Bush Jogs with One-Legged Soldier
Claim:  Photograph shows President Bush jogging with a serviceman who lost a leg in Afghanistan.    . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Attached is a picture of Mike McNaughton. He stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan Christmas 2002. President Bush came to visit the wounded in the hospital. He told Mike that when he could run a mile, that they would go on a run together.  to his word, he called Mike every month or so to see how he was doing. Well, last week they went on the run, 1 mile with the president. Not something you'll see in the news, but seeing the president taking the time to say thank you to the wounded and to give hope to one of my best friends was one of the greatest/best things I have seen in my life. It almost sounds like a corny email chain letter, but God bless him.   Origins:  On 9 January 2003, 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Mike McNaughton of Denham Springs, Louisiana, a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard, was serving with the 769th Engineer Battalion in Afghanistan, scouting for land mines.  Suddenly, according to Sgt. McNaughton, "I closed my eyes for a second going up in the air and  then landing on the ground, and that's when I just  I knew exactly what happened."  Sgt. McNaughton had stepped on an anti-personnel mine, and in the resulting blast he lost his right leg, as well as themiddle and ring fingers of his right hand and a chunk of his left leg.  Sgt. McNaughton was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for immediate treatment and later flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for follow-on care. In the months since his wounding, Sgt. McNaughton has undergone at least 11 separate operations as a result of his injuries and has been fitted with a thin, robotic prosthetic shaft to replace his right leg.  While recuperating at Walter Reed, Sgt. McNaughton was honored to receive a visit from President Bush.  One of the subjects of common interest they discussed was running, and the President extended an invitation to Sgt. McNaughton to come running with him once he was up and about.    The President's invitation posed something of a dilemma for Sgt. McNaughton: "He said give him a call and we'll go running.  How are you supposed to just call the president?" Fortunately,  Sgt. McNaughton's doctor at Walter Reed was also a doctor for the President, and the two men were able to keep in touch through her. In April 2004, Sgt. McNaughton and his family made the trip to Washington, and  true to his word  the President went for a run with him.  According to Baton Rouge television station WAFB, Sgt. McNaughton described his return visit with President Bush thusly: "It rained a little bit. I didn't care if it was storming or lightning all around, I didn't care. It was nice to run with him.  "He has a weight room upstairs, in the White House. We worked out for about 45 minutes, we tried different equipment. He said I couldn't do it, so I had to prove him wrong. "This goes back to my military training. I never once stopped something and said I can't do it or quit. Just because I lost my leg, why should I start now?" Sergeant McNaughton says the president was more interested with his new leg than even his own children. McNaughton says the president couldn't stop looking at it or asking questions about it. Additional information:        Wounded Guard Soldiers Visited   (The Army National Guard)   Last updated:  13 August 2007    Sources:   Marshall, Peter.  "P-769th Soldier."   WBRZ-TV [Baton Rouge].  5 August 2003.    WAFB-TV [Baton Rouge].  "Denham Springs Man Goes Jogging with the President."   23 April 2004.
In May 2021, a video started to circulate that supposedly showed U.S. President Joe Biden saying that people making less than $400,000 won't have to pay a single penny in taxes.  Joe Biden  This is a genuine clip showing a portion of the remarks Biden delivered during a visit to Tidewater Community College in Portsmouth, Virginia, on May 3, 2021. While the president said that people making under $400,000 would not pay a single penny in taxes during these remarks, that is not what is outlined in the Biden administration's tax plan. Biden misspoke here. A more accurate way of representing his tax plan would have been to say that people making under $400,000 would not see their taxes "raised" by a single penny.  remarks Biden delivered Here's how Fox News reported on this gaffe: Fox News reported President Biden reiterated his pledge that no American earning less than $400,000 would not pay "a single penny" in additional taxes with a slight twist on Monday, after he proposed several tax increases to fund two sweeping spending plans. Biden appeared to mistakenly leave out a key word during his speech at Tidewater Community College  instead saying that no one earning under his specified threshold would pay any taxes. Biden repeatedly promised during his 2020 presidential campaign that people making less than $400,000 "wont pay a penny more in taxes."  repeatedly promised 2020 presidential campaign   This campaign promise was included in Biden's proposal for the American Families Plan that was released in April 2021: released in April 2021 In all, the American Families Plan includes $1.8 trillion in investments and tax credits for American families and children over ten years. It consists of about $1 trillion in investments and $800 billion in tax cuts for American families and workers. Alongside the American Families Plan, the President will be proposing a set of measures to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their share in taxes, while ensuring that no one making $400,000 per year or less will see their taxes go up. When combined with President Bidens American Jobs Plan, this legislation will be fully paid for over 15 years, and will reduce deficits over the long term. Biden has repeatedly promised that people making less than $400,000 would not see their taxes raised under his plan. Although a video that showed him saying that people making less than a $400,000 won't "pay a single penny in