Did Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Other Tech Billionaire Parents Advocate Limiting Children's Technology Use?
In August 2018, a number of social media users came across an image offering a purported newspaper clipping of an article entitled "Tech Billionaire Parenting" and wondered if the article, as well as the information contained within it, was genuine: image   This image presents a slightly paraphrased version of an article written by Alice Thomson entitled "Help Kids to Kick Social Media Addiction" which was published in The Times of London in March 2018, the original text of which read as follows: The Times The philanthropist Melinda Gates told me the same. Her children dont have smartphones and only use a computer in the kitchen. Her husband Bill, the Microsoft co-founder, spends hours in his office reading books while everyone else is refreshing their homepage. The most sought-after private school in Silicon Valley, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, bans technical devices for the under-11s and teaches the children of eBay, Apple, Uber and Google staff to make go-karts, knit and cook. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg wants his daughters to read Dr Seuss books and play outside rather than use Messenger Kids. Steve Jobss children had strict limits on how much technology they used at home. Its astonishing if you think about it: the more money you make out of the tech industry, the more you appear to shield your family from its effects. The general theme of this article, that several prominent tech billionaires advocated limiting their children's use of technology, is accurate and supported by various interviews and articles. Our only quibble is with the claim that Bill and Melinda Gates' children don't currently have smartphones. As far as we can tell, the Microsoft moguls didn't allow their children to possess smartphones of their own until they reached the age of 14, but as of this writing Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates are all now over the age of 14. In a June 2018 interview with The Mirror, Bill Gates explained some of his parental rules when it came to technology use by his children: The Mirror We often set a time after which there is no screen time and in their case that helps them get to sleep at a reasonable hour. Youre always looking at how it can be used in a great way  homework and staying in touch with friends  and also where it has gotten to excess. We dont have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal, we didnt give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier. Melinda Gates also penned an op-ed for the Washington Post in August 2017 in which she warned about putting a computer in a child's pocket at too early of an age. Gates seemed to acknowledge that her children had cellphones at the time but said that she "probably would have waited longer" if she had the chance to do it again: Washington Post Still, as a mother who wants to make sure her children are safe and happy, I worry. And I think back to how I might have done things differently. Parents should decide for themselves what works for their family, but I probably would have waited longer before putting a computer in my childrens pockets. Phones and apps arent good or bad by themselves, but for adolescents who dont yet have the emotional tools to navigate lifes complications and confusions, they can exacerbate the difficulties of growing up: learning how to be kind, coping with feelings of exclusion, taking advantage of freedom while exercising self-control. Its more important than ever to teach empathy from the very beginning, because our kids are going to need it. As for the remainder of the text at the head of this page, it appears wholly accurate. A number of Silicon Valley parents truly do send their children to the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where an emphasis is placed on pen and paper rather than digital screens. News outlets such as the New York Times and the Guardian have reported on that school's technology policy in relation to the student body's connection to Silicon Valley: New York Times Guardian The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. But the schools chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home. Schools nationwide have rushed to supply their classrooms with computers, and many policy makers say it is foolish to do otherwise. But the contrarian point of view can be found at the epicenter of the tech economy, where some parents and educators have a message: computers and schools dont mix. This is the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, one of around 160 Waldorf schools in the country that subscribe to a teaching philosophy focused on physical activity and learning through creative, hands-on tasks. Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans. The web site for the Waldorf School of the Peninsula also includes a page in which they describe their "Media & Technology Philosophy": page Waldorf educators believe it is far more important for students to interact with one another and their teachers, and work with real materials than to interface with electronic media or technology. By exploring the world of ideas, participating in the arts, music, movement and practical activities, children develop healthy, robust bodies, balanced and well-integrated brains, confidence in their real-world practical skills and strong executive-function capabilities. In the high school curriculum, Waldorf embraces technology in ways that enhance the learning process, by using it as a tool, rather than replace the role of the teacher. Students quickly master technology, and many Waldorf graduates have gone on to successful careers in the computer industry. The claim that "Steve Jobss children had strict limits on how much technology they used at home" is supported by a 2014 New York Times article which labeled the Apple founder a low-tech parent: article [N]othing shocked me more than something Mr. Jobs said to me in late 2010 after he had finished chewing me out for something I had written about an iPad shortcoming. So, your kids must love the iPad? I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The companys first tablet was just hitting the shelves. They havent used it, he told me. We limit how much technology our kids use at home. Im sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded silence. I had imagined the Jobss household was like a nerds paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates on a pillow. Nope, Mr. Jobs told me, not even close. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's reported desire to have his daughter read Dr. Seuss and play outside comes from an open letter he wrote after the birth of his second daughter in August 2017: letter But rather than write about growing up, we want to talk about childhood. The world can be a serious place. Thats why its important to make time to go outside and play. You will be busy when youre older, so I hope you take time to smell all the flowers and put all the leaves you want in your bucket now. I hope you read your favorite Dr. Seuss books so many times you start inventing your own stories about the Vipper of Vipp. I hope you ride the carousel with Max until youve tamed every color horse. I hope you run as many laps around our living room and yard as you want. And then I hope you take a lot of naps. I hope youre a great sleeper. And I hope even in your dreams you can feel how much we love you. Gates, Melinda.  "Melinda Gates: I Spent My Career in Technology. I Wasnt Prepared for Its Effect on My Kids."
