Is there a plan by Biden and the Democrats to 'monitor' bank and Cash App accounts?
Various social media posts circulating in late December 2021 claimed that thanks to coronavirus stimulus legislation known as the American Rescue Plan, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and Democratic legislators would begin "spying" or "snooping" on users of cash apps like PayPal and Venmo. Here is an example of one such post: example   The truth is, unsurprisingly, more nuanced, but the bottom line is that, contrary to what the above Twitter posts state, the effect of the legislation in question isn't that the Biden administration or Democrats will be "tapping into" or "spying on" bank or cash app accounts. This is a misleading characterization. What the legislation does is significantly lower the threshold for reporting taxable transactions made using cash apps like Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle for goods and services to the IRS. And when you reach that threshold, the app companies will then be required to send a tax form called a 1099-K to both you and the IRS. A 1099-K is, according to PayPal, an "informational tax form that is used to report goods and services payments received by a business or individual in the calendar year." PayPal As of this writing, the current threshold for such reporting is $20,000 and 200 payments in goods and services. Come Jan. 1, 2022, that reporting threshold will drop down to $600. threshold This could have a significant impact on platform users' tax returns. Here's how Bloomberg Tax described how users might experience the change: Bloomberg Tax For example, a model train collector may have paid $5,000 for model train pieces over several years that they now sell for $8,000, and the marketplace that introduced the seller to the buyer and through which the sale took place may charge the seller a total fee of $800. It may cost the model train seller $200 in postage to send the pieces to its buyers. The Form 1099-K that the seller will receive from the TPSO will report $8,000 in gross proceeds paid. However, the sellers taxable gain from that sale would only be $2,000. As a result, collectors and other online sellers will need to keep extensive records of their expenses going forward to avoid over-reporting of income and overpayment of tax. Also, consider the alternativea teenager who walks dogs to earn extra money. If their income in 2022 exceeds $600, their expenses may be limited to the fees charged by the website that connects them to pet owners, but they will owe income taxand possibly self-employment taxon the income they earn. According to PayPal, which owns Venmo, the change doesn't affect people who use the apps for personal transactions, like paying a friend back for your share of dinner, gifts, or chipping in for trips. PayPal also states that its app allows users to categorize their own transactions as personal versus rendering payment for "goods and services." PayPal Business Users on Cash Apps Will Begin Receiving Tax Forms. Heres What You Need to Know. WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather, 14 Oct. 2021, https://www.wjhl.com/news/business-users-on-cash-apps-to-begin-receiving-tax-forms-what-you-need-to-know/. Pflieger, Deborah. "New Form 1099 Reporting Coming in 2022," Bloomberg Tax, 15 Dec. 2021, https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/new-form-1099-reporting-coming-in-2022. New U.S. Tax Reporting Requirements: Your Questions Answered. PayPal Newsroom, 4 Nov. 2021, https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-11-04-New-US-Tax-Reporting-Requirements-Your-Questions-Answered. "PayPal and Venmo Taxes: What You Need to Know About P2P Platforms." TurboTax, 27 Nov. 2021, https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/paypal-and-venmo-taxes-what-you-need-to-know-about-p2p-platforms/L5DNjOUM1.
