Is there a 'Secret Tax Credit' that covers fifty percent of journalists' pay?
As the federal government debated the contents of the high-profile Build Back Better infrastructure bill in late fall 2021, social media memes portrayed what was said to be elements of the legislation. One such claim asserted that a journalism tax credit would allot funds of up to half of a journalists salary, or a maximum of $50,000 annually.  Some media publications and social media users inaccurately reflected the contents of the bill and exactly how the tax credit works. social media  One such report came in September 2021, by the right-leaning publication The Daily Signal, which claimed that the media hid a secret in $3.5 trillion spending bill. right-leaning The Daily Signal Theres one piece of the $3.5 trillion spending bill that the media is unlikely to tell you abouttheir bailout.  The massive, bloated $3.5 billion spending bill has so much pork that fiscal hawks could eat it for weeks. One piece that hasnt received much attention yet is a special journalism tax credit equal to 50% of the salary of each journalistup to $50,000 per journalist annually. Yes, thats correct, your tax dollars would be paying 50% of the salary of many journalists, whether you like their reporting or not. First, such claims are misleading. The news media do not write, regulate, or pass legislation, and therefore, could not hide additional funds in a spending bill.  It is true that in fall 2021, two pieces of legislation each introduced in the House and Senate aimed to create a tax credit that would incentivize local news subscriptions and advertising, as well as credit local publications that employed journalists for a limited time up to a certain amount. However, the legislation was ultimately excluded from the infrastructure spending bill, and memes depicting its core components are somewhat misleading.  As we have previously reported, just because legislation is introduced does not mean that it will be passed and enforced. Furthermore, the bill language as presented above was not included in the high-profile Build Back Better (BBB) infrastructure bill that has been at the heart of a congressional stop-and-go debate.  In short, similar language was introduced in the BBB (more on those exact nuances later), but the tax credit was not included in its final passage. A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of income tax owed. If approved, that credit would essentially lower the income tax owed by local newsrooms. As is the case with most legislation, the bill was not as cut-and-dry as the meme made it out to be and was instead made up of three major components that were outlined in detail by the Nieman Journalism Lab. The three points were summarized in a letter issued by the office of the U.S. Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, who co-sponsored the bill.  Nieman Journalism Lab letter There were differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Below is the language for the House's H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which was introduced in June 2021. Local Journalism Sustainability Act This bill allows individual and business taxpayers tax credits for the support of local newspapers and media. Specifically, individual taxpayers may claim an income tax credit up to $250 for a local newspaper subscription. The bill also allows local newspaper employers a payroll tax credit for wages paid to an employee for service as a local news journalist and certain small businesses a tax credit for local newspaper and media advertising expenses. That version of the bill did not move past the House Committee on Ways and Means and was ultimately dropped; but it was proposed again by the Senate in November 2021 under S.2434., reported by Poynter at the time. It read: S.2434 Poynter This bill allows individual taxpayers a tax credit up to $250 in any taxable year for subscriptions to one or more local newspapers for the taxpayer's personal use. It also allows a local news journalist employer a payroll credit for wages paid to local news journalists. The bill allows certain small businesses a tax credit for amounts paid for advertising in a local newspaper or through a broadcast of a radio or television station serving a local community. Roughly speaking, the credit would have cost around $1 billion in the first year, and as News Media Alliance pointed out, the bipartisan legislation was only available to local news organizations with 51% or more of its audience in a state or single area within a 200-mile radius of the news operation. Regardless, neither body passed the legislation. pointed out We also read through the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed Congress in Dec 2021 and has since become law. (The entire bill can be viewed here and here.) A word search revealed that there was no mention of journalism, and nearly all mentions of the word media referred to ways in which the government could conduct advertising or outreach, like the example below: passed Congress here here  Screengrab/Govtracks.org  Govtracks.org   Although some publications mischaracterized the contents of the proposed legislation and failed to mention that it was not passed by Congress, it is true that the bill as it was introduced included allocating a tax credit to, at least in part, subsidize the salaries of some local journalists. As such, we have rated this claim as Mixture. Sources Boyle, Paul J. Bipartisan Bill Introduced to Provide Tax Incentives in Support of Local Journalism. News Media Alliance, 22 July 2020, https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/bipartisan-bill-introduced-to-provide-tax-incentives-in-support-of-local-journalism/. Cantwell, Maria. Local Journalism Sustainability Act. S.2434, 22 July 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2434?s=1&r=17. Local Journalism Sustainability Act . https://www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Local%20Journalism%20Sustainability%20Act%20One%20Page%20Summary%20July%2023%202021.pdf. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Https://Twitter.Com/Alaskanpatriot_/Status/1441416781747212305. Twitter, https://twitter.com/alaskanpatriot_/status/1441416781747212305. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Local Journalism Sustainability Act . H.R.3940, 16 June 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3940/actions?r=86&s=1. Some Questions (and Answers) about the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/09/some-questions-and-answers-about-the-local-journalism-sustainability-act/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Text of H.R. 3684: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Passed Congress Version). GovTrack.Us, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. GovTrack.Us, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. The Tax Credit to Pay the Salaries of Local Journalists Is Back in the Budget Bill. Poynter, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2021/the-tax-credit-to-pay-the-salaries-of-local-journalists-is-back-in-the-budget-bill/. You Searched for the Daily Signal. Media Bias/Fact Check, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/search/the daily signal/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022.
