Health care is the greatest contribution to spending increases in the state budget.
In September, Dr. Nick Tsiongas wrote a commentary for The Providence Journal about how the federal health-care overhaul is taking shape in Rhode Island.Tsiongas, a former state legislator and past president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, is a founding board member of HealthRIght, a statewide group working for the passage and implementation of comprehensive health care reform. His piece made the case for a robust health benefits exchange, which would create a marketplace where people and businesses could buy health insurance.To frame the issue, Tsiongas began by saying, In Rhode Island, as elsewhere in America, the cost of health care threatens bankruptcy for those without insurance, individuals and businesses find premiums increasingly onerous and even unaffordable, and health care is the greatest contribution to spending increases in the state budget.The debate about the health-care exchange can extend to a range of topics, but we wanted to test one of Tsiongas underlying claims: That health care is the biggest factor driving state budget increases.We contacted Tsiongas, who said he was referring to three main categories of health-care spending: Medicaid (which includes RIte Care/Share and nursing home and long-term care costs  ), state employees health insurance costs, and retiree costs.To bolster his claim, Tsiongas cited a Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council report, which said that total state spending from all sources increased by about $2 billion between fiscal years 2001 and 2011. Human services accounted for the largest share of the increase (37.5 percent), followed by general government (28.8 percent) and education (26.3 percent), the report says.Grants and benefits for human services programs represent the largest share of expenditures in the total budget and the majority of these expenditures are for medical assistance programs.The RIPEC report noted that The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation tracks Medicaid spending by state, and in fiscal year 2009 Rhode Island ranked fourth (behind Ohio, New Hampshire and Massachusetts) in state Medicaid spending as a percentage of the general fund.Medicaid remains about a quarter of the state budget and projected increases are unsustainable without health system payment reform, Tsiongas wrote in an e-mail. One can argue that this and next years state pension contributions may dwarf other increases, but this represents a catch-up of long-standing pension underpayments by the state, whereas the states health-care costs have had a sustained role in the budget over time.Tsiongas said the states health-care costs dont just include Medicaid; they also include the cost of providing health-insurance coverage to state employees and retirees.To check Tsiongas, we turned first to RIPEC, a business-backed organization that has been analyzing the factors that drive public spending since 1932.In a chart it prepared for PolitiFact, RIPEC showed that medical assistance, which includes most Medicaid spending in the state, increased by $713.5 million between fiscal 2002 and the enacted budget for fiscal 2012 -- accounting for 28.4 percent of the spending increase from all sources of revenue during that decade.No other category of spending increased by that much, according to the RIPEC chart. A category of other grants and benefits, which includes some higher education spending and unemployment insurance, rose by $566 million, accounting for 22.6 percent of the spending increase. And salaries and benefits for state employees rose by $499 million, accounting for 19.9 percent of the increase during that decade.But it should be noted that salaries and benefits includes the employee health-care costs that Tsiongas referenced.So when you combine all three areas of health-care spending -- Medicaid, employee health care and retiree health care -- they make up the single largest category of increased spending in the state budget over that 10-year span, RIPEC officials said.During that time, those three areas have driven up the budget even more than state pension payments, RIPEC officials said. In recent months, public attention has focused on the pension system because the cost to Rhode Island taxpayers of financing the state-run pensions for public employees has more than doubled during the last seven years and actuaries say it could double again next fiscal year to more than $600 million.RIPEC officials said that those rapidly escalating pension costs could become a bigger factor than the health-care costs in the near future -- if nothing is done. But they noted the treasurer and the governor are formulating a pension proposal, and they expect the General Assembly to take action to curtail pension costs during an upcoming special session.In 2013 and in the future, pensions will become the main issue that needs to be addressed,  RIPEC Executive Director John Simmons said. But, he said, historically the Medicaid and health-care issue has been the largest driver of costs.State Budget Officer Thomas A. Mullaney agreed that pension costs could become a much bigger factor in the budget, if nothing is done. But, he said, over the last several years, particularly in the area of Medicaid, health-care costs have been the largest driver in the budget, from an absolute dollar amount standpoint.So Tsiongas had the correct diagnosis when he said that health care is the greatest contribution to spending increases in the state budget. We rate his claimTrue.