  The Washington Post.  24 August 2017. Richtel, Matt.  "A Silicon Valley School That Doesn't Compute."
  The New York Times.  22 October 2011. Bilton, Nick.  "Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent."
  The New York Times.  10 September 2014. Jenkin, Matthew.  "Tablets Out, Imagination In: The Schools That Shun Technology."
  The Guardian.  2 December 2015. Abramson, Alana.  "'Childhood Is Magical.' Read the Letter Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Wrote to Their Baby Daughter."
  Fortune.  28 August 2017. Stillman, Jessica.  "Why Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Both Severely Limited Their Kids' Tech Use."
  Inc.  29 October 2017.
Hillary Clinton is attacking DonaldTrumps tax plan, saying it actually benefits the hedge fund managers Trump had promised to cut down to size. Now, before releasing his plan, Trump said, Hedge fund guys are getting away with murder. And he added, Theyll pay more,  Clinton said. Then his plan came out. And it actually makes the current loophole even worse. It gives hedge-fund managers a special tax rate thats lower than what many middle-class families pay, Clinton continuedin the June 21, 2016, speech. And I did have to look twice because I didnt believe it. Under Donald Trumps plan, these Wall Street millionaires will pay a lower tax rate than many working people. Trumps plan does roll back one high-profile advantage for hedge fund partners. Is Clinton right to say they still come out ahead? Trump took an aggressive position on tax rates for hedge fund managers during his fight for the Republican nomination. In an interview with CBS in August, Trumpcalledthem paper pushers who did not build this country. In a Republicandebatein September, Trump said his tax plan would make them pay more. The hedge fund guys wont like me as much as they like me right now. I know them all, but theyll pay more, Trump said. After the Republican debate, Trump released the outline of histax plan. Trumps plan eliminates the so-called carried interest tax loophole, which allows general partners in private investment firms (including most hedge fund managers) to treat some of their income as income from investments, or capital gains, subject to a top tax rate of 23.8 percent, instead of the much higher tax rate for ordinary income (43.4 percent). Under Trumps plan, income from carried interest would no longer be treated as capital gains. Tax rates for ordinary income tops out at 25 percent under Trumps plan. This looks like a hike in line with Trumps promises. Except. Along with private equity and venture capital funds, many hedge funds are structured as partnerships. Under Trumps plan, income through a business partnership is taxed at a rate of no more than 15 percent, significantly less than the 23.8 percent they previously paid, according to ananalysisof Trumps tax plan from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Eliminating the carried interest loophole actually helps these hedge fund managers under Trumps plan. If carried interest was still treated as capital gains, it could be taxed at the top rate for capital gains in the plan (20 percent), higher than the fixed 15 percent tax for partnership income. Trumps plan presents the discounted rate for partnership income as a way to help the small businesses that are the true engine of our economy. It also helps large businesses and wealthy financiers who structure their businesses as partnerships, including the hedge funds managers he attacked in his campaign. Clinton also said that rates for hedge fund managers would be lower than for middle-class families under Trumps plan. Defining the middle class can be tricky, but in thePew Research Centers rangeof $42,000 to $125,000 for a household of three in 2014, a substantial number of middle-class households would make enough to qualify for a marginal tax rate of more than 15 percent if Trumps plan were enacted. Not all of these people would pay more than 15 percent overall, according to Bob Williams at the Tax Policy Center, and it would be difficult to say how many middle-income people would pay more than hedge fund managers once the many different variables involved played out. But some would, Williams wrote in an email. In May,Politicoreportedthat the Trump campaign had engaged two economists to craft a new tax plan. The Trump campaign has not confirmed whether they plan to re-write their tax plan, and did not respond toPoliticosrequest for comment. The tax plan announced in September remains on Trump's website, and is the basis of this article. The Trump campaign did not respond to our request for comment on this article. Our ruling Clinton said Trumps proposed tax rate for hedge fund managers makes the current loophole even worse. She has a point. By setting a lower tax rate for income from business partnerships, Trumps tax plan would benefit many hedge fund managers. Though the plan would cut tax rates for middle-class families as well, the cuts that would apply to most hedge fund managers are steeper and their resulting tax rate is lower. Trump promised that his tax plan would roll back advantages for hedge fund managers. Instead, in most cases, it would improve their position. We rate the statement True. The October 2016 WikiLeaks series "The Podesta Emails" gave readers an inside look at operations in the Democratic Party by publishing the communications of Hillary Clinton campaign director John Podesta, and one rumor connected with that e-mail dump held that one of those documents revealed in part that President Obama had "directed his supporters" to engage in "a little all-American voter fraud." Misinterpretation and misrepresentation of WikiLeaks documents is rife, and the phrasing about "a little all-American voter fraud" came not from the actual text of one of the released documents but from a blog post about the WikiLeaks documents: blog post Wikileaks has done an amazing job of revealing to the American people just how screwed up and corrupt our government really is, at all levels. The most recent revelation comes from the very top, and shows that Obama may have directed his supporters in Colorado to engage in a little all-American voter fraud. In the email, John Podesta discussed his meeting to two Coloradans who made it clear that they wanted help in making sure that