In October and November 2023, online advertisements were displayed to users on Facebook and Instagram that each showed a photo of Wendy's fast-food restaurant founder Dave Thomas. Thomas became a household name in the U.S. in the 1990s while starring in hundreds of the company's TV commercials. household name  The caption of the ads in question read, "Closing Time: All The Restaurant Chains Closing." They appeared to hint that Wendy's would be closing down its entire restaurant chain, going bankrupt or going out of business for other reasons. These were two versions of the ads that ran in late 2023. Users who clicked on the ads with the Wendy's-themed photo of Thomas were led to one of two articles. In one lengthy, list-style article hosted by Investing.com, the headline read, "Last Call: You May See Fewer of These Restaurant Chains in 2023." Wendy's appeared in the story at number 44 out of 123 restaurants, with a paragraph that began with, "Wendy's itself is not going out of business": Investing.com 44. Wendys Year Established: 1969 Headquarters: Dublin, Ohio, United States Wendys itself is not going out of business, but the restaurants biggest franchisee operator, NPC International, sadly is. NPC International operates 385 Wendys in the US, meaning that the future of those stores is now in serious jeopardy. NPC also operates over 1,225 Pizza Huts in America. NPC filed for Chapter 11 in July of 2020, citing $903 million in debt. NPC tried to sell off 900 Pizza Huts to Yum! Brands to pay off some of the debt, but Yum! Brands backed out of the deal, citing concerns that creditors would snatch the locations up before they got the chance to move in. The article only ended up revealing that a franchisee named NPC International had sold its Wendy's restaurants to another operator. The sale was approved by a judge in 2021, according to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com, meaning this was old news. RestaurantBusinessOnline.com A second article attached to some of the Facebook and Instagram ads led to sportzbonanza.com. The story's headline read, "Classic Fast Food Restaurants That Are Gone for Good." However, Wendy's was not mentioned in the article. Also, the story was dated Oct. 14, 2020, which again also made this article old news. sportzbonanza.com The reason why these kinds of ads exist on Facebook and Instagram along with their lengthy articles is usually for something called advertising arbitrage. Advertising arbitrage is a strategy by which an advertiser hopes to make more money on ads displayed in a lengthy article than it would cost to display an initial clickbait ad meant to attract users to the article. Advertising arbitrage Since both articles were at least two years old, we wouldn't be surprised to see these misleading ads continuing to appear well in the 2024 calendar year, and perhaps beyond. Dave Thomas - Wendys, Daughter & Facts. Biography, https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/dave-thomas. Liles, Jordan. Snopes Tips: How To Avoid Ad Arbitrage Clickbait. Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/387913/avoid-ad-arbitrage-clickbait/. Maze, Jonathan. Bankruptcy Court Approves the $801M Sale of NPC International. RestaurantBusinessOnline.com, 21 Jan. 2021, https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/bankruptcy-court-approves-801m-sale-npc-international. Phishing bait:  Billing statements from PG&E and Atmos Energy. SCAM Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Comment: I received 2 emails like this.  I don't have an account with PGE,nor do I use gas.  I didn't click, just in case that's how they get theirinfo.  Any insight will be appreciated.  PG&E ENERGY STATEMENT     Account No: 441401665-1Statement Date: 01/07/2014Due Date: 02/01/2014  Your Account Summary Amount Due on Previous Statement          $344.70Payment(s) Recieved Since Last Statement      0  Previous Unpaid Balance                   $344.70  Current Electric Charges                   $165.20Current Gas Charges                          49.20  To view your most recent bill, please click here. You must log-in to youraccount or register for an online account to view your statement. Total Amount Due BY 02/01/2014 $559.70 Origins:  In January 2014, Internet users began receiving messages like the one reproduced above that purported to be energy statements (i.e., utility bills) from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).  Such messages included instructions for the recipients to follow a hyperlink or open an attachment in order to view their statements and/or register for an online account.  These messages were intended to lure recipients, concerned about receiving unexpected bills, into attempting to view the referenced statements   a process which would lead them not to viewing a document but into launching an executable file.  Similar messages have been sent out in the name of Atmos Energy as well, and that company has posted a warning on their web site and advised customers that: warning As an Atmos Energy e-Bill customer you are accustomed to receiving yourmonthly bill notice by email. We would like to inform you of a widespreademail scam which portrays a bogus Atmos Energy bill. The emails have beensent to individuals nationwide including Atmos Energy customers. The "phishing" message references a fake account number and contains linksto fraudulant websites. The email provides links to mislead you inbelieving you are going to view your bill, learn more about natural gas orview bill inserts. Actually, the links lead you to a compromised websitethat hides malware. We are asking anyone who receives that deceptive emailto delete it immediately and do not click on any links. PG&E has also posted a warning on their site advising consumers to "Please be alert to an email scam using PG&E's name," with a link to an article about confirming contact from PG&E: warning Individuals and companies are posing as PG&E employees or contractors to gain access to your account information or entry into your home. Here are ways to protect your home or business. You should always ask to see identification before allowing anyone claiming to be a PG&E representative inside their home. PG&E employees always carry their identification and are always willing to show it to you. If a person claiming to be a PG&E employee has identification and you still feel uncomfortable, call PG&E's customer service line at 1-800-PGE-5000 to verify an appointment and/or PG&E's presence in the community. If you have an appointment with PG&E, you will receive an automated call back within 48 hours prior to a scheduled visit, or a personal call from a PG&E service representative prior to a scheduled visit. If you have concerns about the legitimacy of a call you have received about a past due bill, a service request or a request for personal information, call PG&E immediately at 1-800-743-5000. PG&E's Credit Department will never ask for personal information, a credit card number or a gift card number over the phone. If you have received such a phone call and provided credit card or checking account information should report it immediately to the credit card company or bank and law enforcement.    Last updated:  9 January 2014 During the U.S. federal government shutdown that began in December 2018, President Donald Trump and many of his supporters blamed Congressional Democrats for the budgetary impasse. As part of that rhetorical battle, Trump and others accused Democrats of hypocrisy and political opportunism, alleging that their current opposition to providing funding for the president's long-promised border wall was in stark contrast to their past support for border security infrastructure. In his 8 January 2019 Oval Office address, President Trump alluded to this notion by taking a swipe at Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Minority leader who, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was scheduled to offer a response to the president's primetime immigration speech: "Senator Chuck Schumer  who you will be hearing from later tonight  has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats. They changed their mind only after I was elected President." In a similar vein, around the beginning of 2019 a widely-shared meme posed a rhetorical question about $50 billion in funding for border infrastructure that was supposedly part of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, implying that Democratic Congressional leaders had somehow been involved in misappropriating the money: "Schumer, Pelosi and the Dems may have wished they had just given POTUS the 5 Billion for the wall ... rather than having to answer this question!!! ... or is this the bigger picture??? Where is the $50 Billion set aside for the 2006 Secure Fence Act? Bush signed it & Obama was supposed to oversee its construction? Where is the money?" A 12 January post on the website of the conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense contained this graphic version of the meme: website   The figure of $50 billion was especially significant because it was a far greater sum than the $5 billion for border wall construction which President Trump demanded be included in the 2019 federal budget, and which formed the crux of the partisan standoff and ensuing government shutdown. The "$50 billion" message was shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, prompting inquiries from readers about its veracity. Twitter Facebook In reality, $50 billion was not set aside for border security infrastructure as part of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, and therefore no misappropriation of such funding occurred. One analysis, which predated the Secure Fence Act by seven years, predicted that building and maintaining the type of border fencing provided for in that legislation might cost up to $49 billion over the course of 25 years, but that analysis did not play a significant role in Congressional