Gov. Tony Evers proposed that Wisconsin keep up with three of its neighbors and legalize marijuana, but the plan has already gone up in smoke. The GOP-controlled Legislatures budget-writing committee on May 6, 2021 removed legalizing marijuana -- and hundreds of other provisions -- from the governors proposed 2021-23 spending plan. In making the changes, and starting fresh, the panel created agap of about $3.4 billion. With that gap, and polls showing general public support for legalized marijuana, it brought to mind a claim from Evers that we had set aside: Regulating and taxing marijuana  much like we do alcohol  would generate more than $165M in revenue starting in 2022, Evers tweetedApril 14, 2021. In all, 36 states have medical marijuana programs (including Iowa), while14 states-- including neighboring Illinois and Michigan -- have legalized marijuana for recreational use: But what about the money? Is Evers correct that his plan would add $165 million to the states coffers in the upcoming budget? When asked for backup to the claim, Britt Cudaback, Evers communications director, pointed us to the states Budget in Brief document, released in February 2021, which includes more detail on how his plan would work. Under the plan, the state Department of Revenue would issue permits to those wishing to sell recreational marijuana. The Governors proposal imposes a 15 percent excise tax on the sales price of each wholesale sale by a permit-holding producer to a permit-holding processor, according to the budget document. In addition, the proposal imposes a 10 percent excise tax on the sales price of each retail sale. Retail sales, except for medical use, would be subject to the sales tax. So, how did the governor arrive at that $165 million figure? According to Cudaback, the budget office looked at data from other states, including Colorado, which was the first state to legalize marijuana, and made adjustments for population and reported marijuana usage. She noted that other states have relied on Colorados data in developing their own budgets, and noted that the estimates were on the conservative side, meaning they could be closer to the low end of potential tax revenue. According to the Evers figures, if sales were to begin Jan. 1, 2022 -- roughly six months after expected passage of the budget -- $165.8 million would be reached if tax collections were $19 per-capita. That is, if -- on average -- every person in the state bought enough marijuna to generate $19 in annual tax revenue. Here is the math: $19 per capita per year x 5.8 million population x 1.5 years = $165.8 million. That includes a projected $65 million from taxes on sales at the wholesale level, $67.1 million from retail taxes and $33.6 million from the sales tax. Its difficult to compare states because of their varying size and different taxing structures around marijuana sales. For instance, Illinois has a lower excise tax, but far higher sales taxes on recreational marijuana, and more than double Wisconsins population. According to the Public Policy Forum, a non-partisan think tank that has analyzed the Wisconsin budget, Illinois likely collectedaround $175 millionin revenue in its first year of recreational implementation. Thats not much more -- despite twice the population size -- than what Evers is anticipating. The administration's estimate appears to imply a pretty rapid implementation, the Policy Forum said. Nevada, meanwhile, has a 15% tax on wholesale sales and a 10% tax on retail sales, so its framework is generally similar. Infiscal year 2020, with just over half of Wisconsins population, Nevada collected $105.2 million. That said, the Policy Forum notes Nevadas unique tourism industry -- i.e., legalized gambling -- may make it a poor basis for comparison. Andrew Reschovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Applied Economics pointed out that forecasting revenue from a new tax is always difficult. He said the State Budget Office has taken the sensible approach and based its estimates on the experience of other states that have already legalized marijuana sales. But that doesnt mean its sure to come true. The Administrations forecast, like all revenue forecasts, is based on a set of assumptions, he wrote. While some of the Administrations assumptions may result in an under-estimate of tax revenues, I do worry that the state may be overly optimistic about the time needed to implement the issuing of both medical and recreational marijuana retail sales licenses and the time needed to open retail outlets throughout the state. In other words, the state may not be able to get a system up and running in time to meet the Jan. 1, 2022 date the budget projections are based upon. Based on the experiences in Massachusetts and California, this may be an overly optimistic estimate of the time it takes to license and open retail sales outlets, Reschovsky wrote. If the rollout process is in fact slower than anticipated, revenue during the next biennium may be lower than the Administrations forecast. Evers tweeted Regulating and taxing marijuana  much like we do alcohol  would generate more than $165M in revenue starting in 2022. Experts consulted by PolitiFact Wisconsin, generally speaking, had no quarrel with the states math, but questioned the implementation schedule baked into the estimates. In other words, if legalized marijuana were to go forward, it may not generate the revenue Evers claimed because it may take too long to get a licensing system in place, and to license and open retail outlets. In a nutshell, the Evers projections are plausible, but may be overly optimistic. For a statement that is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, our rating is Mostly True. Claim:  During a hospital visit, President George W. Bush saluted an Army officer who had been badly injured during the September 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.    . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] As you may know, the President and Mrs. Bush visited the Washington Burn Center on Friday 14 September. Among those they visited was LTC Brian Birdwell, who was badly burned in the Pentagon attack. Mrs. Bush went into Brian's room, spoke to him for about a minute, all the time as if they had been long acquaintances. She then turned to Brian's wife Mel, who at this time had been at the hospital for probably 2 1/2 days, and apparently, according to Mel herself, was dirty, grimy and had blood on her shirt.  Mrs. Bush hugged Mel for what Mel said seemed like an eternity, just as if Mel were one of her closest family members.  Mrs. Bush then told Brian and Mel that there was "someone" there to see him.  The President then walked in, stood by Brian's bedside, asked Brian how he was doing, told him that he was very proud of them both and that they were his heroes.  The President then saluted Brian. Now, at this point in time, Brian is bandaged up pretty well. His hands are burned very badly as well as the back of him from the head down. His movements were very restricted.  Upon seeing the President saluting him, Brian began to slowly return the salute, taking, from the accounts so far, about 15-20 seconds to get his hand up to his head.  During all of this, 15-20 seconds, President Bush never moved, never dropped his salute. The President dropped his salute only when Brian was finished with his, and then gave Mel a huge hug for what also probably seemed like an eternity.  Pray for our leadership. Thank God for what we are, have, and will be.  As a note to those of you who might not be familiar with military protocol, the subordinate normally initiates a salute and will hold it until the superior officer returns the salute.  In the above incident, President Bush acted in the role of the subordinate to show his respect and high regard for the injured man. Origins:  Glurge   should always be taken with a grain of salt, and  given previous fabrications such as The Evangelical Prez and Keep the Change  glurge involving President Bush and military or religious matters should call for a few extra grains.  We're happy to report that this item requires no seasoning at all, however. The Evangelical Prez Keep the Change Lieutenant Colonel Brian Birdwell, an Army officer a few months short of his 40th birthday, was just leaving a Pentagon restroom on the morning of September 11 when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 was slammed into the building by terrorists.  