In New York, Average college debt - $30,000 per student.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said high levels of student loan debt motivated his proposal for free tuition at any public university or community college in New York state for students from families earning less than $125,000 a year. It is incredibly expensive, and the debt is so high its like starting a race with an anchor tied to your leg, Cuomo said of paying for college. Average college debt -- $30,000 per student. The governors office projected 210,000 students would seek the benefit. If so, the program would cost the state $163 million annually by 2019. So is Cuomo right about the average student debt load in New York state? The average debt load The Federal Reserve Bank of New York collected 2015 data on student loan debt in the state. The Fed reports 17.9 percent of consumers in New York state have a student loan, and their average college debt is $32,200. Thats higher than the national average of $29,700, the Fed said. The debt steadily increased for a decade. According to a September report from the State Comptrollers office, the average student debt load in New York State increased by more than 47 percent between 2005 and 2015. The national average grew by 56 percent. Total student debt statewide more than doubled during that time period. The Institute for College Access & Success, an independent, non-profit organization, pegged the average debt of the states college graduates in 2015 at $29,320. That ranked 18th highest among the states. Fifty-nine percent of the students graduated with debt, the organization said. The average debt among graduates of State University of New York campuses was generally lower than their private college counterparts. The average debt for University at Buffalo graduates was $26,165, followed by those at Binghamton University, $25,844; SUNY Albany, $25,727; and Stony Brook University, $23,542. The average debt for graduates fluctuated among private colleges in New York state. Among the higher averages were incurred by graduates of Ithaca College, $39,771; Rochester Institute of Technology, $38,198; St. Bonaventure University, $38,073; Fordham University, $37,607; and Syracuse University, $36,500, according to the institute. The average debt was lower - but still significant - for graduates at other private universities: Colgate University, $20,859; Cornell University, $24,394; Clarkson University, $29,000; New York University, $30,480;  St. Johns University, $33,179. Our ruling Cuomo said the average college debt for those who borrowed for college in New York state is $30,000 per student. Cuomo gets it right, according to the Institute for College Access & Success, which analyzed debt for 2015 graduates in New York State. And his claim is about what the Federal Reserve Bank of New York calculates for all New York state consumers with college debt. We rate his claim as True.
On 15 February 2017, the web site ConservativeDailyPost.com published an inaccurate story bearing the headline, "Post-Emergency Report Concludes: CA Governor Directed Critical Dam Funds To Programs For Illegals," and reportingthat a nonexistent post-emergency report found that California governor Jerry Brown spent $25 billion on programs for undocumented immigrants rather than investing in fixing the Oroville Dam, leading to current dangerous conditions in Northern California: Despite warnings about the flood danger posed by the Oroville Dam twelve years ago, flaky California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown ignored the warnings in favor of spending $25 billion per year on illegal immigrants. Now the chickens are coming home to roost as rainstorms later in the week could cause the neglected portion of the dam to dump large amounts of water on downtown Oroville. Brown stands revealed as spending money on unlawful immigrants rather than protecting the more than 20 million farmers and residential consumers the dam provides water to. While it is true that environmental groups have been warning state and federal authorities about structural deficiencies at Oroville Dam since well before Brown took office, the dam and programs for undocumented immigrants are funded from separate budget sources, thus spending on one does not impact the other.Ted Thomas, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources, told us: Lake Oroville is part of the State Water Project, which is owned and operated by the California Department of Water Resources. All of the construction, operation, and maintenance costs of the State Water Project are paid by the 29 public water agencies (known as the SWP contractors) that take delivery of water from the project. ConservativeDailyPost.com linked to an article fromtheWashington Times,which quoted conservatives critical of the California governor for failing to address issues with the dam while spending on programs for undocumented people and a high-speed rail project. The article cites others who said President Trump should help repair the dam, instead of building a new wall at the U.S.