only legal and living people were allowed to vote in the 2015 caucuses. A search of WikiLeaks returns zero results for the "all-American voter fraud" phrasing: zero results  As with many purported WikiLeaks revelations, the blog included not a link to the complete underlying document but only a screenshot of an out-of-context e-mail along with commentary about it: screenshot  That e-mail was dated 14 May 2015, pertained to the upcoming 2016 Democratic caucuses in Colorado (eventually won by Bernie Sanders), and referenced unproven rumors that back in 2008 the Obama campaign had supposedly "flooded" the Iowa caucuses with ineligible voters from out of state: High importance. I met with Jim and Mike in Denver. They are both old friends of the Clintons and have lots of experience. Mike hosted our Boulder Road Show event. They are reliving the 08 caucuses where they believe the Obama forces flooded the caucuses with ineligible voters. They want to organize lawyers for caucus protection, election protection and to raise hard $. They are not just Colorado focused and have good contacts in the region A December 2007 Politico article examined the claim made by a Clinton aide at the time that the Obama campaign was trying to "manipulate the Iowa caucuses" by "busing in students from out of state": article A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, drew a distinction between her campaign's approach to college campuses and Obama's, amplifying Yepsen's criticism of the Obama campaign. Theres a big difference here. We are not systematically trying to manipulate the Iowa caucuses with out of state people. We dont have literature recruiting out of state college students. We didnt bus in folks from out of state to the JJ. We didnt bring in out of state activists to the Heartland Forum. An Obama aide also pointed out that there's no evidence his campaign was busing in students from out of state, while my colleague Ben Adler reported that Clinton volunteers from out of state were planning to come back to caucus (it's unclear to him how organized this effort is) and the Clinton campaign did email out a call for volunteers to come from other midwestern states prior to the Jefferson Jackson dinner. Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded to this controversy by saying: Rather than denigrating the caucus rights of students who go to school in Iowa, we would suggest the Clinton campaign organize them. Their attack here is borne out of pure political frustration. Iowans are determined to launch a winning candidate for the Democratic Party to bring real change for our country. They will not be deterred by efforts to dampen participation and 11th-hour attacks. In March 2016, the Clinton campaign allegedly repurposed these rumors and claimed Bernie Sanders' campaign was "busing in" ineligible voters to party caucuses. Sanders dismissed the rumor as a recycled smear used by David Brock: busing in Really? Based on what do they say that? Based on David Brock's long history of honest and integrity? The man who tried to destroy Anita Hill? Is that where this is coming from? Everyone of you know, you know it, that every day you're being flooded by all this negative stuff from Sec. Clinton's super PAC. I haven't heard of that. I don't want my integrity and honesty to be impugned. I have no idea who says this, that is a lie. An absolute lie. We will win or lose, we do it honestly, and I really dislike people suggesting we're going to bring in students from out of state who are going to perjure themselves, and say they are from Iowa? That's, talk about negative stuff, this is what ... Again, I don't think this is the Secretary ... but you bring people like David Brock ... into your campaign ... if this is the kinda stuff that they're planting, that's negative stuff. No e-mail released by WikiLeaks quoted John Podesta (or anyone else) saying that President Obama had engaged in (or suggested his supporters engage in) "a little all-American voter fraud" in Colorado. In 2015 Podesta referenced uncorroborated rumors from the 2008 campaign holding that President Obama had flooded the Iowa caucuses (not the Colorado caucuses, not any 2016 caucuses, and not any general election polling places) with ineligible voters during his run against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Smith, Ben.  "Clinton Aide: Obama Trying To 'Manipulate The Iowa Caucuses.'"
  Politico.  1 December 2007. 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. In March 2020, the prospect of the U.S. government's sending out $1,200 stimulus checks to individual taxpayers as part of a $2 trillion emergency economic package for dealing with the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic created a prime opportunity for grifters who engage in scams that involve luring victims by mailing checks to them. In particular, one several-year-old, check-scam warning was widely recirculated via social media:  Such warnings served a useful purpose in alerting many viewers to be wary of receiving checks in the mail from unexpected sources. However, they also poorly served audiences in misstating how the underlying scams connected with those checks work. It is not the case, as claimed in the warning reproduced above and in the following news clip, that the scammers who mail out these checks "do this in hopes of getting your account information when you deposit the check," and then using that information to clean out your bank account:  A little common sense would be relevant here: If your simply depositing a check provided the sender of that check with the means to obtain your personal banking information and drain your bank account, it would be unsafe for any bank customer to ever deposit any check  and clearly that is not the case, as millions of people maintain checking accounts without regularly falling victim to scammers. All such check scams have two essential components: 1) Scammers mail out counterfeit checks (often made out in the names of real organizations) to lure their victims into believing they are receiving money. 