state spending and taxes, uses the same data supplied by the Division of Bond Finance to track the debt.Kurt Wenner, TaxWatch vice president of tax research, echoed much of Watkins' analysis and agreed that $23 billion is probably the most accurate figure to use to describe the state debt.That is the amount of debt that is backed by Florida taxpayers, Wenner said.Florida's debt doesn't get as many people talking as the country's $14 trillion-plus national debt. One explanation is that Florida has a balanced budget requirement, Wenner said. So it cannot spend money it simply doesn't have, like Washington does.Florida's borrowed money goes toward bricks and sticks projects, Watkins said, and not for normal government operations.Florida's total outstanding debt last year grew $1.8 billion, exceeding the $1 billion average for the past decade, according to the report. Still, the debt is considered moderate and manageable at its current level.Our rulingScott said he thought about the state's $23 billion debt as he weighed whether to veto certain programs. We verified that figure with the Division of Bond Finance's most recent estimate, and experts consider the figure a street convention to describe the debt. We rate his claim True. Conservative political commentator Wayne Allyn Root opined back in 2010 that President Obama "is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos."  Claim:   Wayne Allyn Root wrote in an opinion piece that President Obama is "purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy."  Example:  [Root, June 2010]   Rahm Emanuel cynically said, "You never want a crisis to go to waste." It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama's presidency. Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos  thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it. [Rest of article here.] here Origins:  Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party's 2008 vice presidential candidate, is a political commentator whose columns appear on various conservative web sites and the author of several books, including The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts.  He penned a biweekly political opinion column published the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and his entry for 6 June 2010 was the article excerpted above, entitled "Obama's agenda: Overwhelm the system," in which he opined that President Obama is "purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos." Wayne Allyn Root column article Some online-circulated versions of this column are entitled "Obama's college roommate speaks out," but that heading reflects a misreading of the word "classmate," as Wayne Allyn Root never was, or claimed to be, Barack Obama's roommate  Root merely attended Columbia University at the same time as Barack Obama did and later claimed (despite substantial evidence to the contrary) that neither he nor anyone else attending Columbia during that time had ever heard of or met Barack Obama. claimed Root's credentials as a political prognosticator are rather suspect, as he predicted in May 2012 that Barack Obama would lose the upcoming presidential election to Republican candidate Mitt Romney "in a landslide."  (Obama handily won with 62% of the electoral vote.) predicted handily When deciding which charities to donate to, many people consider an important factor to be the "efficiency" of these organizations  that is, what percentage of the monies taken in by a given charity goes to funding its mission rather than being eaten up by costs such as fundraising activities, salaries, and other administrative overhead. The e-mail reproduced above, which began circulating in 2005 and has been re-circulated every year since then around Christmastime, attempts to steer potential donors away from inefficient charities. Unfortunately, much of the information it presents was inaccurate back in 2005, and it has grown only more so in the years since then, resulting in a misleading and outdated view of various charities. We attempt to present accurate and up-to-date information about the named charities below. The following efficiency information is derived from the Charity Navigator web site, the GuideStar web site and Forbes magazine's November 2009 special report on the 200 Largest U.S. Charities. Salary information is taken from Schedule J (Compensation Information) of the various charities' IRS Form 990 filings, an annual reporting return that certain federally tax-exempt organizations must file with the IRS which provides information on the filing organization's mission, programs, and finances. (In the context of this article, the term "efficiency" refers to the percentage of total budget/expenses that each listed organization spends on providing charitable programs and services, while the term "compensation" or "pay" includes salary, one-time payments, and deferred compensation.) Charity Navigator GuideStar special report UNICEF United States Fund for UNICEF states 2010 2011 said United Way Worldwide reported World Vision World Vision Canada states: In our annual report to the Canada Revenue Agency, we publicly disclose information about executive compensation. In the interest of greater transparency to our donors, we have gone beyond our legal requirements by disclosing that our president, Michael Messenger, currently earns the top annual base salary of $215,000 plus a combination of taxable and non-taxable benefits. The presidents performance is subject to annual review by our Board of Directors, and his