deliberations before the passing of the Secure Fence Act. The Secure Fence Act was a law introduced by Republican Congressman Peter King of New York in September 2006 and signed by President George W. Bush on 26 October 2006. Among other provisions, the law required the Secretary of Homeland Security to begin (within 18 months) the construction of at least two layers of fencing, along with barriers, cameras, and sensors, along five sections of the United States border with Mexico: law required In the context of the 2018-19 controversy over President Trump's proposed border wall, Republicans made claims about the effectiveness of that border fencing in reducing illegal border crossings into the United States. In a previous fact check, we found such claims to be vague and flawed. fact check Some Democrats supported the bill, and some didn't. In the House of Representatives, the Secure Fence Act passed by 283 votes to 138, with 64 Democrats voting in favor and 131, including Nancy Pelosi, voting against it. passed In the U.S. Senate, the bill passed 80-19. Some 26 Democrats supported it, including future president and vice-president Barack Obama and Joe Biden, 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and future Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, while 17 Democrats, including future Secretary of State John Kerry and future Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, opposed it. passed The claim that Congress "set aside" $50 billion for border fencing in 2006 appears to have been derived from a 1999 study conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In a 2 January 2019& column for Fox News, Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana used the figure in accusing Congressional Democrats of "playing games with America's safety": column The bill before us would certainly do some good. It would authorize some badly needed funding for better fences and better security along our borders that should help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country. No, that statement wasnt made by a Republican. It was a speech given by then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in 2006, when 26 Senate Democrats -- including Obama and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer of New York - voted for The Secure Fence Act, which allocated $50 billion over 25 years for 700 miles of fencing along the border. Thats right. Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer voted for 10 times more funding than President Trump is requesting now to secure our border. What has changed Democrats recognition that our southern border needs to be secured? Two words: President Trump. In a 2017 Boston Globe column, Annie Linskey wrote of the Secure Fence Act that "Congress put aside $1.4 billion for the fence, but the whole cost, including maintenance, was pegged at $50 billion over 25 years, according to analyses at the time." column Several articles from early 2007 and 2008 referred to the $50 billion claim. For example, in September 2008, then-Democratic U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas wrote in opposition to the border fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act: 2007 wrote "With construction expected to exceed $1.2 billion and lifetime maintenance of up to $50 billion, the exorbitant cost of this border fence would be better invested in additional Border Patrol agents, equipment and technology." In January 2007, the Migration Policy Institute cited a report by the Congressional Research Service as its source for the $50 billion figure, writing: cited The 700 miles of double-layer border fencing called for in the Secure Fence Act of [2006] could cost more than $50 billion over 25 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) ... The report cites a Corps of Engineers study that estimates construction of the fencing would cost about $1.2 to $1.3 million a mile, in addition to costs for labor and for purchasing the required property. Further, the Corps of Engineers estimates that maintenance of the fence over its 25-year lifespan would cost between $16.4 million to $70 million per mile, depending on the frequency and strength of attempts to cross it. The CRS report was dated 21 September 2006: seven days after the House of Representatives passed the Secure Fence Act, and eight days before the Senate did likewise: report Because border fencing is a relatively new and limited phenomenon along the U.S.-Mexico border, there is a dearth of information concerning its overall costs and benefits. The Corps of Engineers study predicted that the costs of constructing a double layer fence consisting of primary fencing and Sandia fencing would range from $1.2 million to $1.3 million a mile. The Corps of Engineers also predicted that the 25 year life cycle cost of the fence would range from $16.4 million to $70 million per mile depending on the amount of damage sustained by the fencing. If significant portions of the border were to be fenced, reducing the areas along which individuals could cross the border, it may stand to reason that the fencing will be subjected to more breaches and other attempts to compromise than the fencing that has already been constructed. This may mean that the costs of maintaining border fencing that is widely deployed in the future will be higher than they have been thus far for the limited deployment. The double-layer fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act was expected to stretch for a total of around 700 miles. If the "25-year life cycle cost" of the fence was between $16.4 million and $70 million per mile, that would equate to a 25-year cost of between $11.5 billion and $49 billion. That "worst case" estimate of $49 billion over 25 years is the source of the "$50 billion" claim which was promulgated in 2007 and 2008, and then again in 2017 and 2019, amid the controversy over President Trump's border wall proposals, and Democratic opposition to them. Because the original Corps of Engineers study was seven years old by 2006, the CRS adjusted the original figures presented in the 1999 report for inflation. The Corps of Engineers recommended using landing mat fencing for a primary fence and Sandia fencing for a secondary fence. Those figures were as follows: study   The existence of the 1999 Corps of Engineers study shows that, at the time lawmakers voted through the Secure Fence Act in 2006, one analysis from a reliable source included estimates that indicated the 25-year cost of a 700-mile double-layer fence along the southern border (such as that envisioned in the Secure Fence Act) could range from $11.5 billion to $49 billion. Furthermore, a Congressional Research Service report which reiterated those findings was published on 21 September 2006, too late to be taken into consideration by U.S. Representatives, but before their Senate counterparts cast their votes. However, these estimates (the source of the "$50 billion" figure) only appear to have attracted attention and gained traction after the passing of the Secure Fence Act (for example in the January 2007 Migration Policy Institute analysis), rather than beforehand. In a debate about the bill on 29 September 2006, for example, several U.S. Senators offered varying estimates of the likely cost of the fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act. None of them mentioned a figure of $50 billion, or even close to that. debate In fact, no member of either house of Congress mentioned either the figure of $50 billion nor the original 1999 Army Corps of Engineers study during any debate about the Secure Fence Act. On 25 September 2006, the Washington Post reported that confusion existed over how much the construction of the fencing would cost, although again, none of the estimates listed in the article came anywhere close to $50 billion: reported The House has passed and the Senate is debating legislation to build 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border with no certain idea of how much it would cost. Estimates range from $2 billion, cited by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, to $7 billion, the figure used by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Homeland Security officials told congressional aides it would cost about $5 billion. The department would not confirm that figure nor address the cost of the 107 miles of fencing already up along the nearly 2,000-mile border. The cost can vary depending on whether the government or a private contractor builds the fence. So while it's true that the Army Corps of Engineers study was publicly available when Congress passed the Secure Fence Act in 2006 and could have proved instructive to the debate around the planned construction of border fencing, no evidence suggests that either document played a part in the considerations or deliberations of lawmakers before they cast their votes. This is worth bearing in mind when evaluating any claim that lawmakers (particularly Democrats now hostile to President Trump's border wall plans) passed the Secure Fence Act despite estimates which placed its 25-year cost at $50 billion. Finally, the more specific claim made in the meme and by Rep. Scalise, that the Secure Fence Act "allocated" or "set aside" $50 billion over 25 years, is false. In fact, the Secure Fence Act did not authorize, allocate or "set aside" any funding. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) had spent $2.3 billion on building 654 miles of border fencing between 2007 and 2015, and that CBP had projected in 2009 that the cost of maintaining its border fencing for 20 years would be $1 billion. reported U.S. Congress. "Public Law 109-367 -- Secure Fence Act of 2006."
 26 October 2006. Kasprak, Alex.  "Did Illegal Border Traffic Drop by 90% in Areas Where Physical Barriers Were Expanded?"
  Snopes.com.  8 January 2019. Scalise, Rep. Steve.  "Democrats Need to Stop Playing Games with America's Safety and Fund Border Security Now."