taxes" is real, the president clearly misspoke during this portion of his speech. Gov. Jerry Brown frequently touts Californias overall job growth when telling what hes called the states comeback story. He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years. We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue. Later in the same interview, the shows host Chuck Todd asked Brown about inland Californias struggles, leading to another claim that caught our attention: Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there. Gov. Brown:The Inland Empire, the Central Valley, they have a harder time. But they, too, are experiencing tremendous job growth. Brown makes his jobs claim at about the 2:05 minute mark in the video above. Californias job growth is normally associated with coastal hubs like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So, we wondered whether Brown had his facts right when he said these inland regions had really experienced tremendous job growth, too. We set out on a fact-check. Inland Empire Home to about 4.5 million people, Riverside and San Bernardino counties make up whats known as the Inland Empire, a sprawling set of communities east of Los Angeles. The economists we spoke with say Browns case for tremendous job growth here is a strong one. The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership. During that year, it added 47,500 jobs, which was more than the 35,700 created in the Santa Clara metro area, considered the heart of Silicon Valley, Husing said. This area is a real growth engine, he added, listing construction, logistics and transportation among the growing sectors. Over the past five years, as the region has recovered from the Great Recession, it added jobs at a rate of 22.3 percent. That trailed only the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco metro areas 22.7 percent rate among large metros. A spokesman for the Brown Administration cited the same statistics backing up the governors claim. Colin Strange of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce said San Bernardino is seeing job growth, but mainly in blue-collar jobs that pay about $15 per hour including fork-lift operators and truck drivers. Husing, who has studied the regions wages, said the Inland Empire has a lower share of high-paying administrative jobs compared with the state as a whole. He said, however, that the region is outperforming the state in its share of middle-class jobs that pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Central Valley The Central Valley stretches about 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding. It includes urban cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno, vast farmland and a diverse economy, making job growth trends for the overall region more complex. Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help. That report shows the 8-county San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the central and southern portions of the Central Valley, experienced a 1.56 percent job growth rate in 2016; a 1.86 percent rate in 2015 and 1.80 percent in 2014. Those averages trailed the states overall job growth average, which measured 3 percent in 2015 and about 2 percent last year. But it beat the 8-county regions 1.23 percent historical average job growth rate. SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1 Within its own limits, the Valley has consistently grown. But it hasnt been a home run, Gokce Soydemir, an economics professor at Stanislaus State, said of job growth in that portion of the Central Valley. Jeffrey Michael, director of the University of Pacifics Center for Business and Policy Research in Stockton, added by email: Central Valley areas have also done very well in recent years with the exception of Bakersfield, where recent economic fluctuations are tightly connected to the oil industry. Bakersfields job growth rate was flat, at 0.1 percent, over the past year. Meanwhile, Sacramento, the biggest metro area in northern portion of the Central Valley, saw 1.8 percent growth over the past year, close to the statewide average. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth. Economists say Brown is right about the Inland Empire. That region experienced the fastest job growth rate among the states large metro areas over the past year, and added more jobs than the Santa Clara metro area, the heart of Silicon Valley, during that period. Job growth in the Central Valley, while its outperformed its historical benchmark in much of the diverse region, hasnt kept up with the overall state average. The governors argument here needs this key clarification. In the end, we rate his overall claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal. Claim:  Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair delivered a stirring, pro-American editorial in 1973.   . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 1999] Good reading, from a Toronto newspaper's editorial page! Widespread, but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:  This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.  Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States Dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas DC-10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon  not once, but several times  and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the American who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those. Origins:  On 5 June 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair decided he'd had enough of the stream of criticism and negative press recently directed at the United States of America by   foreign journalists (primarily over America's long military involvement in Vietnam, which had ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier).  