Lt. Col. Birdwell was badly injured by the ensuing explosion and fire; fortunately, he collapsed under a hallway sprinkler, which helped douse the flames engulfing his prone body before rescuers pulled him from the collapsed section of the Pentagon.  Birdwell ended up in the burn treatment center at Washington Hospital Center with smoke-damaged lungs and burns over nearly half his body.  A couple of days later, as reported by several news outlets, Birdwell received an unexpected visit from his commander-in-chief, the President of the United States of America, who offered him the honor of a salute: Not long after Sept. 11, Birdwell had met the president.  He was awake for President Bush's visit, as it turned out  and aware enough to strain to return the salute the president had offered. He lifted his badly burned hand toward his injured forehead. When he could not quite reach it, he tried to bend his body toward his hand.  The president's eyes filled with tears.  Bush held firm until the wounded soldier let go.2   Two days later, Birdwell got a visit from his boss  President Bush, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.  "The president comes in and he says, 'Col. Birdwell,' and he salutes," [wife] Mel Birdwell recalled. "And Brian attempts to return the salute, and the president sees that he's returning the salute and he stands there and holds his salute with tears in his eyes."1 Birdwell's older brother, Wade, also confirmed the story via e-mail: I cannot tell you how grateful and truly proud I am that when Brian started to return that salute, despite his wounds, the president held his salute firmly and thereby permitted my brother the honor of demonstrating his and the true character of so very many others of our fighting men and women. Indeed, you should know that it was this very character that likely saved Brian's life in the first place. As Brian crawled through the fire, certain brave men and women pulled him from the carnage, carried him out to the parking lot, then into the adjoining street." After months of treatment and therapy, Lt. Col. Birdwell, who was awarded the Purple Heart, was able to leave the hospital to attend Thanksgiving Day services at his church in Springfield, Virginia, and to begin making trips home. Last updated:  22 February 2007    Sources:   1.  Aiken, Johnathan.  "A Pentagon Survivor's Story."   CNN.com.  15 December 2001.    2.   St. George, Donna.  "Hope Breathes Beneath Wounds."   The Washington Post.  2 December 2001  (p. A1). John F. Kennedy Jr. was a popular public figure from his childhood until he died in a plane crash at the age of 38 in 1999. While there is never a shortage of conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedys, or for that matter, the Clintons, an unfounded rumor circulating in political circles during the 2016 presidential election claimed that John-John was on the cusp of a successful U.S. Senate bid until Hillary Clinton threw her hat in the ring  with the insinuation that Kennedy was killed to clear the way for her candidacy:  There is no evidence that Kennedy had definitively decided to stage a U.S. Senate run in 1999 in the face of Hillary Clinton's similar interest in the New York seat.  Days after Kennedy's 16 July 1999 death, the New York Daily News ran a story quoting two unnamed friends of Kennedy's who stated that Kennedy had mulled over running for the seat about to be vacated by retiring Senator Daniel Moynihan but had already dropped the idea when Hillary Clinton also expressed interest in it: story Earlier this year, in one of the best-kept secrets in state politics, Kennedy considered seeking the seat of retiring Sen. Daniel Moynihan in 2000, friends confirmed. The idea became moot once First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton signaled her interest in running, but the two friends said they expected the son of the slain President eventually would have jumped into politics as a candidate.  The friend who expected Kennedy to seek office in the "foreseeable future" also told of speaking with Kennedy earlier this year about the Moynihan seat. "I asked him was he casually thinking about it, or was he serious. He sort of said, 'I'm not sure. Let me think about it. But the second friend called Kennedy's interest "pretty serious," adding: "I think he was intrigued by the idea ... Would he have decided in the end to go for it? I don't know. But he was clearly thinking about it. He talked to a few people about it. Then the Hillary thing ended it pretty quickly. Clinton won the Senate election on 7 November 2000, beating Republican Rick Lazio more than a year after Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 33, and his sister-in-law, Lauren G. Bessette, 34, in the crash of the single-engine plane he was flying to Martha's Vineyard. won The implication that the Clintons had somehow engineered the death of Kennedy Jr. to prevent him from challenging her in her first bid for elective office is contradicted by the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) report on the accident, which assigned the probable cause to pilot error: report The probable cause of the accident, as stated in the accident report, is: The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night. There was nothing suspicious about the circumstances of the crash. Kennedy was an inexperienced pilot, and he chose to take his plane up despite questionable weather that caused haze to obscure the view of the horizon. The New York Times reported in 2000 that one of his instructors had offered to accompany him on the flight, but he declined. Kennedy only had about 72 flying hours logged without an instructor at the time of the accident: reported Weather reports on the night of the crash  July 16, 1999  cited haze or mist and visibility as low as four miles. Pilots who flew over the Cape Cod-Martha's Vineyard area that night reported serious haze; one told investigators he had flown over Martha's Vineyard and thought there was a power failure on the island, because he could not see any lights. It's not inconceivable that the Kennedy family at one time eyed the seat being vacated by Moynihan. JFK Jr.'s death seemed to put a final nail in the coffin of the Kennedy myth known as "Camelot" and the family's political star power, but a 25 July 1999 Washington Post article on the family's future political prospects suggested that his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who did not "conveniently" die), had been approached about entering the New York senatorial race: article But there are suggestions  among liberal Democrats it is a fervent desire  that [Joseph P. Kennedy II's] brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 45, might become a candidate. The environmental lawyer from the Hudson River Valley has some of the electricity of his martyred father, and has said in the past that he could be interested in being governor of New York. According to one Kennedy insider, leading Democrats unsuccessfully approached RFK Jr. to run for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. John Kennedy Jr. had won the nation's heart when at two years old he was seen on camera saluting his father's coffin during the nationally televised funeral procession after President Kennedy's November 1963 assassination. Nicknamed John-John, he grew up handsome and charismatic and was thus seen as a potential heir to the family's glory days of political influence and celebrity. While his death was untimely and no doubt a tragedy, it was ruled an accident. And though Kennedy may have been personally popular and polled well, it is misleading to describe him as a "frontrunner" in a Senate race in which he was never actually a candidate. 