compensation is decided by them. World Vision Canada's (self-reported) efficiency is 81%, much higher than the 52% figure claimed above. BBB Goodwill Industries International Jim Gibbons compensation March of Dimes St. Jude parent Lions Clubs A 2011 addendum to the original message presented the following information: The American Legion National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Disabled American Veterans National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Military Order of Purple Hearts National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Vietnam Veterans Association National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary.The Wounded Warriors National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. These organizations with no salaries have donations going to help Veterans and their families and youth. According to the most recent available Form 990 filings, all of these statements are false and/or misleading (in large part because the National Commanders are not necessarily the top business executives of these organizations): Unfortunately, the six veterans-related charitable organizations mentioned above don't receive very high marks for efficiency (as determined by Charity Navigator, the BBB, or Form 990 information): <!--Additional information:  America's Most Efficient Charities --> UNICEF USA. "CEO Salary Email." American Red Cross. "Red Cross Statement on Inaccurate Viral Email on Charity CEO Pay." 11 December 2012. United Way. "CEO Compensation FAQ." World Vision Canada. "Our Approach to Executive Compensation." Updated CEO names and salaries for several of the organizations listed. President Trump was widely criticized over Veterans Day weekend in November 2018 after he skipped an event at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1 due to inclement weather.  criticized   Social media users chided Trump for bowing out of the scheduled event, which was attended by other world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, sharing photographs of "real presidents" who had previously honored veterans while standing in the rain. chided real presidents President Trump took issue with this coverage, however, and on 13 November 2018 he took to Twitter to explain his absence (asserting that his helicopter couldn't fly because of the rain) and proclaim that he had delivered a speech in the "pouring rain" the following day but that the event was "little reported" by the "fake news": Twitter   President Trump's explanation for missing the memorial at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery might have been regarded as questionable, but President Trump truly did deliver a speech in the rain (although we'd quibble with the assertion that it was "pouring") at the American Cemetery of Suresnes, as NBC News reported: questionable reported President Donald Trump paid tribute on Sunday to Americans who fought in the two world wars, saying the nation is forever in their debt during a visit to a cemetery in France where more than 1,500 of them are buried. Its been a wonderful two days we spent in France, and this has certainly been the highlight of the trip," Trump said in remarks that capped a weekend in Paris where he and more than 80 other world leaders marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I ... Standing at the presidential podium under a steady rain without an umbrella, Trump joked to six World War II veterans about their enviable position keeping them dry. You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched, Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. Very smart people. You look like youre in very good shape, all of you, he added. I hope I look like that some day. America is forever in your debt.  The ceremony in Suresnes certainly drew less attention on social media than Trump's absence at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery the previous day did, but it isn't accurate to say that his visit to the Suresnes Cemetery was "little reported." In addition to the aforementioned NBC News report, Trump's speech was also covered by outlets such as CNN, USA Today, CBS News and Time magazine. CNN USA Today CBS News Time Despite this coverage, a number of social media users seemed surprised when they came across a photograph posted to Facebook by Dan Scavino, the White House Director of Social Media, which showed President Trump standing solemnly in the rain at a cemetery: Facebook   Social media users took to the comments section to claim that this image was fake and that Trump had been digitally inserted into the picture. While it's possible that Scavino applied some sort of filter to this photograph (Trump's outline is surprisingly crisp), a number of similar pictures can be found via news outlets such as NBC News and photography agencies such as Getty Images: NBC News Getty Images Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images Jackson, David.  "President Trump Blames Secret Service for Canceling Cemetery Trip in France."
  USA Today.  13 November 2018. Lee, Carol.  "Trump Pays Tribute to the Veterans and Alliances of Two World Wars."
  NBC News.  11 November 2018. Brinlee, Morgan.  "Trump Canceled a U.S. Military Cemetery Visit Due to Rain, and Twitter Was Not Impressed."
  Bustle.  11 November 2018. Belam, Martin.  "French Army Trolls Trump with Picture of Them Training in Rain."
  Guardian.  12 November 2018. Horton, Alex.  "Trump Skipped a U.S. Cemetery Visit Abroad. The French Army Trolled Him for Avoiding the Rain.