  Fox News.  2 January 2019. Linskey, Annie.  "In 2006, Democrats Were Saying 'Build That Fence!"
  The Boston Globe.  27 January 2017. The Washington Times.  "Fence Advocate Calls Estimates Exaggerated."
  16 January 2007. Kariam, Reed.  "America's Border Fence."
  CQ Researcher.  19 September 2008. Gelatt, Julia.  "New Congress Takes First Steps Toward Immigration Reform."
  Migration Policy Institute.  15 January 2007. Nuez-Neto, Blas and Stephen Via.  "Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border."
  Congressional Research Service.  21 September 2006. Marsh, Dr. Charles P. et al.  "Engineering Life-Cycle Cost Comparison Study of Barrier Fencing Systems."
  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratories.  February 1999. Gamboa, Suzanne.  "Questions Remain on Cost of Border Bills."
  The Washington Post.  25 September 2006. U.S. Government Accountability Office.  "Southwest Border Security -- Additional Actions Needed to Better Assess Fencing's Contributions to Operations and Provide Guidance for Identifying Capability Gaps."
  February 2017. In the summer of 2020, Snopes readers asked us to look into the accuracy of social media posts that claimed to list the names of 41 U.S. Senators who had "voted to let babies scream until they die if born alive." social media posts   The meme referred to Senate Bill 311 (SB 311), which was introduced in the Senate in January 2019 by Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service summary of the legislation reads as follows:  summary This bill establishes requirements for the degree of care a health care practitioner must exercise in the event a child is born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion. A health care practitioner who is present must (1) exercise the same degree of care as reasonably provided to another child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) immediately admit the child to a hospital. The bill also requires a health care practitioner or other employee to immediately report any failure to comply with this requirement to law enforcement. A person who violates the requirements is subject to criminal penalties  a fine, up to five years in prison, or both. Additionally, an individual who intentionally kills or attempts to kill a child born alive is subject to prosecution for murder. The bill bars the criminal prosecution of a mother of a child born alive for conspiracy to violate these provisions, for being an accessory after the fact, or for concealment of felony. A woman who undergoes an abortion or attempted abortion may file a civil action for damages against an individual who violates this bill. The text of SB 311 can be read in full here. It's true that Democratic and Independent senators did vote to block that bill's progress, but the above-displayed Facebook meme leaves out crucial context  federal and state laws already provide protections for babies born alive after abortions  and obscure the stated reasons for those votes, an essential component of any evaluation of a legislative vote. Overall, we rate the meme's core claim as "false."  here The proposed "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act" has been stuck in the Senate since February 2019, despite efforts by Republicans to revive it in February 2020. The bill has not been forwarded to any Senate committee, and Republicans have failed on two occasions to obtain the votes necessary to advance the legislation through the Senate.  Those two votes, in February 2019 and February 2020, were on motions of cloture. A motion of cloture is, roughly speaking, a proposal signed by at least 16 senators to close debate on a particular bill. At first glance, that might suggest that those in favor of the cloture motion are opposed to the content of the legislation itself, but in fact, "invoking cloture" is a way to advance a bill's progress in the Senate by pushing through the debate stage and arriving at a full-Senate vote on the legislation itself. Cloture is a key mechanism for breaking a filibuster in the Senate.  February 2019 February 2020 motion of cloture filibuster On most matters, a cloture motion must be agreed to by 60% of senators, which usually means 60 votes (except in cases where a Senate seat is temporarily vacant). In the 2019 vote, only 53 members voted "Yea," and in 2020 that number was 56  below the 60-vote threshold on each occasion. It's worth noting that the Senate has not yet voted on whether to pass SB 311 itself, so a vote in favor of a motion for cloture should not be conflated with a vote in favor of the substance of the legislation. However, it is reasonable to assume, in general, that senators who voted to push SB 311 through to the next stage towards enactment were also in favor of enacting the bill itself, and those who voted against the cloture motions were doing so in order to halt the legislation's progress because they opposed its contents. This assumption is borne out in the partisan contours of the 2019 and 2020 cloture votes: On both occasions, no Republican voted against the motion, and only Democrats voted against it (including Independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who both caucus with the Democrats). On both occasions, three Democrats crossed the floor and voted in favor of the cloture motions: Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Doug Jones of Alabama.  2019 2020 The exact claim in the Facebook meme is somewhat confusing. The caption refers to 41 senators, but the list contains 44 names. In February 2019, all 44 of the senators listed in the meme voted against the Republican cloture motion. However, in February 2020, 41 of them voted against the cloture motion, with the remaining three not voting (Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Sanders). So it's not clear to which vote the meme refers. However, on each occasion the wording of the cloture motion and the question put to senators was identical, so the distinction is only a formal one. was identical In evaluating whether the Democratic senators listed in the meme did, in fact, "vote to let babies scream until they die if born alive," it is necessary to assess the reasons for their votes against cloture motions and the effect of the failure of the cloture motions.  It hardly needs to be said, but neither the bill itself, nor any statements made by the Democratic senators who opposed it, contained any mention of "babies screaming until they die." So in voting against the progress of SB 311, no senator was explicitly voting in order to bring about that outcome, in those terms. Rather, that phrase was a characterization of the effect of the votes, which originated from the creator of the Facebook meme.  By voting against the cloture motions, the senators halted the progress of a bill that, if enacted, would mean that federal law required health care practitioners to provide the same life-saving treatments and interventions for a baby born alive after a failed abortion (including admitting the baby to a hospital) as they are currently required to provide to babies born alive under other circumstances. The bill would also mean that health care practitioners would be required, under federal law, to report to law enforcement if they became aware that someone else had violated those requirements. Any health practitioner convicted of failing to fulfill those requirements, or failing to report someone else's violation, would be liable to be fined and/or imprisoned for up to five years. SB 311 would also mean that a person found to have intentionally killed a baby born alive after a failed abortion would be liable to conviction and punishment under the federal prohibition against murder.  prohibition Does this mean that by preventing the passage of SB 311 Democratic senators were allowing health care practitioners to lawfully let babies die, without rendering aid, if they are born alive after a failed abortion? Not really.  Federal law already explicitly states that babies born alive, regardless of the circumstances, are human persons and should be treated as such in the context of criminal law. The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002. It states that: states (a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words person, human being, child, and individual, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. As used in this section, the term born alive", with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion. This means that intentionally killing a baby born alive can be, and is, prosecuted as murder, since the baby is defined under the 2002 act as a human person. In principle, it also means that doctors and nurses have the same professional, legal, and ethical responsibility to babies born alive after failed abortions as they do to babies born alive in other circumstances.  