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. On the heels of the longest federal government shutdown in United States history, and on the potential precipice of another shutdown in February 2019, Facebook users started to share a meme about how the country of Australia handled their own government shutdown back in 1975:   The text of the meme stated: "In 1975 Australia had a government shutdown. In the end, all the members of Parliament were fired and then elections were held to restart from scratch. They haven't had another shutdown since." This meme is largely accurate. Australia's government was effectively shutdown due to a budget impasse in October 1975, the prime minister was dismissed, both houses of Parliament were dissolved, and a new election was held. Since then, Australia has not had another government shutdown. However, Australia's constitutional crisis in 1975, often referred to as "The Dismissal," was a bit more complicated than portrayed in this meme. Furthermore, the meme is often offered up on social media as a solution to government shutdowns in the United States, but Australia's government doesn't function in the same manner as the U.S. government. Some of the key differences that enabled "The Dismissal" to occur in Australia is that the country is both a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy, which means that despite Australia's having elected officials, the head of state in Australia is still the Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, as represented by the governor-general). While the Queen rarely exercises her power and is often viewed as a mere figurehead in Australia, the monarch (and in turn the governor-general) is afforded some powers in the country's constitution. During the constitutional crisis of 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr used his constitutional authority to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. constitutional monarchy Australia's constitution also permits a "double dissolution" procedure to resolve deadlocks between the House and Senate: The Australian Constitution gives almost identical powers to the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill (proposed law) must be agreed to by both houses in order to become law. The drafters of the Constitution saw the possibility of a deadlock occurring between the two houses, in which there may be disagreement over a bill. Section 57 of the Constitution provides a mechanism to resolve the disagreement, by dissolving both houses of Parliament and calling an election to let the voters decide what the outcome will be. The double dissolution mechanism only relates to a bill that originates in the House of Representatives. While the viral meme states that members of parliament were "fired" due to the government shutdown, that isn't exactly accurate. Both houses of parliament were dissolved, so all of the seats in the House and Senate went up for election again. The "fired" lawmakers therefore still had a chance to retain their seats by winning them back in a subsequent election. In 1975, Prime Minister Whitlam and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) held a majority in the House of Representatives, but the Opposition controlled the Senate. When the two parties failed to pass appropriations bills to fund the government, Governor-General Kerr dismissed the prime minister and commissioned Malcom Fraser of the Liberal Party as the caretaker prime minister. Fraser then passed an appropriations bill, and Kerr dissolved Parliament, setting up a double dissolution election to be held the following month. Here's a summary of what took place from the Australian Broadcast Corporation: Australian Broadcast Corporation The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government by the Governor-General, on November 11, 1975, still stands as the most dramatic and controversial event in Australias political history. The decision of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, to dismiss the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and install the Liberal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister, on condition that he called an election, was a sensational development that ended a three-week parliamentary stand-off. The crisis began on October 15, when the Opposition parties announced they would block the governments Supply Bills in the Senate, as a means of forcing the government to an election. Whitlam refused to call an election and three weeks of parliamentary debate and public campaigning convulsed the political system. On November 11, Whitlam sought a half-Senate election from the Governor-General. Kerr rejected the advice and dismissed Whitlam. He commissioned Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister. Fraser immediately secured the passage of Supply through the Senate and recommended a double dissolution of the parliament. The election was held on December 13, 1975. The Fraser-led Coalition won the largest victory in Australias federal history. The Parliament of Australia website provided some additional context to this historic event: context Several weeks later, and after intense negotiations and a third attempt to enact the appropriation bills, the new Governor-General took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of acting at his own initiative to invoke his power under sec. 62 of the Constitution: There shall be a Federal Executive Council [in practice, the Government] to advise the GovernorGeneral in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council shall be chosen and summoned by the GovernorGeneral and sworn as Executive Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure. (emphasis added) Governor-General Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Government, even though it still enjoyed majority support in the House of Representatives to which, by constitutional convention, it was responsible. To replace it, Kerr appointed a caretaker Liberal Government with Fraser as prime minister. In justifying his decision, the Governor-General argued that, in the Australian system, the confidence of both Houses on supply is necessary to ensure its provision: When ... an Upper House possesses the power to reject a money bill including an appropriation bill, and exercises the power by denying supply, the principle that a government which has been denied supply by the Parliament should resign or go to an election must still applyit is a necessary consequence of Parliamentary control of appropriation and expenditure and of the expectation that the ordinary and necessary services of Government will continue to be provided. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 104) In this position the Governor-General was supported by the Chief Justice, who wrote that: the Senate has constitutional power to refuse to pass a money bill; it has power to refuse supply to the Government of the day. ... a Prime Minister who cannot ensure supply to the Crown, including funds for carrying on the ordinary services of Government, must either advise a general election (of a kind which the constitutional situation may then allow) or resign. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 105) Not surprisingly, the two houses reacted very differently. The Senate acted almost instantaneously to pass the stalled appropriation bills. The House agreed to a motion expressing its lack of confidence in the newly-designated prime minister and requesting the Speaker to ask the Governor-General to have Whitlam again form a government. But before the Speaker was allowed to deliver this message, the Governor-General declared, at Frasers request and by pre-arrangement, a double dissolution of both houses. As Solomon put it: In the 1975 double dissolution, the Governor-General had to dismiss a Prime Minister (who controlled a majority in the House of Representatives) and appoint another (who lacked the confidence of that House) to find an advisor who was prepared to recommend to him the course he wished to adoptnamely the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament under section 57. (Solomon 1978: 169) While some Americans may look at Australia's constitutional crisis of 1975 as a "solution" to modern U.S. government shutdowns, "The Dismissal" remains one of the most controversial events in Australia's history:  Australia.gov.au.  "How Government Works."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. AustralianPolitics.com.  "Comparing the American and Australian Political Systems."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Whitlamdismissal.com.  "What Happened."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Barnett, Bronwyn.  "The Dismissal: Through the News Camera Lens."