  The Washington Post.  12 November 2018. Claim:  70% of the women who gave birth at Parkland Memorial Hospital in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly famous institution and for a variety of reasons:  1. John F. Kennedy died there in 19632. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after3. Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years later by coincidence On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year. (That's almost 44 per day  every day) A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants.' Crikey, that's 11,200 anchor babies born every year just in Dallas. According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5 million. The average patient in Parkland's maternity wards is 25 years old, married and giving birth to her second child. She is also an illegal immigrant. By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on their immigration status or ability to pay. OK, fine. That doesn't mean they should receive better care than everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do. Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics. NINE. The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child  her previous two were also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries werefree and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost $200 to have them in Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away. (I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.) How long has this been going on? What are the long-term effects? Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986 shortly after her mother entered the U.S. illegally  now she is having her own child there as well. (That's right, she's technically a U.S. citizen.) These women receive free prenatal care including medication, nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies such as car seats, bottles, diapers and formula. Most of these things are available to American citizens as well but only for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape involved is almost insurmountable. Because these women are illegal immigrants they do not have to provide any sort of legitimate  identification  no proof of income. An American citizen would have to provide a social security number which would reveal their annual income  an illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and the hospital must take them at their word. My husband is a pilot for the United States Navy (yes, he fought in Iraq) and while the health care is good, we Navy wives don't get any of these perks! Car seats? Diapers? Not so much. So my question is this: Does our public medical care system treat illegal immigrants better than American citizens? Yes it does! As I mentioned, the care I have received is perfectly adequate but it's bare bones, meat and potato medical care  not top of line. Their (the illegals) medical care is free  simply because they are illegal immigrants? Once again, there is no way to verify their income. Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not refuse health coverage at their current job. Yeah, the 'free' care is not so easy for Americans.) There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for free treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County. So the hospital is going to sue them! Illegals get it all free! But U.S. citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this? As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal immigrant patients are actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish. In this AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband. The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the family and the mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish. This was apparently a great injustice to her. In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester (multicultural) requirement. Origins:  Dallas' Parkland Memorial Hospital is familiar even to many non-Texans as the site where both President John F. Kennedy and his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald (who was himself shot by Jack Ruby), were transported for emergency life-saving procedures in November 1963. Now, in 2006, Parkland Memorial is well known for its maternity program, which includes nine prenatal clinics and employs 72 doctors training to  become obstetricians-gynecologists and 45 nurse-midwives. According to the Dallas Morning News, in 2005 Parkland Memorial staff delivered 15,590 babies, an average of more than 42 infants per day. In a pair of June 2006 articles, the Morning News reported that a recent patient survey indicated 70% of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants (while a similar New York Times article pegged the yearly tally for 2005 as "at least 56%").  The hospital spent $70.7 million delivering babies born there in 2004, with taxpayers covering about 40% of the costs ($31.3 million) directly, and federal and state funds (primarily Medicaid) making up the remainder.  Because of large payments from the Medicaid system, Parkland still ended 2004 with a $7.9 million surplus in obstetrics. A recent hospital analysis concluded that the average maternity ward patient at Parkland is a 25-year-old, married Hispanic woman giving birth to her second child.  The Parkland staff does not ask maternity patients whether they are illegal immigrants, so the preponderance of illegal aliens among this group has to be inferred through other means.)  (Under the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act [EMTALA], hospitals are obligated to provide care to pregnant women in need of emergency help, and those that fail to do so are subject to fines of up to $50,000 per violation and exclusion from Medicare and state health care programs.)  EMTALA Parkland's policies contrast with those of the public hospital system in neighboring Tarrant County: Uninsured Hispanic immigrants with uncertain immigration status have flocked in recent years to public hospital emergency rooms and maternity wards in Texas, California and other border states. Their care has swelled costs for struggling hospitals and increased the health care bills that fall to states and counties, giving ammunition to opponents of illegal immigration who complain of undue burdens on local taxpayers.  