-Mexico border: Critics of Californias willingness to spend billions of dollars on high-speed rail and services for illegal immigrants were quick to draw parallels to the states failure to invest in the Oroville Dam. The cost of fixing the spillway alone is now $200 million. Charlie Kirk, founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, fired off a meme Monday saying, California Governor Jerry Brown spends $25 billion per year to support illegal immigrants/I wonder how much Governor Brown spent to maintain the Oroville Dam? Others defended Mr. Brown, pointing out that the emergency spillway had never been used until this year and that the catastrophic rainstorms came as a shock, especially after five years of drought. Still others turned the crisis into an opportunity to blast Mr. Trump, saying he should repair the Oroville Dam instead of building a wall on the southern border. While the article doesn't say where Kirk's meme sourced its "$25 billion" figure, a 2014 study by immigrant reduction proponentsFederation for American Immigration Reform claimed that undocumented immigrants cost the Golden State $25.3 billion annually. The claim is questionable, however, because the group lumps U.S. citizens born to undocumented immigrants in with non-citizen children when estimating the cost of education: study Nearly half of those expenditures ($12.3 billion) result from the costs of K-12 education for the children of illegal aliens  both those illegally in the country and those born in the United States. Another major outlay ($2.1 billion) results from the need to provide supplemental English language instruction to Limited English Proficient students, many of whom are children of illegal aliens. Together, these educational costs are 57.1 percent of total expenditures.   What is true is that environmental experts have been warning officials since at least 2003 about the now-compromised spillway that is threatening to collapse and flood communities below. As early as 2003, Friends of the River, the Sierra Club, and the South Yuba River Citizens League have been warning state and federal officials that the spillway was unsound. In a 2003 letter, the groups wrote: We are concerned that the physical structure of the ungated spillway may not comport well with the exist well with the existing reservoir regulation manual that calls for use of reservoir surcharge space by utilizing the Dam's ungated spillway when appropriate... At present, the ungated spillway at Oroville Dam consists of a spillway lip only  and utilizes a hillside as the project spillway. Utilizing such a spillway has the potential to cause severe damage to the downstream hillside, project facilities, and downstream environments located in the path of the flood release... We do not believe that it is in the Departments best interest to pursue a relicensing strategy that might in practice reduce the effective flood control space at Oroville Dam. Rather, it would seem prudent to seek approval from FERC for modifications to the Dam such as the construction of a spillway below the ungated spillway lip that would allow Dam operators to operate the Dam consistent with the existing and desired flood operation rules without causing significant damages or disruption to project land and facilities. The Washington Post explains: In October 2005, as the Oroville Dam was going through a re-licensing process, the three groups filed a motion urging a federal regulatory agency to require state officials to armor the emergency spillway with concrete so that in the event of extreme rain and flooding, water would not freely cascade down and erode the hillside. The upgrade would have cost millions of dollars and no one wanted to foot the bill, said Ronald Stork, senior policy advocate for Friends of the River, one of the groups that filed the motion. When the dam is overfull, water goes over that weir and down the hillside, taking much of the hillside with it, Stork told The Washington Post. That causes huge amounts of havoc. Theres roads, theres transmission lines, power lines that are potentially in the way of that water going down that auxiliary spillway. Federal officials, however, determined that nothing was wrong and the emergency spillway, which can handle 350,000 cubic feet of water per second, would perform as designed and sediment resulting from erosion would be insignificant, according to a July 2006 memo from John Onderdonk, then a senior civil engineer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Eleven years later, flooding due to mid-February 2017 storms forced nearly 200,000 residents living in the dam's shadow to evacuate their homes. As of 16 February 2017, crews are working to shore up the structure as more heavy rain is expected in the coming week. Stork told us: We were told not to worry our pretty little heads and they just ignored the issue of throwing the hillside into the channel below, sayingthat would never happen. Mother Nature just demonstrated they were incorrect. Capshaw, Ron."Post-Emergency Report Concludes: CA Governor Directed Critical Dam Funds To Programs For Illegals."
The Conservative Daily Post.15 February 2017. Richardson, Valerie."California Spent on High-Speed Rail and Illegal Immigrants, but Ignored Oroville Dam."
The Washington Times.13 February 2017. Martin, Jack."The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on California Taxpayers."
Federation for American Immigration Reform.June 2014. Guerra, Kristine."The Government Was Warned That the Oroville Dam Emergency Spillway Was Unsafe. It Didnt Listen."