2) Scammers instruct their victims to send back some of the funds they supposedly received from depositing the fake checks (usually via wire transfer, Western Union, PayPal, or gift cards). The scammers count on the fact that funds from deposited checks are often made available to bank customers before the banks can confirm that the checks are authentic and have cleared. The victims of these scams, mistakenly believing they have received "free money" once they have deposited their fake checks, are then usually receptive to sending some of that money back to the scammers for some legitimate-sounding purpose. But by the time the victims' banks discover the deposited checks were bad, the scammers already have the money their victims forwarded to them, and the victims are stuck paying all of those funds back to their banks: deposited checks The person running the scam convinces a victim to cash a check and then send, via wire transfer, a portion of the money to another location. The portion kept by the victim can be called payment for a job, part of a commission, or a prize. However, the check turns out to be a very convincing fake. Banks in the United States are required to make funds available within a few days, but it can take weeks for a fraudulent check to be discovered. This means the wire transfers will happen long before the bank, or the victim, discovers that the initial check was fake. This scheme is effective because many consumers aren't fully aware of how the check-clearance process works: check-clearance Unfortunately, the term clear sometimes gets used prematurely. An item has cleared only after your bank receives funds from the check writers bank. Bank employees might tell you that a check has cleared, and your banks computer systems might show that you have those funds available for withdrawal, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can spend the money risk-free. In many cases, when a bank employee tells you an item cleared, they are saying you can spend that money with your debit card, withdraw cash from an ATM, or set up a payment online. Most of the time, this informal terminology is fine because funds typically arrive as expected. Most of the confusion around checks comes from bank policies and federal laws that allow you to spend money before a check really clears. Banks are required to make a portion of your deposit available quickly -- usually the first $200 or, on certain official checks, $5,000 -- and they might need to release the remaining funds after several business days. But that policy might prematurely provide access to the money. It does not mean the funds successfully arrived from the check writers bank. If a check bounces, the bank reverses the deposit to your account -- even if you already spent some or all of the money from that deposit. If you don't have enough money in your account to cover the reversal, you end up with a negative account balance, and you could start bouncing other payments and racking up fees. Ultimately, you are responsible for deposits you make to your account, and youre the one at risk. The lures that scammers use to dupe their victims into sending them the illusory proceeds from the depositing of counterfeit checks are many and varied: o Mystery Shopping Scam: Scammers engage victims to act as "mystery shoppers" by making purchases from various vendors in order to rate their service. The scammers then send out counterfeit checks to their victims, instructing them to keep a portion of the funds to cover the costs of purchasing and returning the goods and to compensate them for their time, then wire back the rest of the money. o Reshipping Scam: Scammers engage job-seekers to act as work-at-home re-shippers, receiving (possibly stolen) goods and sending them on to other locations. Then the counterfeit checks those re-shippers are sent to compensate them for their efforts and to reimburse them the shipping charges they incurred bounce, and they're left holding the bag. o Payment-Processing Scam: Scammers hire job-seekers to work as payment processors. The victims are instructed to open business accounts in their own name, deposit (counterfeit) checks sent to them into those accounts, then disburse the deposited funds as directed by the scammers. When the business account overdraws because the deposited checks are fake and bounce, the victim is on the hook for making restitution to the bank. o Windfall Scam: Scammers send out counterfeit checks that they declare are the proceeds from an inheritance, lottery win, or some other type of prize giveaway. Recipients are instructed to deposit the checks and return a share of the money to cover processing fees, shipping and handling charges, legal fees, taxes, or other charges. o Online Sales Overpayment Scam: Scammers agree to purchase items that have been advertised for sale or auction online, then send out counterfeit checks for greater than the sale price and ask the victims to refund the overpayments. o Rental Scams: Scammers respond to ads seeking roommates or tenants, send a check to cover the rent plus a little extra, then ask that the overpayment be forwarded to another party to cover moving expenses. As the U.S. Federal Trade Commission succinctly describes such scams: describes Fake checks drive many types of scams  like those involving phony prize wins, fake jobs, mystery shoppers, online classified ad sales, and others. In a fake check scam, a person you dont know asks you to deposit a check  sometimes for several thousand dollars and usually for more than what you are owed  and wire some of the money back to that person. The scammers always have a good story to explain the overpayment  theyre stuck out of the country, they need you to cover taxes or fees, you need to buy supplies, or something else. But by the time your bank discovers youve deposited a bad check, the scammer already has the money you sent, and youre stuck paying the rest of the check back to the bank.  The best way to avoid falling victim to such scams is not to cash or deposit checks for people you do not know, not to wire money to people you do not know, and not to spend funds from large checks you have deposited until you have verified with your bank that those checks have fully cleared. Brunelli, Laureen Miles.  "How to Recognize a Fake Check Scam."
  The Balance.  11 November 2019. Pritchard, Justin.  "Did That Check Really Clear?"
  The Balance.  24 February 2019. Tressler, Colleen.  "Anatomy of a Fake Check Scam."
  Federal Trade Commission.  5 September 2018. Loftsgordon, Amy.  "Fake Check Scams Target Job Seekers."