As a result, health care has become one of the sorest issues in the border states' debate over illegal immigration. Facing harsh criticism from residents, public hospitals are confronted with an uneasy decision: demand immigration documents from patients and deny subsidized care to those who lack them, or follow the public health principle of providing basic care to anyone who needs it.  In Texas, two of the biggest public hospitals chose differently.  The Parkland Health and Hospital System, which serves Dallas County, offers low-cost care to low-income residents with no questions asked about immigration status.  "I don't want my doctors and nurses to be immigration agents," said Dr. Ron J. Anderson, the president of Parkland. "We decided that these are folks living in our community and we needed to render the care." In Fort Worth, in neighboring Tarrant County, JPS Health Network requires foreign-born patients to show legal immigration documents to receive financial assistance in nonemergencies, like elective surgery and the treatment of routine or chronic illnesses. Executives said that their first responsibility was to legal residents, but that they were uncomfortable about having to make such distinctions. Administrators from both hospital systems indicated that some of the common assumptions made about immigrants who seek medical care at those facilities (and at other Texas hospitals) are misconceptions: While Texas border hospitals often get "anchor babies"  children of Mexican women who dart across the border to give birth to an American citizen  most illegal immigrants who go to major hospitals in Texas can show that they have been living here for years, said Ernie Schmid, policy director at the Texas Hospital Association. Many immigrant families have mixed status; often a patient with no documents has a spouse or children who are legal.  Most immigrant patients have jobs and pay taxes, through paycheck deductions or property taxes included in their rent, administrators at the Dallas and Fort Worth hospitals said. At both institutions, they have a better record of paying their bills than low-income Americans do, the administrators said.  The largest group of illegal immigrant patients is pregnant women, hospital figures show. Contrary to popular belief here, their care is not paid for through local taxes. Under a 2002 amendment to federal regulations, the births are covered by federal taxes through Medicaid because their children automatically become American citizens.  These cases are not affected by new regulations that went into effect on July 1 [2006] requiring Medicaid patients to provide proof of citizenship, Texas health officials said. They said they believed that only small numbers of illegal immigrants had received other Medicaid benefits.    Last updated:  25 August 2015     Sources:   Jacobsen, Sherry.  "Parkland Is Brimming with Babies."   Dallas Morning News.  11 June 2006.    Jacobsen, Sherry.  "Parkland Will Treat All Moms-to-Be."   Dallas Morning News.  12 June 2006.    Preston, Julia.  "Texas Hospitals' Separate Paths Reflect the Debate on Immigration."   The New York Times.  18 July 2006  (p. A1). Claim:  Congress has eliminated the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit (EITC), and mortgage deductions from the tax code under pressure from lobby groups and the Koch brothers.  Example:  [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Are u kidding!? Congress Eliminates Child Tax Credit, Mortgage Deduction & E.I.T.C   Origins:  On 11 November 2014, the National Report published an article claiming a "heavy burst of lobbying" by groups including the Koch brothers' Koch Industries preceded a vote whereby Congress rescinded several common tax breaks long afforded to millions of Americans.  article According to the article, the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction were all forms of "entitlement payouts" that had been eliminated beginning with the 2014 fiscal year to allow "job creators" to flourish: The deeply unpopular congress, whose approval rating hovers around a historic low of 10%, has voted to remove the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction from the tax code starting with the 2014 fiscal year. The move is almost assured to solidify the perception of the 113rd Congress of the United States as deeply disconnected from the struggles and desires of the populace it is supposed to serve.  The move, long championed by entitlement reform advocates like congressman Paul Ryan R-Wisconsin and Ted Cruz R-Texas, will cut entitlement payouts by a staggering 177 billion dollars. 54.33 billion dollars in savings will be realized from discontinuing the earned income tax credit, which generally pays those making less than 12 thousand dollars yearly large cash tax rebates far in excess of the actual tax they paid. 69.7 billion will be saved from the mortgage interest tax deduction, which critics say primarily favors top income earners. The elimination of the child tax credit, which critics say serves no fair purpose, will result in an additional 54 billion dollar savings. The article was nothing but a chain-yanking spoof, however: The National Report is a well-known fake news outlet notorious for publishing click-baiting, completely false stories such as "15 Year Old Who 'SWATTED' Gamer Convicted of Domestic Terrorism," "Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy, Experts Say," and "Vince Gilligan Announces Breaking Bad Season 6." 15 Year Old Who 'SWATTED' Gamer Convicted of Domestic Terrorism Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy, Experts Say Vince Gilligan Announces Breaking Bad Season 6 The article also quoted economist "Paul Horner" on Congress' purported tax credit repeal.  If that name sounds familiar, it's because Paul Horner is a National Report writer whose name is used as a recurring character in various stories published by the site.     Last updated:  13 November 2014 <