The Washington Post.14 February 2017. On 20 January 2017, the day Donald J. Trump took office as President of the United States, news outlets posted photospurporting to compare the size of the crowd attending Trump's inauguration to that attending Barack Obama's first inaugural ceremony in 2009. Although there was not yet an official count of how many people actually showed up atthe Trump event, so an accurate numerical comparison couldn't be made, the photos did appear to show a significantdisparity between the sizes of the crowds, with far fewer in attendance at Trump's inauguration than Obama's. photos For obvious reasons, the side-by-side images were relished byanti-Trump factions, whoshared and retweeted them all day long. There wasone instance in particular wherein a retweet of the photos caught the attention of incoming Trump officials, who deemed them inappropriate  so inappropriate, in fact, that the Department of Interior promptlydeactivated every oneof its Twitter accounts in response. The offending retweet (since deleted) appeared on the National Park Service (@NatlParkService) Twitter feed:   This was followed by another retweet (since deleted) of a text suggesting that the Trump administration had scrubbed information from the White House web site for ideological reasons: scrubbed   All of which caused a smalluproar on Twitter, where some users jokedthat the National Park Service had "gone rogue," others wondered about the legality of the retweets, and still others defended their content as "factual, not anti-Trump." Later that day, the NPS Twitter account, along with all the other Department of Interior accounts, went silent. According to a report by CNN, the order came down from a "career staffer" at the department: gone rogue report In statements to The Washington Post, a National Park Service spokesperson explained why the action was taken and saidit would only be temporary: Thomas Crosson, a spokesmanfor the National Park Service, the Interior agency whose employee retweeted the offending tweets,said the action was inconsistent with the agencys approach to engaging the public through social media. The Department of Interiors communications team determined that it was important to stand down Twitter activity across the Department temporarily, except in the case of public safety, Crosson said in an email. Now that social media guidance has been clarified, the Department and its bureaus should resume Twitter engagement as normal this weekend. With one exception, Crosson said: No social media posts on the policy priorities of the new Interior secretary, because Trump nominee Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) has not yet been confirmed. Indeed, by the next morning, U.S.Department of Interior Twitter accounts went online again, commencing with a note of contritiontweeted by @NatlParkService: note We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you pic.twitter.com/mctNNvlrmv pic.twitter.com/mctNNvlrmv  NationalParkService (@NatlParkService) January 21, 2017 January 21, 2017 There has been no announcement regarding who may have been responsible for the retweets, or whether disciplinary action would be taken. Klein, Betsy. "Comparing Donald Trump and Barack Obama's Inaugural Crowd Sizes."
CNN. 21 January 2017. Merica, Dan."Trump Admin Tells National Park Service to Halt Tweets."
CNN.20 January 2017. Rein, Lisa."Interior Department Reactivates Twitter Accounts Ffter Shutdown Following Inauguration."
The Washington Post.21 January 2017. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly andDaily Showhost Jon Stewart traded wisecracks -- and a few insults -- in O'Reilly'sNo Spin Zoneon Feb. 3, 2010.O'Reilly told Stewart that it was frightening that theDaily Showhost had been called an important cultural arbiter. O'Reilly said that his audience is primarily stoner slackers who love Obama, but that a lot of people don't think you're smart.Stewart shot back that O'Reilly was now the voice of sanity at Fox, which he likened to being the thinnest kid at fat camp.At times, they got serious. One topic was Stewart's belief that Republicans seem intent on opposing everything President Barack Obama puts on the table -- even if he presents an opportunity to compromise.But the president won't give the GOP anything, O'Reilly said.Stewart pointed to Obama's stimulus plan as an example. The bill was opposed by Republicans even though it included tax cuts, which typically appeal to their small government sensibilities. [Obama] has given [Republicans] many different angles, Stewart said. For instance, even in the stimulus plan, a full third of that was tax cuts. ... Just like at the State of the Union when he said we cut taxes for 95 percent of middle-class Americans, and everybody clapped, and the Republicans just sat there like this. Tax cuts, that sounds vaguely familiar. Is Stewart right that tax cuts account for a third of the stimulus plan? The stimulus bill, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is meant to create jobs and boost the economy. It cost $787 billion, including $499 billion to fund new roads, hire teachers and generally keep people employed, and about $288 billion in tax breaks to individuals and businesses. Among other things, the mix of tax cuts includes a refundable credit of up to $400 per individual and $800 for married couples; a temporary increase of the earned income tax credit for disadvantaged families; and an extension of a program that allows businesses to recover the costs of capital expenditures faster than usual.Simple math shows that Stewart is in the ballpark with his claim: $288 billion is a little more than 36 percent of the bill's overall cost. So, tax cuts -- at least the way they've been defined by the Obama administration -- make up for slightly more than one-third