When he arrived at radio station CFRB in Toronto that morning, he spent twenty minutes dashing off a two-page editorial defending the USA against its carping critics which he then delivered in a defiant, indignant tone during his "Let's Be Personal" spot at 11:45 AM that day. The unusualness of any foreign correspondent  even one from a country with such close ties to the U.S. as Canada  delivering such a caustic commentary about those who would dare to criticize the U.S. is best demonstrated by the fact that even more than thirty years later, a generation of Americans too young to remember Sinclair's broadcast doubt that this piece (which has been circulating on the Internet in the slightly-altered form quoted above as something "recently" printed in a Toronto newspaper) is  genuine.  It is real, and it received a great deal of attention in its day.  After Sinclair's editorial was rebroadcast by a few American radio stations, it spread like wildfire all over the country.  It was played again and again (often superimposed over a piece of inspirational music such as "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "Bridge Over Troubled Water"), read into the Congressional Record multiple times, and finally released on a record (titled "The Americans"), with all royalties donated to the American Red Cross.  (A radio broadcaster in the Windsor/Detroit area named Byron MacGregor recorded and released a version of the piece as well.)  It gained additional currency when it was dusted off and circulated anew in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. in  2001. Sinclair passed away in 1984, but he will long be remembered on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border both for his contributions to journalism, and for his loudly proclaiming a friendship that few at the time were willing to embrace. Additional information:      Gordon Sinclair's 'The Americans'  (Canadian Communications Foundation)     Text and recording of 'The Americans'  (Canadian Communications Foundation)   Last updated:  21 July 2005    Sources:   Canfield, Jack, et al.  Chicken Soup for the Soul of America.   Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2002.  ISBN 0-7573-0007-3  (pp.197-199). Chicken Soup for the Soul of America Candidate for California governorDelaine Eastinsays she wants to create an economy that works for everyone. But with the states affordable housing crisis and deep poverty, Eastin believes thats not happening now, especially for young people. People become cynical, she wrote in an Oct. 11, 2017op-edin theSan Francisco Chroniclebecause the path to a brighter future is becoming more remote. Eastin continued: Ninety percent of people born in the 1940s ended up doing better financially than their parents. But those born in the 1980s, the much-maligned Millennials, have only a 50-50 chance of doing better (financially) than their parents, despite being the best-educated generation in our history. Millennialsare typically considered the children of the Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers. They were born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. We wanted to know whether Eastin was right about this dramatic decline in children doing better than their parents. We set out on a fact check. Eastins background Eastin is one of several Democrats vying to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. She served in the State Assembly from 1986 to 1994 and then as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1995 to 2003. She was the first, and remains, the only woman to hold that position. In addition to her desire to create a more equitable economy, Eastin has advocated for greater investment in education, the adoption of universal health care and continued work on climate change during her run for governor. Our research We asked Eastins campaign for evidence supporting her claim about millennials and their financial prospects. Jon Murchinson, her campaign spokesman, told us the statement is based on conclusions in aDecember 2016 studyby the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. The study is called The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940. Its findings, indeed, show that the fraction of children earning more than their parents has plummeted -- from 90 percent for children born in the 1940s to 50 percent for those born in the 1980s. The study accounted for inflation, taxes and other changes between the generations. Its basically a coin flip as to whether youll do better than your parents, Stanford economistRaj Chetty, one of the studys authors, said in anews releaseannouncing the studys publication in December 2016. SOURCE:The Equality of Opportunity Project Reached by email this week, Chetty told us Eastins characterization of this trend appears accurate. David Grusky, the studys co-author and director of Stanfords Center on Poverty and Inequality, added that Eastins statement is a fair summary of our headline conclusion. The Stanford study doesnt examine whether millennials are the best-educated generation in our history. That part of Eastins statement, however, was substantiated in a recentsurveyby the Pew Research Center. It found 27 percent of millennial women and 21 percent of millennial men had completed at least a bachelors degree by age 33. That was slightly higher than the percentages for men and women at the same age from Baby Boomer to Generation X populations. Inside the study While Eastin appears to have correctly represented the reports findings, we wanted to know how the Stanford researchers came to their conclusions and whether other researchers agreed with them. Grusky told us the report used millions of Internal Revenue Service records and Census data to compare income between parents and children. The report specifically looked at people born between 1940 and 1984 and measured household income for parents and children when both were 30 years old. Even after accounting for changes between the generations, such as millennials entering the workforce at an older age than their parents, Grusky said the findings on upward mobility did not change significantly. Only slightly more than 50 percent of children at age 40 had higher income compared with their parents income when their parents were 30 years old. Unequal growth The Stanford study also accounted for the rapid economic growth experienced during the Baby Boomer generation, when the nations post-World War II economy created a surge of new jobs and