Claim:  John McCain would not be eligible to draw a pension after serving two terms as president.   . Example:   [Collected via e-mail, August 2008] Retirement - Mr. President A point to ponder ... A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year, until he is 80 years old. Assuming the next president lives to age 80. Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension. Therefore it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November. How's that for non partisan thinking? Origins:  We're not sure whether the above-quoted bit of electioneering about presidential pensions was meant to be taken seriously, or whether it was intended to be light-hearted or sardonic, but regardless its basic premise is incorrect. It is true in broad terms that since John McCain is twenty-five years older than Barack Obama (they'll be 72 and 47 years old, respectively, at the time of the next  presidential inauguration), the former would probably draw a smaller aggregate pension as a former president than the latter would.  (There are no guarantees, of course, since we never know what Fate might have in store for anyone.)  It is not true, however, that if John McCain served two terms as president, he would draw no pension at all due to his having reached the maximum age limit (80) by then.  The pension payments allocated to former presidents are lifetime benefits and do not end or expire once a recipient reaches a particular age. Under the terms of the Former Presidents Act (FPA), former presidents are entitled to "a taxable pension that is equal to the annual rate of basic pay for the head of an executive department" (currently $191,300).  This pension is a lifetime benefit that begins "immediately upon a President's departure from office at noon on Inauguration Day."  (Presidential widows receive lifetime pensions of $20,000 per year.) FPA In fact, pensions constitute a relatively small fraction of the federal funds that are provided for the maintenance of former presidents, who also receive Secret Service protection, free mailing privileges, travel funds, and allowances to maintain and staff their offices.  (Secret Service protection for presidents who began serving after 1 January 1997 is no longer a lifetime benefit and is now limited to ten years.)  As the chart below indicates, these additional benefits typically add up to far more than the base pension amount:  All of these expenditures on former presidents are but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. federal budget, which currently totals about $3 trillion per year. budget Since both John McCain and Barack Obama are members of the U.S. Senate, whichever one doesn't win the upcoming presidential election will still have a congressional pension to look forward to. Last updated:  14 August 2008    Sources:   Alexander-Bloch, Benjamin.  "Former Presidents Cost U.S. Taxpayers Big Bucks."   The [Toledo] Blade.  7 January 2007.    Smith, Stephanie.  "Former Presidents: Federal Pension and Retirement Benefits."   Congressional Research Service.  18 March 2008. Now that were living in a federal government shutdown, whats the hit to the economy? U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz wagged her calculator at the GOP and cited a whopping figure on Twitter. $10 billion in costs to the economy per week and this is what the R's had to say?tweetedWasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who also serves as the chair of the Democratic National Committee. We wanted to check her number: How much will the shutdown cost the economy? Predictions about economic shutdown Wasserman Schultzs numbers are the same as those from theWhite House. A White House spokesman said the $10 billion figure came from an August report from the investment groupGoldman Sachs. We also found similar estimates fromMoodysandIHS. These financial firms agree that the impact depends on how long the shutdown goes on. The impact gets worse the longer a closure lasts. A brief shutdown would delay, not cancel, most spending, said the Goldman Sachs report. In a brief shutdown, it is likely that only federal employee compensation would be lost  most of the other activity would just be delayed and made up later. A longer shutdown  the longest shutdown on record in late 1995 and early 1996 lasted about three weeks  would affect a greater share of federal activities. The report includes three scenarios based on a two-day, one-week and three-week shutdown. It predicts a $2.6 billion economic loss for a two-day shutdown, $10.4 billion for a week and $36.8 billion for three weeks. Moodys found that a shutdown lasting three to four weeks would cost $55 billion, with costs accelerating as time goes on. Moodys takes into account the losses from federal workers not getting paid, the delay of housing and small business loans, the hit to tourism spending and the interruptions for contractors. To be clear, these are rough estimates of what we think impacts will be, Moodys analyst Brian Kessler told PolitiFact. There is just a ridiculously large number of moving parts. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys,testifiedbefore the Joint Economic Committee about the shutdown in September. A shutdown that lasts only three or four days would have modest economic consequences, costing the economy approximately 0.2 percentage point of annualized real GDP growth in the fourth quarter. ... However, shutting the government down for three or four weeks would do significant economic damage, reducing real GDP by 1.4 percentage points in the fourth quarter. And this likely understates the economic fallout, as it does not fully account for the impact of such a lengthy shutdown on consumer, business and investor psychology. IHScalculated a loss of $1.6 billion for one week as a result of furloughs, with the impact increasing for a longer shutdown. The spending habits of government employees probably would not change if the shutdown was short-lived, particularly if they believed that they would receive back wages, as in 1995, states the September IHS report. Any uncertainty about compensation, however, could increase the impact on consumer spending. Meanwhile, incomes