of the bill.But calculating the cost of the true tax cuts in the stimulus is a bit more complicated. In July 2009, we checked Obama's claim that, at the time,the stimulus had delivered $43 billion in tax breaks. According to the Treasury Department, about $8 billion of that figure came from extending a fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Originally, the AMT was targeted at very wealthy people, but over the years it spread to include some middle-income taxpayers as well. Congress passes yearly fixes to prevent those middle income taxpayers from having to pay the AMT.All told, the AMT fix in the stimulus will cost about $70 billion over 10 years, according to a bill summary published by the Senate Finance Committee. But many tax experts say the AMT fix should not be considered a tax cut. They say that, by extending the AMT fix every year, the government is basically maintaining the status quo.Back in July, we spoke with a number of tax experts about the issue who all agreed that including the fix as part of the stimulus tax cuts is a stretch.Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the free-market Cato Institute, explained it this way:AMT is something those people never expect to pay, he said. It's kind of like saying that, if I didn't rob you on the way home from work today, I gave you money.The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, gave the AMT extension a D-minus in its Tax Stimulus Report Card because the provision would provide virtually no economic stimulus. Because the patch is perennially extended, it would have no effect on behavior in 2009. Almost 80 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 20 percent of households, who would be least likely to spend the additional funds and stimulate demand.So, our tax experts are skeptical that the $70 billion AMT fix should be included in the stimulus bill's tax relief. That would bring down the cost of the tax cuts to about $218 billion. That means about 28 percent of the bill could be described as tax cuts, a little less than the one-third cited by Stewart.So we find Stewart's claim to be Mostly True. In a 75-minute rally speech that revisited his response to the Charlottesville, Va., unrest and scolded the national media, President Donald Trump slid in a note of pride about the United States balance of trade in energy. We're going to do an infrastructure bill, Trump said. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, waterways, all across our beautiful land. Our greatest creations, our most incredible buildings, our most beautiful works of art are just waiting to be brought to life. American hands will build this future. American energy will power this future. We have become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently. Was he correct to say that the United States has become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently? Short answer: No. But to get to the short answer, you have to wade through several possible interpretations of what Trump meant. (The White House did not clarify his meaning for us.) One way to read Trumps statement is to take it literally -- that the United States only recently began to export energy. This is flat wrong. We have been exporting coal, natural gas, electricity, refined products and energy technologies for a very long time, said Paul Sullivan, a professor at National Defense University and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University who specializes in energy security issues. We were once, during the time of JD Rockefeller, the world's near monopoly on kerosene. Liquefied natural gas exports from Alaska to Japan have been around for a long time. Piped gas to Mexico and Canada are normal events. We have a massive electricity trade with Canada. Trump might have meant that the United States had only recently become anetexporter of energy -- meaning the total of all U.S. energy exports recently overtook the total of all U.S. energy imports. This is less wrong, but still not accurate. This has been falling, but we are still a huge net energy importer, said Jason Bordoff, who directs Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. In its most recent projections, the federal Energy Information Administrationconcludedthat the United States would become a net energy exporteraround 2026, depending on the course of future patterns of global supply, demand and pricing. Whats clear is that the United States has not yet become a net exporter of energy, as Trumps past-tense remark indicated. If that day comes in 2026 -- and it may or may not -- that would be two years after Trump finishes a possible second term. Perhaps rather than energy, Trump meant to say crude oil. If this is what Trump meant, the statement would still be problematic. It wouldnt be the first time ever. And the relevant change was signed under his predecessor, President Barack Obama. On Dec. 18, 2015, the United Statesenacted legislationto repeal a ban on most crude-oil exports that had been in place since the energy-crisis days of 1975. (Exports of refined petroleum were not blocked by the law, just crude.) Heres a chart showing U.S. crude-oil exports going back to the 1980s. (The years between 1975 and 2015 show some export activity because trade with some countries, such as Canada, was exempt from the law.) The rapid rise in crude-oil exports near the end of the chart reflects the lifting of the export-restriction law. Its possible to substitute any number of energy subcategories into Trumps remark to see whether they make the statement more accurate. Some do, some dont. The United States has been a net coal exporter for many years. It has been a net exporter of refined petroleum products sincearound 2011. So neither of those would make Trump correct. Natural gas is a more promising