  Lawyers.com.  Accessed 2 April 2020. Concerns about the countrys food supply are weighing heavily on many Americans as baby formula is hard to find and international conflict threatens commodities like wheat in some parts of the world. A social media post invoking those fears harks back to U.S. history to suggest that the government is purposely creating food shortages. In 1873 the U.S. government killed 1.5 million buffalo to starve Native Americans so they would become more dependent on the government, read one such May 11post. Fast forward to today, and the government is creating food shortages to achieve exactly the SAME goal! It was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more aboutour partnership with Facebook.) The post has a point about why so many buffalo were killed in the late 1800s, but it makes an unfounded comparison: Theres no evidence the U.S. government is currently creating food shortages. In the mid-1800s, more than 30 million buffalo roamed the plains; by the end of the 19th century, only afew hundredremained. The rapid population decline was due to overhunting, which was welcomed by U.S. officials as a way toforceNative Americans in the Great Plains region tosettle on reservations. Andrew Isenberg, an American history professor at the University of Kansas and theauthorof The Destruction of the Bison, said white hunters in the late 1800s likely killed far more than the 1.5 million buffalo mentioned in the post  a fact federal authorities knew. The U.S. federal government did not actively destroy bison in order to starve Indigenous people in the Great Plains into submission, he said. But the federal government stood by and refused to prevent the wasteful destruction of bison by private white hunters and then welcomed the result of the near extinction of the species: Indigenous peoples surrender to the reservation system. Bison skulls await industrial processing in Michigan in 1892. (Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library and Wikimedia Commons) Gen. William Sherman, who commanded the U.S. Army in the region, negotiated treaties with groups of Indigenous peoples in the Great Plains in the late 1860s, Isenberg said. The U.S. agreed to allow Native Americans to occupy large parts of the Great Plains so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase. Not long after those treaties were negotiated, Isenberg said, Sherman wrote a letter saying, it will not be long before all of the buffalos are extinct near and between the railroads. By 1873, welcoming the extinction of buffalo to suppress Indigenous peoples had become de facto government policy, Isenberg said. In an 1872 report, Interior Secretary Columbus Delanowrotethat the buffalos disappearance must operate largely in favor of our efforts to confine the Indians to smaller areas, and compel them to abandon their nomadic customs, and establish themselves in permanent homes. Although the decimation of the buffalo population was ultimately the work of private hunters, the idea that destroying bison was a way to force the surrender of Indigenous people in the Great Plains was quite overt, Isenberg said. While there is concern about global food shortages because of the war in Ukraine, experts told PolitiFact in April that the U.S. isless vulnerableto food shortages than poorer nations that rely largely on imports. The U.S. food system has a good level of self-sufficiency, so currently, it is hard to imagine empty shelves in grocery stores, said Ohio State University agricultural economist Seungki Lee. And though claims have surfaced suggesting the U.S. government isintentionallycreatingfood shortages, we have found there is no evidence to back that up. A number of factors havecontributed tothe U.S. baby formula shortage, including arecallby a major U.S. manufacturer, existing supply chainissuesassociated with the COVID-19 pandemic and thehighlyconcentratednature of the formula market. View of almost empty baby formula shelves at a Duane Reade in New York City on May 11, 2022. (AP) A post claimed that the U.S. governments inaction over buffalo killing that harmed Native American populations in the 1800s shows it is now is creating food shortages so that Americans are more dependent on the government. Millions of buffalo were killed by hunters in the late 1800s as part of a de facto government policy meant to force Native Americans in the Great Plains to abandon their customs and accept the reservation system. This racist history, however, does not prove that the U.S. government is currently creating food shortages to force government dependence. We found no evidence to support that claim. We rate this claim False. RELATED:Ask PolitiFact: What can parents do if they cant find baby formula in stores? 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 On Sept. 27, 2020, The New York Times published a report after obtaining several years of U.S. President Donald Trump's tax returns. published a report As news broke that Trump had paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017  no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years  in addition to the fact that he took an approximate $70,000 deduction for hairstyling during "The Apprentice," and that he has more than $300 million worth of loans coming due, a rumor started to circulate on social media that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner had quietly deleted all of his tweets from his Twitter account: no federal income taxes   This rumor is false. Kushner didn't delete all of his tweets following the NYT article about Trump's taxes.  The above-displayed tweet contains a genuine screenshot of the @JaredKushner Twitter account. This account has been online since 2009, but it has been used sparingly by its owner. Archived pages show that this account posted three messages back in March 2011  none of which was related to taxes  but was then inactive for at least three years. The few messages that were posted to this account were deleted sometime between 2014 and 2016, and no new messages have been posted since then.  JaredKushner March 2011 at least three years In other words, Kushner didn't wipe his Twitter account clean on the evening of Sept. 27 after the NYT published a story about his father-in-law's taxes. This account rarely posts tweets, and the three tweets that were shared to the account in 2011 (again, none of which were related to taxes) were deleted years ago.  This isn't the first time that someone has stumbled across Kushner's Twitter account in the aftermath of a controversy, noticed that it was barren, and then incorrectly assumed that Kushner had recently scrubbed it clean. In October 2017, shortly after Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III revealed charges against former Trump presidential campaign chair Paul Manafort and two other campaign officials, social media users noted then that Kushner's Twitter account was suspiciously void of content, and falsely claimed that he had recently deleted all of his tweets. falsely claimed A few months later, when it was reported that Mueller may have interviewed Kushner in the course of his investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, this false rumor again was circulated on social media:  reported   The @JaredKushner account has been devoid of content since at least 2016. Claims that he recently deleted his tweets in the wake of breaking news stories are false.  Apuzzo, Matt.  "Muellers Prosecutors Are Said to Have Interviewed Jared Kushner on Russia Meeting."
  The New York Times.  29 November 2017. Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne; McIntire, Mike.  "Long-Concealed Records Show Trump's Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance."