  National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max.  "The Crisis of 1974-75."
  Parliament of Australia.  Retrieved 14 February 2019. ABC.Net.Au.  "The Dismissal, Australia's Constitutional Crisis."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max.  "Australia Had a Government Shutdown Once. In the End, the Queen Fired Everyone in Parliament."
  The Washington Post.  1 October 2013. "If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is" says the manta of the fact-checking industry. In December 2018, a number of social media users came across a post promising a chance at an ambassadorship with the popular brand Lululemon. The posting, which was shared by Instagram accounts such as @lulurecruitment.co (which has no affiliation with the real Lululemon) explained that anyone with 150 followers had a chance of obtaining free clothes and gift for simply sharing this advertisement with their friends on social media: @lulurecruitment.co   This is not a genuine offer from Lululemon, and the accounts sharing this message are not affiliated with the brand. Lululemon's social media team has responded to a few queries about the scam with messages similar to the following: responded FB User: Is this legit? I am assuming no Lululemon: Hi Michelle, You've got itour accounts are verified with the blue check mark, and our ambassadors are chosen individually by our stores rather than via our social channels. This account has been flagged to our brand protection team. Let me know if you have more questions! - Camilla The non-existent ambassadorship was only offered to users with a minimum of 150 followers, which is a relatively low bar for any sort of social media position, especially for a well-known national brand such as Lululemon. This scam also required potential "ambassadors" to follow the fake Lululemon account and then share its post with their friends. This allowed the scammers to build a following and ensured that their dishonest message would be spread to a greater number of social media users. This Lululemon scam followed a strategy similar to other "like farming" social media schemes. Such fraudsters offer something of value (in this case an ambassadorship) in exchange for social media engagement, which allows them to quickly build a following and then provides them the opportunity to sell the account to a third party. like farming One way to avoid this type of scam is to double-check to make sure that a company-affiliated post actually originated with the brand's official social media accounts: @lululemon can you confirm if this is real or fake? pic.twitter.com/gnp8g2sD2p @lululemon pic.twitter.com/gnp8g2sD2p  Jason Davis (@Jasonnn93) December 13, 2018 December 13, 2018  Social media users should also keep old adages such as "nothing in life is free" when they peruse the internet. In February 2020, we received multiple inquiries from readers about the veracity of social media posts and news articles which claimed that the U.S. economy had added 1.5 million more jobs during former President Barack Obama's final three years in office, than it did during President Donald Trump's first three years.  On Feb. 17, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, tweeted that Obama had "created 1.5 million more jobs in his last 3 years than Donald Trump has in his first 3 years." tweeted   Earlier, the left-leaning Democratic Coalition group posted a link to a Yahoo! News article with the headline "Trump's First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama's Last 3," adding "FACT: New figures from Trumps own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trumps tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obamas  a decline of 19% under Trump." posted article   That article was itself a republication of a Feb. 10 report published by HuffPost, which read as follows: HuffPost "As President Donald Trump takes the stage at his reelection rally here [Manchester, New Hampshire] Monday and boasts of his economic record, there is one statistic he is likely to omit: He created 1.5 million fewer jobs in his first three years in office than predecessor Barack Obama did in his final three. Newly revised figures from Trumps own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trumps tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obamas  a decline of 19% under Trump, according to a HuffPost analysis." The HuffPost article didn't specify the exact metric it used in order to arrive at those numbers, but the standard figure used to gauge jobs growth in the United States is total, seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment, which is released every month as part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) establishment survey, in which BLS collects data from a sample of around 145,000 businesses and government agencies throughout the country. establishment survey When a news headline states that, for example, the economy "added 225,000 Jobs in January," that's typically a reference to seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment and it means there were 225,000 more jobs in the United States in January 2020, than there were in December 2019.  news headline states Once a year, the BLS revises its employment data after consulting more official figures collected from each state's unemployment insurance agency. This "benchmark" revision process enhances the accuracy of jobs figures and typically results in retrospective adjustments to employment statistics from every month over the preceding 10 years.  