would be maintained for Social Security beneficiaries. Medicare payments would also continue, so spending on health care services would not be harmed and hospitals and doctors would receive payments. Other experts weighing in on the estimates We also readstudiesaboutprevious shutdowns andmediareportsanalyzingthe potential hit to the economy. We interviewed Tad DeHaven, budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute; Jason Peuquet, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Dean Baker, an economist with the liberal Center for Economic Policy Research. Our experts generally agreed on one key point: The economic hit will depend on how long the shutdown lasts. Jason Peuquet of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told us that it extremely difficult to quantify the impact on the economy of a shutdown. Sure, analysts can calculate the direct costs of furloughing federal employees, Peuquet told PolitiFact in an email. But once you factor in the impacts on thousands of federal contractors, the time and resources lost preparing for and implementing the shutdown, the added economic uncertainty of how lawmakers will resolve this, how the Federal Reserve may respond if the shutdown continues for an extended period, and then the ensuing economic reverberations of these changes, it is a very imprecise exercise. DeHaven of Cato emphasized that these analyses from economists are just estimates and that the actual impact on the economy could be different. If you go back and look at previous shutdowns, there was no long-term effect..., DeHaven said. For Wasserman Schultz or the White House to tweet out this going to cost X amount of money to me is nonsense. You could talk about the cost associated due to government creating uncertainty in the economy for a lot of things Washington is doing. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that the cost of shutdowns in fiscal year 1996 was$1.4 billion-- most of that was for back pay to furloughed workers, according to University of Maryland political science professorRoy Meyers. In 1995, the government first closed from Nov. 14-19 and then again from Dec. 16-Jan.6. But Peuquet and Meyers told us that there are some factors that could make the shutdown economic hit different today, which means we cant simply add an inflation factor to the mid 1990s shutdowns. Back then, several appropriations bills had already been enacted -- allowing spending in several areas of the federal government. This time, those bills havent been enacted. The federal government also relies more heavily on contractors than it did in the 1990s, and they are unlikely to get back pay. We are still learning a lot of this as we go, Peuquet said. Another factor to consider: The economy is much worse now than it was in the mid 1990s. This one is going to be bigger in terms of daily costs..., Meyers told PolitiFact. The economy is weaker. It cant handle as much of a shock as it could handle in 95-96. Our ruling Wasserman Schultz said the shutdown is projected to result in $10 billion in costs to the economy per week. That number comes from an investment report from Goldman Sachs. We found other estimates from financial firms that were slightly larger and slightly smaller than the $10 billion figure, but they were in the same ballpark. A key point here, though, is that these are estimates. Experts agree that caution and caveats are needed: There is much uncertainty about the economic impact, including the timing and length of the shutdown. For instance, if the shutdown is short and workers get paid back wages, the impact could ultimately be modest. If the shutdown continues for several weeks, the price tag could escalate exponentially. Overall, we rate this statement Mostly True. Within 24 hours of the deaths of a New Jersey couple, dubious web sites seized on the tragedy as fodder for their latest round of conspiracy theory-driven content. On 7 July 2018, 72-year-old Carole Paladino and her 73-year-old husband Jon Paladino were killed when their Newfield, New Jersey, home exploded. killed The next day conspiracy-minded sites, citing "4Chan and 8Chan users," published stories promoting the claim that Carole Paladino, a retired school nurse, was "due to testify" in a grand jury investigation against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:   The dubious alleged connection here is a two-year old controversy over Mylan Pharmaceuticals (who donated somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation) having increased the price of EpiPens by more than 400% over the course of several years -- something Hillary Clinton herself criticized the company over: controversy Over the last several years, Mylan Pharmaceuticals has increased the price of EpiPens by more than 400%. Theyre now charging up to $600 for a two-EpiPen set that must be replaced every 12-18 months. This both increases out-of-pocket costs for families and first responders, and contributes to higher premiums for all Americans and their employers, Clinton said in a statement released to reporters by her campaign. Thats outrageous  and its just the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers ... [I]ts wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them Given that John Paladino worked at a funeral home and Carole Paladino was a retired school nurse, it's unlikely that either of them would have been testifying before a grand jury about the operations of a large pharmaceutical company. Moreover, prosecutors in Gloucester County have told news outlets (and reiterated to us) that foul play is not suspected in the Paladinos' deaths, so any "news" story attempting to link their demise to a deliberate and furtive criminal plot to keep the couple from testifying against Hillary Clinton is merely another iteration of the "Clinton body bag" rumor that has been disseminated online since Clinton's husband, Bill, was president back in the 1990s. outlets Clinton body bag Melamed, Samantha et al.  "Two Dead in New Jersey House Explosion: 'It Was a Huge Ball of Fire.'"
  Philadelphia Inquirer.  7 July 2018. Everett, Rebecca.  "Retired School Nurse, Husband Killed in Earth-Shaking House Explosion."