  The New York Times.  27 September 2020. In early March 2020, a number of social media users posted a video of a genuine shoplifting incident in San Francisco, California, along with commentary that the incident was evidence of "radical left" leadership that led to lenient policies that were responsible for the crime: social media users video https://youtu.be/PZfcOuRAwzISpecifically, some viewers claimed the crime was the result of some unspecified "no arrest" policy in the city of San Francisco. Others stated the incident was the upshot of California Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that, among other reforms, created a new penal code for shoplifting that didn't exist before, classifying it as a misdemeanor if the dollar amount stolen was less than $950. no arrest Others Proposition 47 Both claims are false.We contacted the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), and a spokesman there said the shoplifting incident was real and occurred about 1 p.m. on Feb. 29, 2020. Employees at the Walgreens drugstore where it occurred told police that three females, possibly minors, took "several cosmetic items," then fled before police arrived. The investigation remains open and no arrests have been made.  San Francisco Police Officer Robert Rueca said that SFPD doesn't have a "no arrest" policy. "If we have the probable cause to believe that someone has committed a crime, we will arrest the suspects and present that case to the District Attorney," Rueca said in an email to Snopes. It's also a mischaracterization of events to claim the crime was allowed to occur because of purported leniency resulting from Prop 47.  A person who is accused of committing any misdemeanor can be arrested and face jail time under California state law. Shoplifting in the state is punishable by up to six months in county jail. Shoplifting is defined under California law as "entering a commercial establishment with intent to commit larceny while that establishment is open during regular business hours, where the value of the property that is taken or intended to be taken does not exceed nine hundred fifty dollars ($950)." punishable defined Prop 47, which California voters approved in 2014, reclassified some minor crimes as misdemeanors instead of felonies, with the intent of reducing what was at the time a severely overcrowded prison population. The aim was also to reduce the number of people serving long sentences and ending up with felony-conviction records for petty crimes.  Prop 47 increased the felony threshold for certain types of theft from $450 to $950  meaning the simple theft of property valued below $950 is a misdemeanor. It also reduced simple drug possession (possession of drugs without the intent to sell) to a misdemeanor. The claim that Prop 47 is to blame for the incident depicted in the video is representative of misinformation that has been circulating about the law for years, said George Gascn, the former district attorney of San Francisco who is now running for the same position in Los Angeles County and who co-authored Prop 47. Although the threshold for misdemeanor-versus-felony theft prior to Prop 47 was $450, it's unclear whether the new law makes any potential difference in the San Francisco case. In the video, the thieves are seen stuffing drugstore-brand cosmetics into bags. It's unknown how much the items were worth  SFPD would not give us an estimate. "Prop 47 doesnt cover robberies, theft by the use of force or fear. It doesn't cover burglaries," Gascn said. "If you break into a structure with the intent to commit theft or another felony, that continues to be a felony. If someone breaks into your car to steal even a pack of cigarettes, thats still a felony. Even the crimes that are covered by Prop 47, they were not decriminalized. We moved them from a felony to a misdemeanor. [Perpetrators] can still go to county jail" if they are convicted. The claim that increasing the value of shoplifted property to meet a felony threshold is contributing to a rash of crime in California is spurious, given that other states have higher thresholds (Texas' felony threshold, for instance, is $2,500). A 2018 Pew Research study found that states that increased thresholds to account for inflation did not see a resulting uptick in crime as a result. $2,500 study Gascn said that when crafting Prop 47, he and his co-authors purposely looked at felony thresholds in red states. States like Texas and Tennessee "had significantly higher thresholds between felonies and misdemeanors," Gascn told us. Part of the intent behind Prop 47 was to deal with inequality embedded in the system, Gascn said. For example, crack possession used to be a felony while possession of drugs like methamphetamines and cocaine were what were known as "wobblers," he said, which is jargon for crimes that prosecutors had some discretion to charge either as misdemeanors or felonies. Racial discrepancies existed in terms of who was most likely to have those drugs; African Americans, for instance, were more likely to be charged with felony drug possession than whites were, he said. Prop 47 was also intended to address severe overcrowding in California's prisons and meet a federal court order to alleviate it. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that overcrowding in the state's prison system was unconstitutional. Prop 47 succeeded in helping the state reach key benchmarks by reducing low-level, non-violent offenses like drug possession, petty theft, and writing bad checks to misdemeanors so long as the amounts in question did not exceed $950. The effect was a decrease in the prison population and also a reduction in recidivism. ruled reduction A 2018 study conducted by the University of California at Irvine found no evidence that Prop 47 resulted in an increase in crime. Meantime, violent crime and property crime in California remain at historic lows. study historic lows In summary, the claim that a "no arrest policy" exists in San Francisco appears to be made up. We also found no evidence that a change in California state law in regards to misdemeanor shoplifting directly contributed to this incident. We therefore rate this claim   California Courts."Proposition 47: The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act." Los Angeles Times Editorial Board."Editorial: No, Prop 47 Didnt De-Criminalize Misdemeanors."
Los Angeles Times.18 July 2018. Arango, Tim."In California, Criminal Justice Reform Offers a Lesson for the Nation."
The New York Times.21 January 2018. Vock, Daniel V."After Years of Court Orders, California's Prison Population Finally Hits Target."
Governing.9 October 2015. Totenberg, Nina."High Court Rules Calif. Must Cut Prison Population."
NPR.23 May 2011. UCI News."Proposition 47 Not Responsible for Recent Upticks in Crime Across California, UCI study Says."