option. The United States is not yet a net exporter of natural gas, but the difference between imports and exports has narrowed for nine consecutive years,according to EIA, falling to its smallest gap ever in 2016. And the agencyprojectsthat the United States will become a net exporter of natural gas once the 2017 numbers are tallied up. Energy experts say that this is a significant development, though one that Trump can take little credit for. It has been a trend that was activated by the U.S. shale boom and made possible by the Obama administration's policy on liquefied natural gas exports, said Anna Mikulska, a fellow with Rice Universitys Center for Energy Studies. Ironically, Bordoff added, a different Trump policy goal --reviewing Obama-era increases in fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles-- could make it harder for the United States to become a net exporter of energy, the very thing he applauded in Phoenix. Trumps stated intention to ease fuel economy standards actually undermines the goal of becoming a net energy exporter, because it means the U.S. will be consuming more oil than we would otherwise, he said. The EIA projections assume the planned increases in fuel economy go into effect, so the EIA projection of when we become a net exporter of energy would be pushed further out if we weaken fuel economy standards. Trump said that we have become an energy exporter for the first time ever just recently. This statement is problematic regardless of how you interpret his statement -- gross energy exports, net energy exports, gross crude-oil exports, and net natural gas exports. The closest he would come to being accurate is if he were referring to net natural gas exports, but even there, it hasnt happened yet, contrary to what his past-tense statement indicates. We rate the statement False. Gov. John Kasich has said collective bargaining should be restricted for Ohios public workers  to help governments balance their budgets and, in turn, help the state bring its spending into balance in the face of a massive deficit.One of the reasons I did this is I wanted local governments to have the tools to be able to control their costs, Republican Kasich said in March right before he released his budget proposal that sharply cuts state funding to local governments.But opponents of controversial Senate Bill 5  a measure that Kasich enthusiastically signed March 31 that would sharply restrict bargaining, end binding arbitration and ban public employees from striking  say the governors argument comes up false when comparing Ohio to other states.There is no evidence to suggest that collective bargaining is the cause of overall budget challenges, former Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper told an Ohio House committee in March. Many states without collective bargaining, such as Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, have far larger budget deficits than many that do, including Ohio.Clearly, Pepper and the governor have very different ways of framing the debate over collective bargaining. The last part of his comment got PolitiFact Ohios attention, though, and we decided to take a look.Pepper, a Democrat who lost to Republican Dave Yost last November in the state auditor election, said his point was that most states are suffering budget difficulties regardless of whether they have collective bargaining options for public workers.There is clearly from looking across the country no correlation between states that have collective bargaining for public workers and having budget problems or being competitive, Pepper said in an interview. There simply is no case for getting rid of collective bargaining to solve budget problems.Pepper said his comments were based on information from Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning research organization. Its executive director, Amy Hanauer, testified in February to a Senate committee that Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada all faced more significant budget gaps than Ohio for fiscal 2010.In terms of percentages of their overall budgets, the gaps were higher in Arizona (65 percent), North Carolina (26 percent) and Nevada (47 percent) than in Ohio (14 percent) for fiscal 2010, according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, also a left-leaning group. CBPPs data is widely used by government think tank groups, including by the Pew Center on the States.Data from the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures showed the same was true in fiscal 2011 when those same three states had deficits that were a larger percentage of the overall budget than was the case in Ohio.In terms of dollars, Arizonas deficit of $5.1 billion and North Carolinas -- $5 billion -- were both higher than Ohios gap of $3.6 billion for 2010. But Nevadas -- $1.5 billion -- was lower.Republicans who control the General Assembly argue that many local governments have complained about public employee wages and benefits, sometimes gained through binding arbitration when negotiations have failed. But likening restrictions on collective bargaining to a budget solving pill appears to be a stretch.States with no collective bargaining for public employees had an average budget gap of 24.8 percent in 2010, according to Policy Matters Ohio. Meanwhile, states with collective bargaining for all public employees had an average deficit gap of 24.1 percent.Pepper was right on the money in terms of percentage gaps. He was correct in terms of actual dollars and cents for two of the three states he cited.On the Truth-O-Meter, we rate Peppers statement Mostly True. Claim:  Coca-Cola has announced that it will be donating four days' worth of income to Israel. Status:  False. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] I have heard various rumours about the nature of the relationship between Coca-Cola and the State of Israel.  