  NJ.com.  7 July 2018. In February 2020, Rush Limbaugh announced he had been diagnosed with "advanced lung cancer," prompting widespread reflection on the controversial and influential conservative talk radio host's career, as well as renewed scrutiny of his past pronouncements. diagnosed In light of Limbaugh's lung cancer diagnosis, some of his detractors suggested that a measure of irony was at work, given his previous statements on smoking and nicotine. In particular, some social media users shared the following quotation, attributed to Limbaugh: shared "There is no conclusive proof that nicotines addictive... And the same thing with cigarettes causing emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease." Social media users posted several memes containing the same quotation, including the following AZ Quotes graphic: posted several memes AZ Quotes   The statement first emerged in 1994, when the left-leaning non-profit organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published an in-depth examination of several dozen false and misleading claims made by Limbaugh on his radio and television shows, in his books, and elsewhere. The July/August edition of FAIR's newsletter Extra! contained a report with the headline "The Way Things Aren't  Rush Limbaugh Debates Reality." report In the "Weird Science" section of the eight-page article, FAIR highlighted the following claim, made by Limbaugh during the April 29, 1994, episode of his radio program "The Rush Limbaugh Show": section "There is no conclusive proof that nicotine's addictive...[or with] cigarettes causing emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease." FAIR refuted those assertions as follows: Nicotines addictiveness has been reported in medical literature since the turn of the century. Surgeon General C. Everett Koops 1988 report on nicotine addiction left no doubts on the subject; "Today the scientific base linking smoking to a number of chronic diseases is overwhelming, with a total of 50,000 studies from dozens of countries," states Encyclopedia Britannica's 1987 "Medical and Health Annual." By that time, Limbaugh was already a leading conservative voice in American media, and his radio show was syndicated to hundreds of stations across the country. FAIR's expos made a splash and garnered news coverage by major outlets including The Associated Press. The Associated Press The lengthy magazine article later formed the basis for a book entitled "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error," which was published in 1995 and debunked more than 100 of Limbaugh's falsehoods.  book One of the book's authors, Steve Rendall, told Snopes the tape recordings he had made of Limbaugh's radio broadcasts during that era had not survived the intervening 26 years, and therefore could not be consulted. Similarly, we did not find any official transcript of the April 29, 1994, episode. (Limbaugh's website features an archive of thousands of recordings and transcripts of his shows, but it only stretches back to the year 2000).  However, Limbaugh effectively confirmed the authenticity of the quotation and reiterated the same point in a lengthy rebuttal of FAIR's article, which the organization itself printed. Limbaugh wrote (emphasis added): printed My point, made over and over again in recent months, is that if nicotine is really a terrible drug then Congress should just call it a terrible drug and ban it outright. The fact is that nicotines addictiveness and whether or not it is a drug is, contrary to FAIRs assertion, a source of tremendous controversy  so controversial that The Washington Posts lead editorial on July 2, 1994 dealt entirely with this issue. "[F]ood and drug commissioner David Kesslerhas begun an effort to determine whether nicotine-containing cigarettes meet the laws definition of a drug. If they do, the Food and Drug Administration has the duty to regulate them if cigarettes are a drug, and if they cant be shown in their present form to be safe and effective  which a drug would have to be in order to be sold, and which is not very likely  then what does the government do?" In saying that "nicotine's addictiveness ... is ... a source of tremendous controversy," Limbaugh was effectively reiterating the claim that "there is no conclusive proof that nicotine's addictive." In his rebuttal, he also did not dispute in any way that FAIR's quoting of him was accurate. So while we cannot consult the original audio recording or an official transcript to verify whether Limbaugh's exact wording was as FAIR presented it, we can confirm that FAIR gave a proper presentation of Limbaugh's views on that specific issue, because the radio host effectively restated them shortly afterwards, and never disputed the wording presented by FAIR.  Limbaugh's views on the addictiveness of nicotine have since changed. In a July 2004 episode of his radio show, he said nicotine was "the most addictive drug, substance, whatever, on the planet," but argued that it might have other health benefits. In September 2019, he again described nicotine as "the most addictive drug on earth," but argued in favor of electronic cigarettes on the basis that the liquids they use do not produce the carcinogens produced by traditional, combustible tobacco cigarettes.  said described Limbaugh himself was often photographed smoking cigars and earlier in life smoked cigarettes, though he said he quit the cigarette habit in the 1980s. Limbaugh himself was often photographed smoking cigars Elber, Lynn. "Rush Limbaugh Says He's Been Diagnosed With Lung Cancer."
  The Associated Press. 4 February 2020. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. "The Way Things Aren't -- Rush Limbaugh Debates Reality."