7 March 2018. Public Policy Institute of California."The Impact of Proposition 47 on Crime and Recidivism."
June 2018. Public Policy Institute of California."Crime Trends in California." In July 2019, registered sex offender and hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on charges relating to the sex trafficking of minors. In addition to the severity of the alleged crimes, Epstein's arrest made headlines due to his connections to well-known public figures and politicians, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. arrested The news of Epstein's arrest sent political partisans into overdrive as they attempted to show that politicians on their side were less involved with Epstein than politicians on the other side. So when images of President Trump with Epstein were published by news outlets and circulated on social media, his defenders were upset not to see similar images of Bill Clinton with Epstein being given equal prominence. This led to a rumor that Google was "scrubbing," "removing," or "deindexing" images of Clinton and Epstein together from search results as part of a cover-up to protect the Clintons. images of President Trump with Epstein Twitter users Paul Sperry, Jack Murphy, and BNL News all claimed, without evidence, that images of Epstein and Clinton together had been removed from Google's search results, and their tweets were collectively shared thousands of times over: Paul Sperry Jack Murphy BNL News       These claims are without merit. These tweets provided no evidence that images of Clinton with Epstein could be found on Google prior to the latter's arrest in July 2019, nor any proof that Google had removed these alleged images from their search results in the aftermath of Epstein's incarceration. In fact, they provided no evidence that photographs of Clinton with Epstein even existed at all. Twitter user Robert Barnes inflated this rumor by claiming that while Google wouldn't show photographs of Epstein and Clinton together, such images were findable using other search engines, such as DuckDuckGo: Robert Barnes   This simply wasn't the case. We searched for images of Clinton together with Epstein on Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex. The results for all five of these search engines were similar, with none of them turning up a genuine photograph of Epstein together with Clinton: Google:   Yahoo:   Bing:   DuckDuckGo:   Yandex:   A spokesperson for Google told us that no images of Epstein or Clinton were removed from their search results and that the company did not make any manual changes to its algorithm to alter which images would be displayed for related searches.  We also checked right-leaning websites such as Breitbart, the National Review, and the Daily Caller to see if they had published any pictures of this pair together, but yet again we came up empty-handed.  Of course, the lack of pictures doesn't mean that Bill Clinton didn't have a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The former president reportedly took several trips on Epstein's private jet, and in 1995 Clinton and Epstein were both on the guest list for a "small dinner party" hosted by Revlon mogul Ron Perelman to raise funds for the Democratic National Convention: relationship several trips   At the time this article was originally written, images of Clinton and Epstein together didn't turn up in searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, or Duck Duck Go. That changed, however, after Snopes uncovered a photograph of Epstein and Clinton that was published in a 2003 print edition of Vanity Fair magazine. The claim that Google is censoring these images can further be debunked by examining the company's search results in the days following the publication of our article. On July 23, 2019, shortly after we published an image of Clinton with Epstein, it appeared on the front page of Google's search results: uncovered   Prokop, Andrew.  "Jeffrey Epsteins Connections to Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Explained."
  Vox.  9 July 2019. Bryant, Nick.  "Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaires Sex Jet."
  Gawker.  22 January 2015. Karni, Annie and Maggie Haberman.  "Jeffrey Epstein Was a Terrific Guy, Donald Trump Once Said. Now Hes 'Not a Fan.'"
  The New York Times.  9 July 2019. Danner, Chas et al.  "Everything We Know About the Sex Crimes Case Against Jeffrey Epstein."
  New York Magazine.  8 July 2019. Former U.S. President Donald Trumps first wife, Ivana Trump, was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, based on media reports and photographs taken of the site.  laid to rest New York Post reporters visited the golf club and photographed Ivana Trumps grave. Their report included a number of shots from different angles, including one revealing a wooded area near the site.A source told the New York Post that Ivana was buried not too far from the club house. According to the report, she was buried in a place that was not visible to golfers as they tee off for a round of golf. The small section of the club where she was buried is below the backside of the first tee. New York Post wooded area source  A number of memes consisting of edited versions of those photographs went viral in late July 2022, with one in particular getting tens of thousands of likes and comments on Instagram. The image  posted by Instagram account homegrownterrorists   showed a golf cart rolling past what appeared to be Ivana Trump's gravesite. homegrownterrorists  It's clear that this photograph is fake when it's compared to the pictures published in the New York Post article. The gravesite has been inserted into a wider shot of a golf cart on a golf course fairway. Unlike the Post's photographs, the manipulated image doesnt show a wooded area immediately adjacent to the grave. New York Post article A separate rumor speculates that Trump used the burial site for tax break purposes. Indeed, the New Jersey tax code does exempt cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments. Potentially, her grave could save the property from paying a significant sum in a state with high tax rates. According to the code, a cemetery company is exempt from paying real property taxes, income taxes, sales and use taxes, business taxes, and inheritance taxes; cemetery trust funds are also exempt from taxes. tax code code Trump has expressed his desire to be buried at the New Jersey golf course for years. His company even described it as his favorite property in a 2014 filing with the state. A 2017 Washington Post report revealed how he had been trying to convince local authorities to let him build cemeteries at the golf course since 2007. After numerous attempts, two of his plans were approved around 2017, but construction for them had not begun. The 2017 report said that the Trump Organization still needed to apply for state approval to make the land a public cemetery.  Washington Post However, Ivana Trump is the first known family member to be buried at the Bedminster golf club. Brooke Harrington, a sociology professor at Dartmouth and tax researcher, pointed out that the tax code has no stipulation for a minimum number of human remains needed for the tax breaks to apply. known Brooke Harrington tax code  Documents published by ProPublica show that the Trump Family Trust had sought to designate a property in nearby Hackettstown, New Jersey, as a non-profit cemetery company.  