The 2002 law does not include an explicit, affirmative duty of care for health care practitioners and does not stipulate any penalties for failing to provide appropriate care. However, many individual states do. Based on research originally published by the anti-abortion Family Research Council, Snopes checked legislation in all 50 states and found that, as of Aug. 20, 2020, 34 states have laws that explicitly either: affirm the equal right to medical care of a baby born alive after an abortion; or assert an affirmative legal obligation for medical practitioners to provide care; or set out criminal penalties for failing to provide care; or all of the above provisions. A full list of each state's "born alive" abortion laws, including links to the original legislation, can be found here.  published here (Note: At the time of the first cloture vote in February 2019, the number of states with "born alive" abortion laws was 33. West Virginia's Senate passed the state's own Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act on Feb. 10, 2020, and Gov. Jim Justice signed it into law on March 2, 2020. By the time the U.S. Senate had its second cloture motion on Feb. 25, 2020, Justice had already vowed to sign the West Virginia law, meaning the number of states with "born alive" abortion laws was imminently about to become 34.) passed signed vowed The effect of the decision to block the progress of SB 311 through the U.S. Senate was to preserve the legal status quo around the country, namely that: two-thirds of states already had laws offering various levels of protection for babies born alive after failed abortions, and various levels of criminal penalties set out for health care practitioners who fail to provide care for them; and that federal law already recognized that babies born alive after failed abortions should be treated as human persons in the context of criminal law. This significantly undermines the Facebook meme's claim that the 44 senators had voted to allow babies to be left to die if they are born alive after a failed abortion, because that it isn't the case in most states. However, passing SB 311 would mean that there would be no ambiguity about the criminal implications and consequences of the 2002 law. Under SB 311, federal law would unequivocally set out a legal duty of care and a reporting obligation for health care professionals, as well as specific criminal penalties. While the 2002 law empowered states to enact their own "born alive" abortion laws, and 34 states have opted to do just that, 16 states have not, and SB 311 would introduce a "born alive" abortion law that would apply uniformly throughout the entire country. By voting to block the progress of SB 311, the Democratic and Independent senators did undoubtedly prevent that outcome from becoming much more likely.  In evaluating whether voting against the cloture motions on SB 311 meant the 44 senators were voting to allow babies born alive after abortion to simply die without medical aid, it is also necessary to examine the reasons why the senators voted the way they did.  In general, the Democratic senators who gave statements about their votes on SB 311 said that they had opposed the passage of the bill because they felt it was unnecessary in light of existing law and because they felt it inappropriately criminalized health care practitioners and interfered in the doctor-patient relationship. None said they had voted against the cloture motions in order to allow babies to be left to die or expressed indifference about that outcome. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, for example, wrote, "We should not unnecessarily create new federal crimes and penalties to punish behavior that is already illegal under existing state and federal laws." Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland wrote, "It has always been illegal to kill or harm a newborn infant, and this bill had nothing to do with that. Instead, this bill would have subjected medical professionals to unprecedented criminal liability and inappropriately comes between a woman and her doctor. wrote wrote Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said SB 311 was "a solution in search of a problem," adding, "Contrary to what the proponents of this bill argue, it is and has always been a crime to harm or kill newborn babies. And people guilty of this crime can already be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." said Speaking from the floor of the Senate, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois emphasized the fact that abortions that take place late enough for a fetus to show vital signs overwhelmingly occur in the context of a late diagnosis of a fetal abnormality that will, in short order, prove fatal. She stated that her reason for opposing SB 311 was that it would exacerbate the suffering of parents in such scenarios and force health care practitioners to attempt medical interventions that they know to be futile. stated ... Imagine the heartbreak of going to the doctor one day and learning that theres no chance your baby will survive that theres no hope your baby girl will ever speak her first word or take her first step  Or that delivering her would put your own life at risk, leaving your firstborn to grow up without a mother. These are the types of scenarios that lead to the heart-wrenching decision to terminate a pregnancy later on. As the mom of two little girls, I cant begin to fathom that kind of pain. And yet today, some on the other side of the aisle are trying to use those parents' suffering for political advantage  making worst-case scenarios like these all the more difficult by pushing a bill aimed to criminalize reproductive care no matter the cost. If it becomes law, this bill would force doctors to perform ineffective, invasive procedures on fetuses born with fatal abnormalities  even if its against the best interests of the child. Even if it goes against recommended standards of care and they know it wouldnt extend or improve the babys life. Even if it would prolong the suffering of the families  forcing women to endure added lasting trauma ... making one of the worst moments in their lives somehow even more painful. If physicians refuse, theyd be punished ... sentenced to up to five years in prison. In February 2019, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American College of Nurse-Midwives co-signed a letter to U.S. Senators, urging them to vote against SB 311 for similar reasons to those given by Duckworth and others, writing: letter "It [S. 311] injects politicians into the patient-provider relationship, disregarding providers training and clinical judgment and undermining their ability to determine the best course of action with their patients." Late-term abortions are exceedingly rare. In 2016, the most recent year for which data was available, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that just 1.2% of abortions took place after 21 weeks' gestational age. reported Deaths involving babies born alive after an abortion are even rarer. According to CDC data, just 143 newborn deaths were recorded as resulting from spontaneous or induced terminations of pregnancy between 2003 and 2014, a period during which more than 49 million live births took place. The CDC advised that the figure of 143 might be an understatement, but also stated that two-thirds of those newborn deaths involved a "maternal complication or one or more congenital anomalies," which corroborates the claims of Duckworth and others.  data Sasse, Ben. "S. 311 -- Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act."
 U.S. Senate. 31 January 2019. Davis, Christopher M. "Invoking Cloture in the Senate."
 Congressional Research Service. 6 April 2017. Congressional Research Service. "Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate."
 7 April 2017. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. "U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 51, Section 1111 -- Murder."
 Accessed 20 August 2020. Chabot, Steve. "H.R. 2175 -- Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002."
 U.S. House of Representatives. 5 August 2002. Family Research Council. "Pro-Life Laws in the States -- Born-Alive Protections."
 Accessed 20 August 2020. PBS/The Associated Press. "West Virginia Senate Passes 'Born Alive' Abortion Bill."
 10 February 2020. Justice, Jim. "Governor Speaks on 'Protecting Abortion Survivors.'"
 The Point Pleasant Register. 14 February 2020. Kaine, Tim. "Kaine Statement on S. 311."
 25 February 2020. Cardin, Ben. "Cardin Statement on the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act."
 26 February 2019. Hirono, Mazie. "Hirono, Murray, and Colleagues Denounce Latest Republican Attack on a Womans Right to Choose in Remarks on the Senate Floor"
 25 February 2019. Duckworth, Tammy. "Minutes Before Vote, Duckworth Pushes Senate to Reject Latest Anti-Choice, Anti-Doctor GOP Bill."
 25 February 2019. Jatlaoui, Tara et al. "Abortion Surveillance -- United States, 2016."
 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 29 November 2019. National Center for Health Statistics. "Mortality Records with Mention of International Classification of Diseases-10 code P96.4 (Termination of Pregnancy): United States, 2003-2014."