industries. Assuming both generations had experienced the same economic growth rates, Grusky said only 62 percent of millennials would do better than their parents. The key factor holding back broader financial success of this younger generation, the report concluded, was todays inequality of growth. Financial success, Grusky said, has become concentrated among a smaller share of families compared with the recent past. Ensuring that financial success is distributed more widely would make a lot of headway toward millennials doing better than their parents in future years, the researcher added. The report found declines in upward mobility for millennials across all 50 states. The biggest drops took place in Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, Grusky said. Millennials in states such as California, New York and Massachusetts saw, on average, less substantial declines. SOURCE:The Equality of Opportunity Project For this study, Grusky said, researchers were not able to factor in student debt or address how people of different races and ethnicities are affected by the mobility trends. Behind the starting line Tom Allison, deputy policy and research director atYoung Invincibles, said the Stanford research is right in line with theconclusions reachedby his Washington D.C.-based group. Young Invincibles advocates for expanding economic opportunities for young adults and encouraging them to get involved in the political process. Allison said the Stanford study is both transparent and relies on credible public data. Factors from the Great Recession to student debt to globalization have all put millennials behind the starting line compared with their parents, he said. That is a cornerstone of the American Dream, Allison continued, that if you work hard and play by the rules, then you can exceed the living standards of your parents. And weve seen a precipitous decline in that. Our ruling Delaine Eastin recently claimed millennials have only a 50-50 chance of doing better financially than their parents, while those born in the 1940s had a 90 percent chance of doing better than their parents. Her claim is supported by a 2016 Stanford study, The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940. Stanford researchers found stronger economic growth combined with a broader distribution of that growth during the Baby Boomer generation drove greater upward mobility for people born in the 1940s. They said financial success has become more concentrated in recent decades, leaving millennials with much lower odds of doing better than their parents. Even after accounting for changes, such as inflation and millennials starting work at older ages, they found todays younger generation faces comparatively smaller odds of earning more than their parents. Other research, notably by the advocacy group Young Invincibles, agreed with the Stanford findings. We rate her claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Former Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler answered adebatequestion June 26, 2012, with a call to stop expanding government programs until the federal debt is under control.Squaring off in Dallas with retired teacher Grady Yarbrough, his opponent in the July 31, 2012, runoff for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sadler said, Until we get our financial house in order, we cannot continue to spend money. We just cant.The U.S. has never seen national debt like this, Sadler said. It doubled during the Bush administration.We decided to see if Sadlers claim about debt under President George W. Bush holds up.Sadler sent us an email with several presidents names linked to numbers, such as Bill Clinton 1.4, and told us the numbers sources were the U.S. Treasury, Financial Management Service, Bureau of the Public Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Office of Management and Budget.The same figures and sources, listed in the same order, appear on a July 28, 2011,New York Timeschartillustrating how much of the federal debt accumulated under each president since 1981.According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion --  an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. TheTimesascribed the increase in debt to tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007.Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bushs presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into theTreasurys online calculatorgives debt figures that tally with theTimesgraphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bushs presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway.Gross federal debt, though, is only one measure of how much the government owes. Because Sadlers numbers match theTimeschart, we started with that statistic, which includes money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to public debt.Public debt itself is another commonly used measure. Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government, in the form of Treasury notes and other securities.Which to use? We consulted Oregon State University political scientist Robert Sahr, who studies U.S. debt, policy, presidents and inflation.Sahr suggested we use public debt, and emailed us part of atextbooks explanation of why net public debt, rather than gross debt, is seen as a better measure of how much government is borrowing: We returned to the Treasury calculator and found that during Bushs fiscal years, public debt rose from $3.3 trillion to $7.6 trillion -- up 130 percent, clearly more than double.Also, we asked Sahr whether he agreed that debt doubled under Bush.Adjusted for inflation, he said, public debt did not double, though it came close.Sahr produced aspreadsheetfor us withfiscal year-end debt numbersfrom the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent.Returning to gross federal debt, which was Sadlers basis: Sahrs spreadsheet showed the same 105-percent increase in non-inflation-adjusted dollars as theNew York Timeschart. In 2011 dollars, though, the increase was 70 percent.Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bushs first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent. The calculator didnt have an amount for public debt January 20, 2001, but says the non-adjusted figure was $6.3 trillion January 20, 2009.When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation. The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation.Sahr said later: Sure, youre paying in current dollars. But if youre looking at the change in debt over eight years, part of the change is the change in the value of the dollar over those years.A final note: Such accounting and tallies can be read as blaming Bush alone for the increases. As PolitiFact has noted numerous times, such assumptions are overly sweeping. Many factors are at play, including Congress, which votes on many spending decisions affecting the debt.Our rulingWe see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bushs presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. Thats not quite doubling.We rate Sadlers claim Mostly True. Another celebrity death hoax reared its head in July 2016, then again in March 2017, and yet again in July 2018, as posts circulated on Facebook sharing the news that British actor and comedian Rowan Atkinson, best known for playing the character Mr. Bean on television and in movies, was dead, having committed suicide or died in a traffic accident at age 58:    Clue #1 that the information is false: In the viral graphic, Atkinson's birth year was given as 1995. If true, that would put him in his twenties. Clue #2 that the information is false: In the viral graphic, Atkinson's age was given as 58. In reality, he was 62 at the time (as of 2017), having been born in 1955. Clue #3 that the information is false: Nowhere, in any legitimate media, has it been reported that Rowan Atkinson passed away.    In fact, Atkinson is currently starring in the third installment of the Johnny English comedy film series, to be released in October 2018: starring  The errors and inconsistencies in the hoax reports of his death are attributable to the fact that a virtually identical hoax has circulated before and has been repurposed, with little or no attention to detail, in 2016 and thereafter. The most important thing to know about it is that the hoax is also a "clickjacking" scam. If you click on the blurb expecting to see a video or get more information, what you will find instead is that you have been redirected to another website that will attempt to get you to share your personal info, request access to your Facebook account, demand that you fill out a survey before proceeding, or all of the above. In a spirited and unscripted debate with the House GOP, President Barack Obama said Republicans were wrong to portray him as running up large deficits. Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore on Jan. 29, 2010, Obama was particularly critical of a question from Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Hensarling asked Obama, You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? The fact of the matter is, Obama replied, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion -- $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true. And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade. We checked Hensarling's claim in a separate item. Here, we'll look at Obama's claim that he came into office with a $1.3 trillion deficit and $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade. On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit for fiscal year 2009 was projected to be $1.2 trillion. The 10-year projection was estimated to be about $3.1 trillion. So Obama's number was very close on the 2009 deficit -- he said $1.3 trillion -- but substantially different from the 10-year projection -- he said $8 trillion. There are two reasons why he differs from the CBO. On the difference between the $1.2 trillion and the $1.3 trillion, the Obama administration credited a small portion of spending on its watch to policies of the previous administration. The reason for this is that the federal government runs on a fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, so Bush and Obama technically split responsibility for 2009 spending. The large difference on the 10-year projection has to do with Bush administration tax cuts. The CBO creates its estimates based on current law, which means the CBO assumes that the Bush tax cuts will end in 2010 and everyone will start paying higher taxes in 2011 and going forward. The Obama administration, on the other hand, assumed in its baseline that those tax cuts would be renewed. Economists we spoke with -- Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition, and Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst of the conservative Heritage Foundation -- both said they believe the White House approach is more realistic because it assumes current policy will continue. So the CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. It does highlight, however, that when it comes to budget projections, people can have differences of opinion about what to include. In any budget projection there is room for interpretation, but it seems reasonable to assume for a baseline that the Bush tax cuts will continue. Obama's numbers are fairly solid, so we rate his statement Mostly True. In July 2023, we began to receive emails from readers asking if it was true that social media platform Twitter was rebranding to "X."   