ProPublica However, this was not the first time Trump had been accused of trying to reduce his taxes on the property by varying its use. A 2016 Wall Street Journal report found that the golf club benefited from a farmland tax break because part of the land was designated for agricultural purposes  specifically for hay production and a small herd of goats. The Huffington Post reported in 2019 that he had saved around $88,000 that year. Wall Street Journal Huffington Post New Jersey laws state a landowner must have no less than five acres of farmland actively devoted to an agricultural or horticultural use for the two years immediately preceding the tax year being applied for and meet specific minimum gross income requirements based on the productivity of the land. New Jersey laws A representative for the Trump Organization told Fortune magazine that the links being drawn between Ivana Trump's gravesite and tax laws were truly evil. Fortune While it is unknown if the choice of this location for her grave had any connection to taxes, the Trump family has a history of seeking ways to reduce tax bills. Furthermore, given the photographs, and an acknowledgement from a Trump representative regarding the location of her grave while denying the rumors connecting it to tax laws, we rate the overall claim as True. "Cemeteries, Funerals & New Jersey Taxes." New Jersey Division of Taxes, https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/anj22.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. "Department of Agriculture | Soil Evaluation Mapping Tool." Nj.gov. https://www.nj.gov/agriculture/home/farmers/farmlandassessment.html. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Fahrenthold, David A. The Mystery of Donald Trump and the New Jersey Cemetery. Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2017. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mystery-of-donald-trump-and-the-new-jersey-cemetery/2017/03/10/7823f63c-facb-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Helmore, Edward. Will Ivana Help Donald Trump with Tax Breaks from beyond the Grave? The Guardian, 31 July 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/31/donald-ivana-trump-cemetery-golf-course-taxes. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. How Trumps Goats Likely Save Him $88,000 A Year. HuffPost UK, 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-goats_n_5d546ebce4b08385506719f1. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Photos Show Ivana Trumps Grave at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ. New York Post, 28 July 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Roberts, Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Andrea Suozzo, Brandon. Trump Family Trust - Nonprofit Explorer. ProPublica, 9 May 2013, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465718872. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Rubin, Richard. Goat Herd Helps Trump Lower Tax Bite. Wall Street Journal, 20 Apr. 2016. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/goat-herd-helps-trump-lower-tax-bite-1461191607. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Will Ivana Trumps Burial at Donalds Golf Club Give the Former President a Tax Break? Fortune, https://fortune.com/2022/08/01/does-donald-trump-get-tax-break-by-burying-ivana-trump-at-trump-national-golf-club/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Middle ground is a hard thing to find in politics these days. Partisanship, especially at the national level, is almost a sport. And yet, this election cycle there did seem to be one point of agreement: The tax code needs to be reworked and breaks, in particular, need a close examination.In a recent blog post, Our Oregon, an organization backed by several public employee unions and other groups of similar political views, made the same case for the Oregons tax code.Heres part of a recent post their Sockeye blog published on the topic:Oregon's tax expenditure code is a list of 378 different tax breaks, writing exceptions into Oregon's law for certain income, property, and other items. While some of the tax expenditures are good, common sense ideas (like the earned income tax credit, which provides relief for low-income, working families), others appear completely baffling (did you know that boat owners can take a tax credit for each of their boats? )Overall, Oregon's tax expenditure code costs the state $32 billion each budget cycle, while Oregon collects about $14 billion in total taxes and other revenue. To put it plainly: Each budget cycle, the state spends more money on tax giveaways than it receives in tax collection.We decided to check it out.First, we called up the Oregon Department of Revenue. Spokesman Dennis Thompson told us to take a look at the Tax Expenditure Report. This report lays the details out pretty clearly for 2011-13. During the current biennium, the state is expected to bring in some $27.2 billion, while its tax giveaways are expected to total $31.3 billion.The numbers support Our Oregons statement.There is some important context offered in the expenditure report right before these figures. The dollar impact listed for tax breaks is not the amount of revenue you could gain if you wanted to repeal all of them. Take federal land, for example. Oregon has a lot of it -- and its exempt from property taxes. Even though we technically forgo those revenues, we dont have much of a choice. Its also true that certain tax breaks should, if working correctly, generate more revenue for the state than they give away -- inducements to attract business, for example.We called Scott Moore, Our Oregons spokesman, and spoke with him about all of this.We tend to speak pretty generally about the money that the state loses through the tax code because there is a great deal of complexity in individual expenditures, he said. But I dont think that discounts, in any way, the general statement that the revenue impact of this big collection of tax breaks is astonishing.There is clearly room to make that system more efficient and more effective and save money.Hes not the only one who feels this way, of course. The Legislature has already instituted a six-year cycle in which all credits will get reviewed before being renewed. The folks at Our Oregon believe they should go further and statistics like this one underscore that.There was, however, one other detail that caught us. The Our Oregon blog post mentioned $14 billion in total taxes and other revenue. The report we read put the figure at $27 billion, nearly double that. Moore told us the Our Oregon figure comes from a separate2011-13 Budget Highlightsdocument that references the states general fund, leaving out property taxes, beer and wine taxes, gas taxes and others. Moore said they went with the $14 billion figure because thats the money the Oregon Legislature has the most direct control over. Property taxes, for example, usually go to local governments. But if you follow that line of reasoning, theres also a significant portion of the tax code that the Legislature doesnt have control over -- again, federal land.In the blog post, Our Oregon said the state spends more money on tax giveaways than it receives in tax collection. State budget documents back them up.But context matters. In the sentence before the statement were ruling on, Our Oregon compares apples and oranges. You cant count revenues the Legislature has control over  and then compare them with tax breaks that include some the Legislature has no say in. We find that additional clarification is needed.We rate this claim Mostly True.