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 11 April 2016. Robertson, Lori. "The Facts on the Born-Alive Debate."
 Factcheck.org. 4 March 2019. Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal. When Susan Goodman Komen died of breast cancer at the age of 33 in 1980, her younger sister, Nancy Goodman Brinker promised she would do whatever she could to help end that disease.  Brinker fulfilled that promise by founding The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (later known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure, then just Susan G. Komen) in 1982, a group that has since become the largest and most well known breast cancer organization in the United States: breast cancer Brinker fulfilled a promise to her sister that she would do everything she could to help eradicate the disease  a disease that Brinker also was diagnosed with and successfully fought. "At that time, there was a stigma and shame around breast cancer," Brinker said. "You didn't talk about it. There were no 800-numbers, no Internet. Our government didn't spend much on breast cancer research. There were few major cancer centers with expertise about breast cancer. That's the world we faced when Suzy was diagnosed. It's a world I watched her suffer in, and it's a world she wanted us to change." In 2012, Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker became the focus of controversy when she announced Komen would be pulling the grants the organization had been providing to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings, then quickly reversed that decision.  Several months later Brinker announced she would be stepping down as Komen's CEO, but the following year she was again the focus of controversy when news outlets reported that not only did she still hold her CEO position, but she had received a hefty raise to boot that brought her annual compensation up to $684,000 per year: In early 2012, Komen announced it was pulling its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, drawing an immediate backlash from Komen supporters and abortion rights advocates. Within days, Nancy Brinker, the groups founder and CEO, reversed the decision to defund the organization. Then, in August, Brinker announced that she would be stepping down. But 10 months later, Brinker still holds her position and tax documents reveal that she received a 64 percent raise and now makes $684,000 a year, according to the charitys latest available tax filing.  Komen says the raise came in November 2010, prior to last year's controversy. Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, which evaluates and rates charities, called Brinker's salary "extremely high." "This pay package is way outside the norm," he said. "It's about a quarter of a million dollars more than what we see for charities of this size. This is more than the head of the Red Cross is making, for an organization that is one-tenth the size of the Red Cross."  The American Red Cross had revenue of about $3.4 billion, while Komens was about $340 million last year.  Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern makes $500,000, according to the most recent financial documents available for the charity. Charity Navigator's last compensation figure for Nancy Brinker was $560,896 per year, which at the time put her below Komen president Elizabeth Thompson's reported annual compensation of $606,461.   In June 2013, Komen finally announced that Brinker would be stepping down as president and CEO of that organization and named Judith A. Salerno, M.D. as her successor.  In June 2015, Brinker reportedly resigned from her paid position to assume an unpaid role role as a top volunteer with Komen. Dr. Salerno's most recently reported compensation (in August 2017) was $479,858, while Nancy Brinker was still listed as a "founder" receiving a salary of $397,093. compensation announced unpaid In September 2017, Paula Schneider took over as president and CEO of Komen, with compensation of $137,155 reported as of the end of the fiscal year in March 2018. Paula Schneider The reference to Komen's applying only 20% of donated money to breast cancer research likely comes from a pie chart displayed in the "Use of Funds" section of Wikipedia's article about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which showed Komen's 2009-2010 Expenses: Use of Funds  While it may have been true that breast cancer research comprised only a 21% share of Komen's program expenses (Charity Navigator puts the figure at 28.8% as of March 2018), citing that figure as a criticism of the organization reflects a common misbelief that groups dedicated to addressing particular diseases (e.g., the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the ALS Association) exist solely or primarily to fund and direct research into curing and/or preventing those diseases.  This perception is inaccurate: Komen and other groups like it have goals that include delivering a wide array of services to the communities they support beyond the funding of research, such as funding educational awareness and outreach programs, providing screening and diagnostic procedures, and arranging medical treatment and home care for persons currently living with those diseases.  A more relevant metric for assessing a charity's overall financial effectiveness is the percentage of the organization's budget that is actually spent on all the programs and services the charity delivers, and in this area the Charity Navigator charity evaluation site gives  Komen an 80.3 rating (as well as a 96.0 rating for Accountability & Transparency).  Charity Navigator does rank many other breast cancer charities higher than Susan G. Komen for the Cure, however. Komen breast cancer Regarding the seemingly excessively high level of CEO salaries at some charities, Charity Navigator advises that: advises While there are certainly some charities that overpay their leaders, Charity Navigator's data shows that those organizations are the minority. Among the charities we've evaluated (those being mid to large-sized charities), the typical CEO's annual compensation is in the low to mid six figures. Before you make any judgments about salaries higher or lower than that range, we encourage you to keep in mind that these charities are complex organizations, with multi-million dollar budgets, hundreds of employees, and thousands of constituents. These leaders could inevitably make much more running similarly sized for-profit firms. Furthermore, when making your decision it is important to consider that it takes a certain level of professionalism to effectively run a charity and charities must offer a competitive salary if they want to attract and retain that level of leadership. During a meeting with the San Antonio City Council, former mayor Henry Cisneros made a pitch for a new transportation plan that emphasizes roads over public mass transit. Cisneros, who served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, highlighted the need for more money to go toward transportation and explained how this kind of investment could transform the city. We are a poor city, Cisneros said of San Antonio. We have the lowest per capita income of any major Texas city. We ran the numbers, and the latest figures show that San Antonio has a lower per capita income than some, but not all, of the states most populous cities. Cisneros did not return a request for comment seeking clarification on his definition of a major Texas city. To be clear: there is no universal definition of a major city, so we looked at Texas cities with a population estimate of at least 500,000 in 2018. Census figures show rankings To check this claim, we looked at yearly estimates of per capita income from the Census Bureaus American Community Survey. Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man, woman, and child in a particular group, according to the Census Bureau. In this case, those groups are Texas cities. The per capita income is calculated by dividing the aggregate income of a particular group by the total population in that group. The final figure is rounded to the nearest whole dollar. In 2018, the per capita income in Texas was $30,641. In the United States, it was $33,831. Looking at individual Texas cities reveals a wide range of values, from $65,743 in The Woodlands, a master planned community north of Houston, to $15,369 in Pharr, a city on the Texas-Mexico border east of McAllen. In San Antonio, per capita income in 2018 was $24,684. San Antonio is the second most populous city in the state (1.5 million), preceded by Houston (2.3 million) and followed in order by Dallas (1.3 million), Austin (964,254), Fort Worth (895,008) and El Paso (840,758), according to 2018 population figures. Heres the per capita income in 2018 in these cities, presented from highest to lowest: An analysis of the rankings of these cities each year from 2010 through 2018 shows that San Antonio is low on the list, followed by El Paso. Another way to assess income in a community is to look at median household income or median family income. Median household income includes the income of the householder and anyone else living in the home over 15 years old. This figure is different than median family income, according to the Census Bureau: Because many households consist of only one person, average household income is usually less than average family income. Median family income looks at incomes of all members 15 years old and over related to the