  Extra! 1 July 1994. The Associated Press/The News-Press. "Liberal Group: Limbaugh is Leading 'Reign of Error.'"
  29 June 1994. Rendall, Steven; Naureckas, Jim; Cohen, Jeff. "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error."
  The New Press. 1 May 1995. Limbaugh, Rush. "Limbaugh Responds to FAIR."
  Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. 28 June 1994. Limbaugh, Rush. "Demonized Nicotine May Smoke Diseases."
  19 July 2004. Limbaugh, Rush. "'Experts' On TV Really Don't Have to Know Anything Anymore."
  18 September 2019. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said high levels of student loan debt motivated his proposal for free tuition at any public university or community college in New York state for students from families earning less than $125,000 a year. It is incredibly expensive, and the debt is so high its like starting a race with an anchor tied to your leg, Cuomo said of paying for college. Average college debt -- $30,000 per student. The governors office projected 210,000 students would seek the benefit. If so, the program would cost the state $163 million annually by 2019. So is Cuomo right about the average student debt load in New York state? The average debt load The Federal Reserve Bank of New York collected 2015 data on student loan debt in the state. The Fed reports 17.9 percent of consumers in New York state have a student loan, and their average college debt is $32,200. Thats higher than the national average of $29,700, the Fed said. The debt steadily increased for a decade. According to a September report from the State Comptrollers office, the average student debt load in New York State increased by more than 47 percent between 2005 and 2015. The national average grew by 56 percent. Total student debt statewide more than doubled during that time period. The Institute for College Access & Success, an independent, non-profit organization, pegged the average debt of the states college graduates in 2015 at $29,320. That ranked 18th highest among the states. Fifty-nine percent of the students graduated with debt, the organization said. The average debt among graduates of State University of New York campuses was generally lower than their private college counterparts. The average debt for University at Buffalo graduates was $26,165, followed by those at Binghamton University, $25,844; SUNY Albany, $25,727; and Stony Brook University, $23,542. The average debt for graduates fluctuated among private colleges in New York state. Among the higher averages were incurred by graduates of Ithaca College, $39,771; Rochester Institute of Technology, $38,198; St. Bonaventure University, $38,073; Fordham University, $37,607; and Syracuse University, $36,500, according to the institute. The average debt was lower - but still significant - for graduates at other private universities: Colgate University, $20,859; Cornell University, $24,394; Clarkson University, $29,000; New York University, $30,480;  St. Johns University, $33,179. Our ruling Cuomo said the average college debt for those who borrowed for college in New York state is $30,000 per student. Cuomo gets it right, according to the Institute for College Access & Success, which analyzed debt for 2015 graduates in New York State. And his claim is about what the Federal Reserve Bank of New York calculates for all New York state consumers with college debt. We rate his claim as True. Claim:  List demonstrates the concept of "a billion." Status:  Multiple  see below. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2003] A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.  A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it. Origins:  We   don't know the specific origins of this piece illustrating the enormousness represented by the number one billion, but it's reasonably accurate as far as the arithmetic goes.  We collected the example quoted above and first published this article back in 2003, and rather than updating this page annually, we've chosen to keep our comments relative to that year. We have to start out by noting that the definition of "billion" is not standardized.  In some places and usages, a billion is a one followed by nine zeros, or one thousand million; in other cases, a billion is a one followed by twelve zeros, or one million million.  In the U.S., the common usage of "billion" refers to a one followed by nine zeros (or 1,000,000,000), so that's the standard we employ here. billion  A billion seconds: One billion seconds is about 31.7 years, so going back in time a billion seconds would put us in 1972.  (The discrepancy in the version cited above, which puts the year at 1959, might have come about because the example we collected was compiled or last updated in 1990.)  A billion minutes:  One billion minutes is approximately 1901 years, so travelling back to a time one billion minutes ago would land us in the year A.D. 102.  This date is about seventy years too late to encompass the life of Jesus according to traditional accounts. (The discrepancy of several decades might be the result of someone's faulty arithmetic or historical knowledge, or it could be an indication that this piece originated back in the 1930s.)  A billion hours:  One billion hours ago represents a time a bit over 114,000 years in the past, an era generally classified as the Lower Paleolithic era, or the "Old Stone Age."  A billion days ago: Some versions of this piece include the line "A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet."  A billion days is approximately 2.74 million years; the era defined by that time period is generally estimated to be about when the first species of the genus Homo appeared in Africa, having diverged from the Australopithecines. Homo  A billion dollars ago:  If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion.  In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, someone politicized the "billions" piece by adding the following coda to it: Some interesting statistics While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans  It'samazing what you can learn with some simple division ... Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean? Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every  man,  woman, child), you each get $516,528. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787 Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012. Are all your calculators broken in Washington, D.C.? Maybe all of us should just flood their houses, then we can all be on the "big easy" street for the rest of our lives, and forget about working, and paying taxes and all that useless stuff! In September 2005, the two U.S. Senators from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu (a Democrat) and David Vitter (a Republican), jointly introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act in Congress, a bill that sought a total of $250 billion in federal funds to provide long-term relief and assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.  Of course, the legislation didn't propose that the entire amount be spent on New Orleans alone, or that the money literally be distributed to New Orleans  residents  the point of the coda was to provide some perspective on how much $250 billion is by presenting it relative to the number of people in the area hardest hit by the hurricane. Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act In any case, the arithmetic is a little bit off.  Assuming the population and home figures provided to be correct, dividing $250 billion equally among all New Orleans residents would mean:   Each person would receive $515,810.   The money/home ratio would be $1,328,014.   A family of four would take in an aggregate total of $2,063,240. Last updated:  22 April 2008    Sources:   Grunwald, Michael and Susan B. Glasser.  "Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions."   The Washington Post.  26 September 2005  (p. A1). In her new book,Going Rogue, Sarah Palin said President Barack Obama's support for a cap and trade plan was misguided. The president has already admitted that the policy he seeks will cause our electricity bills to 'skyrocket.' Sadly, those hit hardest will be those who are already struggling to make ends meet, she wrote. Here, we're looking at Obama's comments on electricity bills. First, though, here's a quick summary of cap and trade for those who aren't famliar with it: To slow climate change, the government would set a cap on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. To comply, companies such as electric utilities must either upgrade to cleaner technologies or buy credits  also known as allowances  to continue polluting. Companies can buy and sell the credits as necessary to conduct their business. We were familiar with Obama's original quote from his campaign for president. It came from a videotaped interview he did with theSan Francisco Chronicleeditorial board very early in the campaign in January 2008.Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, Obama told theChronicle. Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.Obama also said the biggest challenge would be making sure voters understand why such a plan is necessary. The problem is, can you get the American people to say this is really important, Obama said. Obama was talking in general about cap and trade, but there is now a specific bill making its way through Congress, written by Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, Democrats from California and Massachusetts, respectively. Their goal is to lower carbon pollution by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Under their plan, most pollution permits initially would be given out for free. But eventually, companies would have to buy those permits from the government. The latest version of the bill includes a number of measures to offset higher utility bills for consumers. Revenue from the permits would be passed to consumers through rebates or expanded efficiency programs, and an additional 15 percent of the revenue would go directly to low-income consumers. Legislators have opted to give 85 percent of the polluting permits away for free instead of putting them up for sale, as Obama pledged to do on the campaign trail. In theory, this approach should reduce costs to consumers. So how much would rates go up for consumers? It's hard to say. There has been much debate about the costs, and it's been difficult to come up with a reliable number because the bills have been changing as they move through the House and the Senate. Republicans have cited numbers as high as $3,000 per year, a claim that when it was combined with a falsehood on health care, earned ourPants on Firerating. Recent estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency are much lower  between $80 and $340 a year, depending on income. So the climate debate has changed substantially since Obama sat down with theChroniclenearly two years ago.Despite those potential cost cuts, there's still little disagreement that consumers will pay for cap-and-trade, whether it's $3,100 a year or $340. Because that hasn't changed since Obama first said that utility rates would necessarily skyrocket, and because Palin got Obama's words right, we give Palin a True. Claim:  The Salt Lake Tribune has endorsed Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2012] I just a posting stating that the Salt Lake City Tribune endorsed Obama for President and I wonder if this could be true! Subject: STUNNING BLOW TO MITT ROMNEY - Salt Lake Tribune Endorses Obama  Salt Lake Tribune endorses President Obama over Mitt Romney, who organized city's Olympics. Looking for the truth is this was even published or it is false  Is this true? "Salt Lake City Tribune endorses Obama for re-election" Origins:  Despite the significant ties Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has to Utah's Salt Lake City  including his prominent membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which is headquartered in that city), and his work as the President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics  it came as a surprise to many people that the Salt Lake Tribune, the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Utah, endorsed his opponent, Barack Obama, in the 2012 presidential contest.  