benchmark That's what happened on Feb. 7, when the BLS released both the preliminary employment figures for January and revised jobs numbers from 2010 through 2019. Those revisions meant that jobs growth in 2018 turned out to be slower than was originally recorded, prompting Slate to report that: released Slate "On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest batch of employment numbers, along with its annual benchmark revisions adjusting its estimates from prior months. Before, the government believed that the U.S. had added 223,000 jobs per month in 2018, the year that the GOPs tax cuts and new, higher spending levels took effect. It has now lowered that estimate to 193,000 per month, a significant drop." For its part, MSNBC wrote that: MSNBC The revisions for 2019 showed that the economy generated nearly 2.1 million jobs last year, which is a pretty good number. The trouble, however, is the job totals from last year were down from the year before, and were actually the lowest since 2011. Or put another way, while Trump spent the year boasting that the U.S. job market was the strongest it's ever been, 2019 saw job growth slow to an eight-year low. What's more, the best year for jobs during Trump's presidency  2.31 million in 2018  fails to reach the job growth in any of the three final years of Barack Obama's presidency. It adds a degree of irony to his rhetorical record: Trump ran for president in 2015 and 2016, telling the nation that the economy was horrible and he'd make it vastly better. But annual job growth totals from both 2015 and 2016 were better than any year of the Republican's tenure, at least so far. Taking this one step further, Trump has now been in office for 36 full months  February 2017 through January 2020  and in that time, the economy has created 6.56 million jobs. In the 36 months preceding Trump's presidency  February 2014 to January 2017  the economy created 8.08 million jobs. Before we present the figures at the heart of this fact check, it should be noted that as a rule, politicians overstate their influence over the economy when indicators are healthy, and downplay their influence when things are bad. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times, before Trump's inauguration in January 2017: wrote "The reality is that presidents have far less control over the economy than you might imagine. Presidential economic records are highly dependent on the dumb luck of where the nation is in the economic cycle. And the White House has no control over the demographic and technological forces that influence the economy. Even in areas where the president really does have power to shape the economy  appointing Federal Reserve governors, steering fiscal and regulatory policy, responding to crises and external shocks  the relationship between presidential action and economic outcome is often uncertain and hard to prove." However, Trump himself has repeatedly insisted on tying positive economic indicators like employment growth to his own presidency. So even if we might dispute the premise that presidents should receive unqualified praise or blame when the economy grows or tanks, it's worth checking the numbers involved. After all, if Trump proposes that he is to be thanked for employment growth, his own logic dictates that he should be blamed if that rate of growth is slowing down. insisted In order to measure and compare jobs growth during Obama's final three years in office and jobs growth during Trump's first three, we obtained a data set containing 10 years' worth of monthly non-farm payroll employment figures, which BLS confirmed for Snopes was the most reliable and up-to-date data set available, and took into account the February 2020 benchmark revisions. The spreadsheet can be downloaded here, and the table is shown below: here   It's important to note that the monthly employment figures for December 2019 and January 2020 are both still preliminary. The January 2020 figure will be revised in March, and all the monthly figures shown in the table are liable to be further revised in 2021, when BLS conducts its annual benchmark revisions again.  There are several potential ways to compare jobs growth under Obama and Trump, depending on where you place the transition between the two administrations. Since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, there is a case for "starting the clock" in January 2017, but also for starting it in February 2017, since that was his first full month in office. If the purpose of the comparison is to gauge the possible influence of a presidency on employment trends, one could also measure jobs growth starting in November 2016, since that's when Trump was actually elected, or in December 2016, since that was the first full month of what could be described as the "Trump era." Finally, if one wished to use only the most reliable figures available, and exclude the preliminary data from December 2019 and January 2020, one could track jobs growth for just the first 34 months of Trump's presidency (from February 2017 to November 2019), and compare that to the final 34 months of Obama's tenure (from April 2014 to January 2017). The following table takes into account all five methods. Each of them demonstrates that the final three years of Obama's presidency saw significantly superior jobs growth than the first three years of Trump's presidency.   As the table shows, Obama's final three years in office saw significantly greater jobs growth than Trump's fist three years did, no matter where the transition between presidencies is placed. Across the first four different methods, the gap averages out at around 1.5 million jobs  meaning the claim at the center of this fact check was accurate. Employment has grown during the first three years of Trump's presidency, but at a significantly slower rate than it did towards the end of Obama's tenure  across the first four methods used here, jobs growth under Trump has averaged out at around 19% slower than the rate of growth experienced during his predecessor's final three years in office. When we exclude the two months of preliminary data (December 2019 and January 2020) and compare blocks of 34 months each (as opposed to blocks of 36 months), the jobs growth gap is naturally slightly smaller (because the time periods in question are slightly shorter), but the gap in the rate of growth is still significant, with Trump's presidency seeing employment grow 18.2% more slowly than it did during the final 34 months of Obama's time in office. Date, S.V. "Trumps First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obamas Last 3."
  Yahoo! News. 10 February 2020. Date, S.V. "Trumps First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obamas Last 3."
  HuffPost. 10 February 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Economic News Release -- the Employment Situation, January 2020."
  7 February 2020. Weissmann, Jordan. "Trumps Jobs Record Is Weaker Than Everyone Thought."
  Slate. 7 February 2020. Benen, Steve. "The Nagging Detail About Job Growth Trump Probably Won't Like."
  MSNBC. 7 February 2020. Irwin, Neil. "Presidents Have Less Power Over the Economy Than You Might Think."
  The New York Times. 17 January 2017. Boak, Josh; Miller, Zeke. "Trump Claims Credit for Economy, Jobs in New York Speech."