We also found posts repeating the claim on social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and TikTok. Facebook Reddit TikTok The claim is true. Twitter owner Elon Musk did rebrand Twitter to X. At the time of writing, Twitter had already begun replacing its famous bird logo with a stylized X. "And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds," Musk tweeted on July 23, 2023. tweeted And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023 July 23, 2023  Reputable news organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The Verge, NBC News, and CNNall reported on the rebrand. AP reportedthat Musk had founded a startup in 1999 called X.com, which later became PayPal, and that he also calls his son with singer Grimes "X" for short. Associated Press (AP) The Verge NBC News CNN reported which later became PayPal his son with singer Grimes At the time of writing, Twitter's bird logo was still displayed as its logo on the company's web page that discussed branding. "Our logo is our most recognizable asset," the page said. "That's why we're so protective of it." said However, Twitter's sign-up page looked like this:  (Twitter) In an article about the replacement of Twitter's bird logo, The Verge wrote: The Verge The bird theming runs deep, and it's not clear that X Corp. (as Twitter has legally been known for months now) will be able to replace it entirely. We've previously written about changes to Twitter's platform, including a false claim that U.S. President Joe Biden's Twitter account had been designated as a business account. false claim About Twitter | Our Logo, Brand Guidelines, and Tweet Tools. https://about.twitter.com/en/who-we-are/brand-toolkit.html. Accessed 24 July 2023. Chan, Kelvin. "Elon Musk Reveals New X Logo to Replace Twitter's Blue Bird." AP News, 24 July 2023, https://apnews.com/article/twitter-x-logo-blue-bird-musk-0689e9a5c3a217afc2fbefeaf0e6d8a8. Da Silva, Chantal. "Twitter Rebrands to 'X' as Elon Musk Loses Iconic Bird Logo." NBC News, 24 July 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-loses-iconic-bird-logo-rcna95880. LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. "Was Biden's Twitter Account Designated for Business?" Snopes, 21 Apr. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bidens-twitter-account-designated-for-business/. Valinsky, Jordan. "Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter as X | CNN Business." CNN, 24 July 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/tech/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-hnk-intl/index.html. Warren, Tom. "Twitter Is Now X as the Little Blue Bird Disappears." The Verge, 24 July 2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23804973/twitter-x-logo-brand-replacement. On 23 December 2016, a woman identifying herself as Catherine Elizabeth Clennan created a GoFundMe campaign destined for viral attention, in which she asked donors to supply her with US$5,000,000 in order to fulfill her "lifelong dream" (of having five million dollars). Clennan's bid for money stated that at 27, she dreamed of one day being independent of her family who "pay for everything" for her. Although she said that she hoped to raise $2,000,000 to buy a home in California, the campaign's goal was set at more than twice that amount: My name is Catherine Elizabeth Clennan and my whole life I have been trying to live by other's definitions of who I 'should be'. I have been trying so hard to live this lie that I came face to face with a choice: either live as others definitions of you and die OR strike out on your own and find for yourself who you really are. Well I chose life. I chose to live by my own definition ... With this choice I am in the process of turning my life in a new direction. Currently I live in Laramie, Wyoming. in a property owned by my family. They pay everything for me - and I am 27 years old. I feel that as long as I live by their definition I am 'taken care of', but this definition is leading me to deaths door - it forces me to live a lie - to turn my back to who I really am; a free spirit, an artist, a woman, a lesbian, a civil rights activist, a woman who goes against the grain, a woman who knows that not everything is as it seems. I need $2,000,000 dollars to purchase my dream home in California. I need the money to help me walk out of the lie that I am living, but more importantly I need the money to live my dream - which is to live as much as my life in the spiritual dimension as possible. The money will go towards the purchase of a new home, new transportation, and the various fees and taxes that accumulate with a move across the country. These funds will help me live the life that I feel I am meant to live, the life I want to live - the life defined not by other people - but by me. These funds will help me break free from the tyranny of what other people think is 'right'. The 'right' job, the 'right' education, the 'right' way to earn a living...   Although GoFundMe marked the campaign as "trending" as of 28 December 2016, Clennan had only received $21 of that goal on that date:   Although she has not indicated that her campaign is a hoax or prank (and GoFundMe has not flagged or removed it), Clennan does not appear to have much of an online footprint other than this campaign, aside from a LinkedIn profile and what may be a Huffington Post contribution (which as of April 2016 indicated she was an active student). That single article led some social media users to claim Clennan worked for the Huffington Post, but it looked as if she had submitted only one piece as a contributor. LinkedIn contribution In that article, Clennan expressed a desire to "be a public figure": Exposing my vulnerabilities publicly and confidently gave that girl the strength she needed to participate. Thats when I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life  I want to use computer science to inspire other women to explore computer science. I want to be a public figure in computer science that is the exact opposite of what you would typically expect to find in the field. I want to be that girl who no one thought she could, who had all the odds against her, that everyone thought was dumb, and yet she becomes incredibly successful in computer science. Then I want to turn that success around and use it as a pedestal to expose every wound, every failure, every painful vulnerability I have, even with my hands trembling, Clennan invited potential donors to visit her Facebook page for more information, but few additional details were available there. It remains possible that her goal is genuine and presented honestly with no expectations that it would go over poorly or go viral, but also within the realm of possibility that the GoFundMe request was a step in her stated aim to become a public figure. Facebook Clennan, Catherine.  "The Benefits Of Being A Dumb Girl In Computer Science."
  Huffington Post.  12 April 2016.