In a 19 October 2012 editorial entitled "Too Many Mitts," the Tribune cited the former Massachusetts governor's shifting positions on political issues and his refusal to provide specifics about his economic plans as its primary reasons for declining to endorse him for President: editorial From his embrace of the partys radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?" The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romneys next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor  their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear. More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced budget simply does not pencil out. [...] In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romneys domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust. Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first. The Tribune noted in a follow-up piece that their editorial endorsing Barack Obama "flooded the Trib's website and nearly logged an all-time high in unique visitors." Those who followed the 2008 presidential campaign closely might not have found the Salt Lake Tribune's endorsement of Barack Obama in 2012 too much of a surprise, as that newspaper endorsed him in the 2008 election as well.  (Contrary to common misbelief, the Deseret News, not the Tribune, is the Salt Lake City newspaper that is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)   endorsed Last updated:  24 October 2012    Means, Sean P.  "Mythbusting Site Confirms It: Tribune Endorses Obama."   The Salt Lake Tribune.  24 October 2012.    The Salt Lake Tribune.  "Tribune Endorsement: Too Many Mitts."   19 October 2012. On March 10, 2021, an image started circulated on social media that supposedly showed a statement from former U.S. President Donald Trump in which he implored American citizens to remember that the United States wouldn't have had these "beautiful" COVID-19 vaccine shots for another 5 years (a dubious claim) if it wasn't for him: This was a genuine statement from Trump.  Trump released several statements after he left office on Jan. 20, 2021. Since the former president was banned from Twitter (as well as other social media networks) for posting content that could have incited more violence after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, these statements are being released via email and are then subsequently shared on social media by reporters. Margo Martin, the lead press secretary for the office of the 45th president, confirmed to Snopes via email that this was a genuine statement released by Trump.  banned shared social media lead press secretary While this is a real statement, the claims made within it (that the United States would not have had a vaccine for 5 years if it wasn't for Trump) are dubious at best. The Trump administration attempted to speed up the development of a vaccine via Operation Warp Speed. Although the Trump administration certainly deserves some credit for aiding the development of a vaccine, some companies, such as Pfizer, developed vaccines without funding from the Trump administration. It should also be noted that companies outside of the United States managed to develop vaccines without much aid from the former president.  vaccines without funding managed to develop vaccines In his new film,Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore makes a case that the richest Americans used to shoulder a much bigger portion of the tax burden back in the years of his childhood. In the 1950s, A lot of people got rich  and they had to pay a top tax rate of 90 percent, Moore says in the film. Considering that the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans today is 35 percent, that figure seems astounding. But it's true that in the 1950s, the topmarginaltax rates were over 90 percent. So does that mean that someone in 1955 making a half million dollars had to fork over $450,000 of it to Uncle Sam? No. We are talking here about marginal tax rates. Moore doesn't go out of his way to explain this, so we will. The marginal tax rate is the top rate of income tax charged to individuals on their last dollar of earnings. So in 1955, for example, when the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, that was the tax rate owed on a person's income over $300,000. That person would, however, pay 20 percent on the first $2,000 of income; 21 percent on the next $2,000 in income; 24 percent on the next $2,000 and graduated on up to the highest rate. On average, a person making, say, $500,000 would pay substantially less than 90 percent of their income in federal taxes. The top marginal tax rates peaked in 1952 and 1953 at 92 percent for income over $300,000. Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center did some math for us to give this some perspective. In 1952 and 1953, Williams said, when the top income tax rate was 92 percent for income over $300,000, a person would have to make waaaay more than $300,000 to actually end up paying an average of 90 percent of their income. According to Williams, someone would have to make $2,328,400, and therefore pay $2,095,560, to get to that 90 percent threshold. But people with income of less than $2.3 million  remember we're talking about 1952 and 1953  would have paid, on average, something less than 90 percent, and perhaps much less. Still, Moore's point is valid. The top marginal tax rates paid by the richest Americans were far higher in the 1950s than they are now. In 2009, the top marginal rate was 35 percent on income above $372,958. And although Moore didn't use the term marginal tax rate, he did say top tax rate. People without CPAs might mistake that for a person's average tax rate (it's not), but it's valid wording. And so we rule this one Mostly True.