  The Associated Press. 12 November 2019. On 1 March 2016, a number of American states held "Super Tuesday" primaries. The next day, Google Trends tweeted that searches originating from the United Statesaboutemigrating from the toCanada reached an all-time high: Super Tuesday Searches for "Move to Canada" are higher than at any time in Google history #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/0KBJPrHdEO #SuperTuesday pic.twitter.com/0KBJPrHdEO  GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) March 2, 2016 Google offered no explanation for the spike, but on2 March 2016, the Washington Post published apiecethat maintained thatthe real winner of Super Tuesday was "Canada":  piece Donald Trump was projected to win in at least seven states. Chris Christie, who endorsed Trump last week, was shown standing behind the Republican presidential front-runner wearing an expression of unmasked horror. And, the government of Canadas immigration website was experiencing delays. Coincidence? The Internet didnt think so. By the end of the night, Trump had secured victories in seven states, well ahead of his competitors. But his popularity wasnt apparent on Facebook and Twitter, where users lamented the billionaire real estate moguls rise and contemplated fleeing the country ... Simon Rogers, a data editor at Google, noted that the phrases search popularity had increased by 350 percent between 8 p.m. and midnight Eastern. At midnight, the spike reached 1,500 percent. To quote Trump himself, Just look at the numbers, way up! The Washington Post included a tweet of a screenshot of the Canadian immigration web site published late on 1 March 2015:  Canada's immigration website is being overloaded with web traffic after Super Tuesday results. pic.twitter.com/JqxW8ZSUHB  jay newman (@Big_Dread) March 2, 2016 pic.twitter.com/JqxW8ZSUHB March 2, 2016  However, it wasn't immediately clear whether Super Tuesday (or any other specific event) spurred the search spike. U.S. News & World Report dug into the data, and discovered that the searches were indeed highest in two states where Trump won primaries on Super Tuesday (Massachusetts and Virginia). discovered But that outlet uncovered some other related search data that suggested the cause and effect wasn't necessarily cut and dried. For example, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders received equal attention in related searches, but no one seemed to be blaming the spike on him:    Vox pointed out that while the spike following the re-election of George W. Bush appeared smaller, that was also a periodbeforesmartphones and widespread use of social media. TIME reported that immigration did increasefollowing that election, but no one is sure specifically what caused thatuptick. (Confounding factors like a weak economy or increased internet relationships could have also been factors.) pointed reported Shortly after the story made its rounds, psychology professor Adam Alter speculatedthat few truly would leave the United States: speculated In truth, though, few of Trumps detractors are likely to leave the country because of Novembers results. And had Mitt Romney won in 2012, as I wrote then for the Atlantic, few diehard supporters of President Obamas would have done so, either. This pattern has a history: Twelve years ago, as George W. Bush took a commanding lead over John F. Kerry in the polls, Canadian immigration applications tripled. Visits to the immigration departments website skyrocketed from an average of 20,000 per day to 115,000 the day after Bush won the election. A small crop of diehard liberals followed through, but U.S-Canadian immigration was ultimately unchanged in the year following the election. Two years later, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh promised to move to Costa Rica if the Affordable Care Act passed. It did, but Limbaugh still lives in Palm Beach, Fla. Why do so many disgruntled voters threaten to leave the country, only to see so few actually follow through? Because people overestimate how much pain theyll feel when they experience a dreaded outcome. A key aspect of the rumor hinged on the number of Americans searching for ways to get out of the country on Canada'sofficial immigration site, but when we visited that link on 9 March 2016, a nearly identical error message appeared: link    The exact impetus for the rise insearchesfor the phrase "move to Canada" remains unclear.WhileAmericans on both sides of the aislethreaten to leave thecountry for political reasons during every election, studiessuggest that only a handful follow through with such plans. Also, reported error messages on the Canadian immigration website on 1 March 2016 were still in place on 9 March 2016, more than a weekafterthe spike in searches abated. As memes of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wearing hand-crafted mittens at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration plastered the Internet in early 2021, rumors surfaced alleging that the creator of the mittens had stopped selling recycled wool products because of high federal taxes. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders Snopes received numerous inquiries to investigate the validity of the claim, which attempted to expose hypocrisy of people who support the Vermont senator's goals of imposing new taxes to pay for various proposals, including free universal health care. imposing new taxes   Here's some background: Jen Ellis, a Vermont elementary school teacher, said she made the mittens out of discarded wool sweaters and gifted them to the senator after he lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. "I sent him these mittens kind of as a shoutout to who he is, and I put a note in that said something to the effect of, 'I hope you run again,'" she told Slate. Hillary Clinton Slate  (Photo by JONATHAN ERNST/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)  The viral image of Sanders wearing Ellis' gift and sitting with his arms and legs crossed made the teacher famous by the viral standards of 2021. She gave multiple interviews to news outlets including NPR and Slate in which she discussed her support for Sanders and reaction to the memes; social media users and other websites republished those comments, in part to harness the virality of the moment. teacher famous NPR Slate republished those comments Among the latter group was The Federalist, an online hub of articles with a conservative bent. Two days after the inauguration, the website published a page with the headline, "Woman Behind Bernie Sanders' Iconic Mittens Quit Making Them Because High Taxes Killed Her Business," reading: page The Vermont school teacher who made Bernie Sanders mittens, featured in the most recent viral meme, said she had to stop making them after the federal government taxed her too much. viral meme To support the claim, The Federalist cited a portion of Ellis' interview with Slate. According to a transcribed version of that conversation, which Slate published on Jan. 21, the elementary school teacher indeed told writer Rachelle Hampton: interview with Slate Hampton: Speaking of bittersweet, you supported Bernie. How did you feel about watching Biden be sworn in as president? Ellis: Oh my gosh, I cried. Im 42 and Ive waited four decades of my life  Im tearing up just thinking about it to see a woman be vice president. I wish that she was president, although I think Biden is pretty great. [...] And then there was this little side nagging thing of every five minutes I was getting several hundred more emails about the mittens. A year ago, when Bernie was on the campaign trail, he was wearing those mittens and Twitter buzzed about it then. Im not really on TwitterI have an account, but I dont really participate  but a lot of my younger colleagues do and they were like, 'Youve gotta check this out.' [...] So I put it out there that I made the mittens, they were a gift, and theyre not knitted, theyre sewn from repurposed and up-cycled sweaters. At that time, I had 30 or 40 mittens for sale and being a little nave about Twitter, I put my Gmail account on that, which someone picked up yesterday and retweeted it. People have been contacting me thinking that they can get mittens, and actually they cant. I dont have any more, and I dont have much of a mitten business anymore because it really wasnt worth it. Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasnt really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle. I mostly just make them as gifts. 30 or 40 mittens for sale In other words, Ellis said she did not "have much of a mitten business anymore," or that she previously sold the handmade items for a price and then mostly stopped. She implied that federal taxes were a leading factor in her decision to make that change. On Jan. 20, as social media lit up with the memes following the inauguration, she confirmed on Twitter that she was not selling mittens like the senator's. confirmed on Twitter   Snopes reached out to Ellis to learn more about her history of trying to sell mittens for profit and paying federal taxes as a self-described independent crafter. We have not yet received a response, but we'll update this report when or if we do. All of that said, the size of Ellis' former business was unknown, as well as how long or via what methods she sold the handmade mittens. U.S. tax code requires all independent contractors  no matter if they use online marketplaces such as Etsy to sell handmade products  to pay local and federal taxes based on net profits. U.S. tax code Etsy Also, we should note here: Sanders' proposed changes to the country's tax system would repeal aspects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act so that taxpayers who earn between about $9,500 and $250,000 would pay about 4% more, and taxes on the country's top earners would generate the majority of revenue. Additionally, he wants to impose a new payroll on businesses that earn more than $2 million annually, a change that intends to protect ventures like Ellis' from paying more. (See here for a detailed breakdown of Sanders' tax proposal by Forbes.) 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act here So while it was true that taxes played a role in Ellis' decision to stop charging people money for mittens prior to her viral fame, it was false to claim that she "quit" making them all together, like The Federalist headline alleged. Between Jan. 23 and 24, she said in a series of tweets that she made three more pairs of "Bernie mittens," two of which she donated to Passion 4 Paws Vermont and Outright Vermont for fundraising and one that she was auctioning off to benefit her daughters college fund. Passion 4 Paws Vermont Outright Vermont daughters college fund   After that, Sanders' official campaign began selling merchandise with the senator's meme-worthy image that Ellis made possible. The so-called "Chairman Sanders" sweatshirts, T-shirts, stickers, etc. helped raise $1.8 million for charitable organizations in Vermont over the course of five days, The Associated Press reported. The Associated Press reported On Jan. 24, Ellis tweeted that the senator called her to tell her that "the mitten frenzy" had raised "an enormous amount of money" for the charities. Besides that evidence, it was unclear how, or to what extent, the teacher was involved in the making or selling of the campaign-official products featuring her mittens. tweeted campaign-official products   As further proof to debunk claims that she had ceased all mitten-making, the teacher on Jan. 27 announced that she had partnered with entities including Darn Tough Socks to make socks inspired by the viral mittens, and the following day she said she was in the process of another project "to get Bernie Mittens for ALL." announced Darn Tough Socks she was "Im not opening a mitten factory or quitting my job as a second grade teacher! However, I am going to choose a new adventure on the side," Ellis said on her official website and GoFundMe page. "Never fear  I will make more mittens, but I won't be selling them for myself. I will be donating them to Vermont Charities to help them fundraise and make up for the funds lost due to the pandemic." official website GoFundMe page In sum, while it was true that, prior to her viral fame, Ellis mostly stopped charging people for handmade mittens due to costs including federal taxes, she was still creating the recycled wool products and people were spending money on them, as of this writing. For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truthful and misleading information. 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 One of the many claims U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly made in his futile attempt to overturn his loss to Democratic rival Joe Biden in the 2020 general election was to assert that his own popular vote total was indicative of a "rigged election." How could he possibly have lost in 2020, Trump reasoned, when he received some 11 million votes more than he did in 2016, when he won?  "Perhaps the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020 is @FoxNews, despite the fact that I went from 63,000,000 Votes to 75,000,000 Votes, a record 12,000,000 Vote increase. Obama went down 3,000,000 Votes, and won. Rigged Election!!!" The answer to this question is a simple one: Neither the voting-age population of the U.S., nor the percentage of that population that actually turns out to vote, is a constant. Those figures can -- and do -- vary widely from election to election. It is true that former U.S. President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, despite garnering some 3.5 million fewer votes that year than he did when he was initially elected in 2008. Why? Largely because some 2.2 million fewer people turned out to vote in 2012 than in 2008. (Obama still received well over 50% of the popular vote in both years, nonetheless.) 2012 2008 And it is true that Trump was elected President in 2016 after receiving about 63 million votes, yet lost his reelection bid in 2020 despite receiving over 11 million more votes than he had in the previous election. How did this happen? For two very important (and obvious) reasons that Trump consistently overlooks or ignores: 2016 2020 1) Voter turnout skyrocketed between 2016 and 2020, rising from 55.7% of eligible voters in the former year to 66.7% in the latter -- a difference of some 22 million additional voters. So even though the increased turnout brought Trump an additional 11 million votes, it also brought another 11 million votes cast for someone other than him. 2) Popular vote doesn't determine the election winner; electoral votes do. Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite receiving some 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton nationwide, because he managed to pull of narrow victories in three key states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In 2020, however, Trump's popular vote deficit was over twice as large as the previous election (he received some 7 million fewer votes than winner Joe Biden), and, more crucially, he lost all three of the key states he had managed to capture in 2016 as they flipped back to blue:  The fact that far fewer voters cast their ballots for third-party candidates in 2020 than in 2016 also seems to have worked against Trump, as his Democratic opponent in 2020 (Biden) tallied over 15 million more votes than his Democratic opponent in 2016 (Clinton) had -- a figure constituting far more than half of the 22 million additional ballots cast in 2020 over 2016.