householder. In 2018, the median household income in San Antonio was $49,024, lower than all of the six most populous Texas cities besides El Paso ($45,031). San Antonios median family income was $60,689 in 2018, a higher figure than Dallas ($58,835), Houston ($56,693) and El Paso ($50,245). Poverty in San Antonio Cisneros made this claim after stating that San Antonio is a poor city, so we also looked at poverty data available from the Census Bureau for the 10 most populous cities in the state. In 2018 in San Antonio, about 19% of its population was living below the poverty line  more than any of the other cities with populations over 500,000. Take at look at each city and the percent of its population below the poverty line, ordered from highest to lowest: Another factor worth mentioning here is cost of living. San Antonio may be among the cities with the lowest per capita income, but the cost of living is also on the lower end. The Economic Policy Institutes Family Budget Map shows an estimated cost of living for a two-parent, two-child family in counties across the state. Here is the cost of living per year in the predominate county in each city with a population over 500,000, in order from highest to lowest: Our ruling Cisneros said that San Antonio has the lowest per capita income of any major Texas city. San Antonio is among the six most populous Texas cities with the lowest per capita income. El Paso has consistently recorded a lower per capita income than San Antonio. We rate this claim Mostly True. Former President Bill Clinton raised a hot-button issue while stumping for his wife in Los Angeles this week: Americas mounting student loan debt. Student debt in the United States has reached $1.3 trillion, which trails only the amount Americans owe on their mortgages. Its often blamed for preventing young people from buying houses and cars, which fuels the countrys economy. Undergraduates in the class of 2015 finished school with anaverage of $35,000in student loan debt, the most in history, according to Edvisors.com, a financial aid website. If elected president in November, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would remove a unique barrier related to college loans, the former president claimed. A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down, Bill Clinton said, speaking at a recent campaign rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. We wondered: Is refinancing really off-limits for all college loans? With student loan debt such a big issue this election year, we decided to check the facts. Past efforts at change Both Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have pledged to allow student loans to be refinanced. But they werent the first to call for this change. In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejectedlegislationby Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have let student borrowers refinance their federal loan debt. Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in aWashington Post news articleat the time. Republicans said they were not convinced the legislation would have resulted in lower borrowing costs, and labeled it an election stunt. The bill would have let people with federal and private loans issued prior to 2010 refinance at 3.86 percent, the article said. It added that the Obama administration estimated that the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 each over the lifetime of their loans, or $50 billion. Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign stop for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, at the West End Community Development Center in Greenville, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Our research As theyve campaigned across the country, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders have each pledged to allow for refinancing of college loan debt. What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are talking about is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account forabout 90 percentof all student borrowing. We turned to the nonprofit college planning group American Student Assistance for some advice. They and other groups say federal student loans can be refinanced into private loans. But doing so can remove federal protections such as fixed interest rates and the ability to pause repayments. Also, private student loans can be refinanced into new lower-interest private loans. But theres no provision in federal law allowing the refinancing of a federal loan to another, lower-interest federal loan. There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers. PolitiFact Texasexamined a similar claimin 2014 and rated it Mostly True. They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income. Jarvis added that refinancing federal loans with a private loan is risky. The borrower gives up important protections that accompany federal loans (like flexible repayment and discharge provisions). Students repaying federally backed loans, Jarvis said, are effectively barred from refinancing opportunities because federal law makes no provision for the government to make such offers. Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan. Our ruling Former President Bill Clinton said at a recent campaign rally in Los Angeles: A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down. Borrowers of federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of student loans, cannot refinance those into lower-interest federal loans. Congress sets the interest rate on these loans, and theres no provision in federal law that allows for them to be refinanced. Depending on factors such as income, some borrowers can refinance their federal loans into lower-interest private loans, though they risk losing their federal loan protections. Clinton most likely was referring only to federally backed loans when he made his statement, but a clarification about private loans would have helped. We rated his claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Claim:  Former New York mayor Ed Koch delivered a radio address on anti-semitism.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] We are now going through the most virulent anti-Semitic period since Hitler and Stalin. Nearly 60 years after the end of World War II almost every country on the European continent, including England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, has seen major outbreaks of physical violence against their Jewish citizens, and against Jewish institutions, including synagogues and cemeteries. At the same time, open hostility toward the State of Israel is at an all-time high.  Only in the United States have we seen a full acceptance of Jews as citizens and the Jewish state treated as a friend and ally by an overwhelming number of fellow citizens. In the U.S., Jews have been permitted to rise and fall based on their individual talents, virtues and faults. In one elite bastion after another, Jews have been selected to head institutions heretofore seen as beyond their reach. Today the presidents of Harvard and Yale Universities are Jews, as are recent former presidents of Columbia and Princeton. Having been elected three times as mayor of the City of New York, I have been the beneficiary of this country's generosity and freedom from bigotry, and I will be eternally grateful.  Americans traditionally make New Years resolutions. Before I list my own resolutions, I want to thank President George W. Bush and his advisers, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for their support of the State of Israel. They could easily have jettisoned Israel as a liability in their efforts to forge an international coalition against worldwide terrorism. I will be forever grateful to them, and I hope that many other supporters of the State of Israel will recognize and appreciate what they have done.  Fortunately for Jews and the State of Israel, American support of the Jewish nation has been bipartisan. Particularly helpful has been the Democratic leadership in both houses including Senator Tom Daschle, outgoing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, as well as former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton. There are many others on both sides of the political aisle who deserve similar praise.  In the religious sector, I am grateful to the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both of whom have stood up time and again in support and defense of the Jewish nation. Regrettably, there have been many clergy who have unfairly attacked Israel for attempting to defend itself against near-daily terrorist acts against its citizens. We were made privy to the true thoughts of Rev. Billy Graham caught on tape telling President Nixon his real feelings about Jews and Israel. He has since apologized, but what is an apology without contrition and efforts to right the wrong done? Worthless.  Now to my personal New Years resolutions. I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council who are the enemies of the State of Israel. So too is Mexico, joining as a consistent supporter of resolutions unfairly denouncing Israel at the U.N. Security Council.  I will not support National Public Radio in any way. NPRs reporters and management delight in unfairly attacking Israel.  I will no longer lend financial support to New Yorks Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias or to try to correct it.  I will not watch ABCs World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians.  BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel and I will shun it completely.  Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works.  Regrettably, there are many others whom I could include on this list, but I will leave that for another day. I must confess I got enormous pleasure from the defeat of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her father in the recent primary elections in Georgia. In my view, both are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. No longer able to feed at the public trough, I doubt that either will make a comparable living in the private sector.  I must close now to get ready for my Chanukah and Christmas shopping. I enjoy celebrating those holidays with Jewish and Christian friends whose goodwill and affection I will always cherish. Origins:  Ed Koch, mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989,   mayor  was a regular commentator on Bloomberg Radio until his death in 2013.  On 7 December 2002, he delivered a commentary dealing with his perception that western society is experiencing its most"virulent anti-Semitic period since Hitler and Stalin" and offered a list of new year's resolutions regarding people and institutions he would shun for being anti-Israel.  Transcripts of that commentary (reproduced above) have since been posted to a variety of web sites. Bloomberg Radio Just to be sure this information was accurate, we contacted Bloomberg Radio for verification and received an affirmative response: Hello and thank you for your inquiry. Former Mayor Ed Koch is a regular commentator on Bloomberg Radio.  On 7 December 2002, Mr. Koch delivered a commentary on our "Bloomberg On the Weekend" broadcast in which he postulated a growing anti-semitism in America and elsewhere in the western world.  He asserted that public broadcasting  had an anti-Israeli attitude and declared he would no longer contribute.  I hope this answers your question, and I invite you to listen to us each weekend for Ed Koch and much more.   If you are in the greater New York area you will find us on Bloomberg Radio, WBBR, 1130 on your AM radio dial. Elsewhere we can be heard on the internet at http:/www.bloomberg.net/radio. http:/www.bloomberg.net/radio Sincerely,Wes Richards, Host. Last updated:  6 January 2014 Recently, activists have shown up at Hillary Clintons campaign events to urge her to bring back Glass-Steagall. What is Glass-Steagall? Its the Depression-era bank regulation that kept different types of financial institutions separate; then-President Bill Clinton signed legislation reversing it in 1999. Some Glass-Steagall supporters argue that its demiseled to the 2007 financial crisis, and some Democrats have put a good amount of effort into restoring it -- such as presidential candidates Martin OMalley and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. But Hillary Clintonwon't pledge to reinstateGlass-Steagall if she becomes president. And Bill Clinton says criticism over the laws repeal is unfounded. Look at all the grief I got for signing the bill that ended Glass-Steagall, Bill Clinton said in an interview with Inc. magazinefor its September issue.There's not a single, solitary example that it had anything to do with the financial crash. Given the significant attention on Glass-Steagall among Democrats, we wondered if its true that it didnt have anything to do with the financial crash. Our research shows the laws demise was part of a broad deregulatory push that greatly contributed to the financial crisis. But Clinton has a point that a direct line from the 1999 repeal to the market crash in 2007-08 is hard to identify. Too big to fail Congress passed Glass-Steagall in 1933, in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. The law kept commercial banks (where customers deposit money and take out loans) separate from investment firms (which hold securities and make investments) -- more colloquially, the law separated Main Street from Wall Street. Some experts and lawmakers want to keep these kinds of activities separate, because theyre worried that merging them could put the publics money at risk. Heres a simple hypothetical: A bank merges with an investment firm to create a massive company. The investment side makes a huge bet on an investment that fails big time, so the commercial bank sides money -- money individuals have deposited for safe-keeping -- could be at risk. Because those deposits are federally insured, it might require a government bailout. (Think too-big-to-fail.) Supporters of the law say keeping these activities separate prevents this kind of domino effect. Is this what caused the most recent financial crisis? Theres plenty of room for debate here, given that thereisnt a single what-caused-the-crisis narrativethat every economist accepts. Its safe to say, though, that there is not a prominent group of economists who argue but for the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall, the crisis would not have happened. Lawrence White, an economist at New York University, doesnt see Glass-Steagall playing any role in the financial crisis whatsoever. He pointed to the crisis biggest culprits: firms such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and AIG, to name a few. He added that much of the crisis hinged on activity by these institutions that would have been possible with or without Glass-Steagall, such as mass investment in notoriously bad mortgage loans. (Clintons staff linked us to commentary by several other experts who share Whites view.) We also contacted Barry Ritholtz, a wealth management expert and commentator, whosaidGlass-Steagall would have done nothing to stop the financial crisis, but not having it made the crisis worse. It encouraged banks to get bigger and to take on riskier investments, so the ripple effects of the crisis were bigger than they would have been otherwise, he said, adding that itwasnt just the headline-making banksthat struggled. The extent over Glass-Steagalls effect on the financial crisis is a topic on which reasonable people can disagree. More so in Clintons favor is the fact that Glass-Steagall was a shadow of its former self by the time 1999 rolled around. Deregulating like its 1999 A few decades out from the Depression, starting in earnest in the 1970s, there was a push to roll back financial regulations that continued throughout the administrations of former presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. As part of that movement, banks and lawmakers steadily chipped away at Glass-Steagall and took advantage of loopholes. Banks were engaging in the kinds of activity Glass-Steagall was intended to stop even though the law was still on the books. By the time Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act, commonly known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley, repealing the key components of Glass-Steagall in 1999, the regulation was nearly toothless. The law was simply catching up to what the market had already accomplished in the previous 10 to 15 years, said Kathleen Day, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and an expert in financial crises. Take for example the poster child of the end of Glass-Steagall: The merger of Citicorp, a bank, and Travelers Group, a financial conglomerate, was announced in 1998 before Glass-Steagall was repealed. Even though this was the exact type of merger Glass-Steagall was intended to halt, the financial industrydid not see many obstaclesfor the creation ofCitigroup. Citigroup and others wanted and got the repeal of Glass-Steagall in order to validate what they had already been allowed to do, said Simon Johnson, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So the overall, decades-in-the-making decline of Glass-Steagall might have contributed to the financial crisis and its fallout, as it was part of the deregulatory push. But Clinton putting pen-to-paper on the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 probably didnt make any meaningful difference. But Clintons hands arent clean of the financial crisis, because his administration played no small part in the longer term deregulatory trend. Clinton and his administration did not make an earnest attempt to maintain oversight over the big, hybrid banks created by the demise of Glass-Steagall, Day said. Additionally, the administrations firm decision not to regulate other aspects of the financial market played a meaningful role in the crisis -- for example, the absence of regulations regarding over-the-counter derivatives, which were becoming increasingly prevalent,despite internal warnings. Clintons claim might be technically true, but its a sin of omission, Day said. Our ruling Clinton said, There's not a single, solitary example that signing the bill to end Glass-Steagall had anything to do with the financial crash. By focusing on the bill that officially repealed Glass-Steagall, Clinton's statement ignores the fact that the demise of Glass-Steagall took place over decades, amid a deregulatory push in which the Clinton administration played a role. By the time the law to repeal hit his desk, Glass-Steagall had been whittled down so much that it wasnt very meaningful. It's a matter of debate how much of a role the overall demise of Glass-Steagall had in causing the financial crisis, but we couldn't find any economists who argue that the regulation was the sole linchpin keeping the financial system stable until its official repeal in 1999. Overall, we rate Clintons claim Mostly True.