Today, I received a text message on my cell phone stating:  "NBC states that: the income that Coca-Cola will get in the coming 4 days starting from Monday will be donated to Israel." Origins:  The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East makes for a precarious business climate, one in which any company doing business in both Israel and other Middle Eastern countries is subject to being denounced by one side as a supporter of the other.  Companies dealing in relatively inexpensive, ubiquitous products such as soft drinks or fast food are very visible targets to those who call for boycotts to protest financial support of one side or the other. American-based companies, in particular, are often the focus of such boycotts, since the USA is not only home to many of the world's most well-known brands but has also been one of the few countries to openly support    Israel.  McDonald's and Coca-Cola are frequent subjects of boycott calls, the former becoming a target a few years ago when Saudi Arabian McDonald's outlets donated a portion of their proceeds to Palestinian childrens' hospitals, and the latter a current victim due to false claims that they will be "donating four days' worth of income to Israel."  (Pepsi is also a member of this short list, with claims  sometimes taken literally  that Pepsi is a 'Jewish product' whose name is an acronym for 'Pay Every Penny to Save Israel' or 'Pay Every Penny to the State of Israel.'  As the Associated Press once noted, "Calling Pepsi a 'Jewish product' is ironic, given that Pepsi was one of many multinationals that wouldn't do business in Israel during the 40-year Arab commercial boycott of the Jewish state.") donated Lately a series of graphics employing Coca-Cola imagery (like the one to the right of this text, which is itself a deception within a deception, as it uses a controversial photograph of a Jewish student who was mistakenly identified as a Palestinian) has been circulated to garner support for an Arab boycott of American companies such as Coca-Cola (at least one such image, which depicts the Dome of the Rock emblazoned with a Coca-Cola logo, has caused an uproar among Muslims who have mistaken it for a bona fide Coca-Cola advertisement), lending support  to the unfounded rumor that Coca-Cola will be donating four days' worth of income to Israel. It's hard to imagine that this rumor could be anything but a deliberate lie concocted to smear an American-based company that does business in both Israel and  Middle Eastern countries, as (unlike the case of the McDonald's brouhaha mentioned above) no Coke-related business is currently engaged in any sponsorship that could reasonably be misunderstood as constituting a financial "donation" to the state of Israel.  As The Coca-Cola Company itself has stated: photograph Dome of the Rock The Coca-Cola Company does not support or oppose political or religious causes and does not take a stance on issues that do not directly affect the soft drink industry. The Coca-Cola Company operates worldwide in nearly 200 countries andterritories with different cultures, political systems, religions and histories.  People from all around the world own shares in The Coca-Cola Company, and the company employs people from many different backgrounds and nationalities. Our partners who bottle, distribute and sell our products are local business people. They hire people in their local markets.   We cannot and do not take the side of one country over another in any dispute. It's unfortunate that the incredible power of the Internet is being misused to spread false information. Moreover, since Ramallah is home to a Coca-Cola bottling facility that employs about 400 local residents (and indirectly creates employment for hundreds more), and Coca-Cola industries throughout the Middle East are operated as local businesses, any boycott of Coca-Cola in Middle Eastern countries is likely to cause more monetary harm to Arabs and Palestinians than it is to Americans or Israelis.   Ramallah Unfortunately, the maxim that the first casualty in war is truth still holds sway. Last updated:  2 December 2007 Gov. Tony Evers proposed that Wisconsin keep up with three of its neighbors and legalize marijuana, but the plan has already gone up in smoke. The GOP-controlled Legislatures budget-writing committee on May 6, 2021 removed legalizing marijuana -- and hundreds of other provisions -- from the governors proposed 2021-23 spending plan. In making the changes, and starting fresh, the panel created agap of about $3.4 billion. With that gap, and polls showing general public support for legalized marijuana, it brought to mind a claim from Evers that we had set aside: Regulating and taxing marijuana  much like we do alcohol  would generate more than $165M in revenue starting in 2022, Evers tweetedApril 14, 2021. In all, 36 states have medical marijuana programs (including Iowa), while14 states-- including neighboring Illinois and Michigan -- have legalized marijuana for recreational use: But what about the money? Is Evers correct that his plan would add $165 million to the states coffers in the upcoming budget? When asked for backup to the claim, Britt Cudaback, Evers communications director, pointed us to the states Budget in Brief document, released in February 2021, which includes more detail on how his plan would work. Under the plan, the state Department of Revenue would issue permits to those wishing to sell recreational marijuana. The Governors proposal imposes a 15 percent excise tax on the sales price of each wholesale sale by a permit-holding producer to a permit-holding processor, according to the budget document. In addition, the proposal imposes a 10 percent excise tax on the sales price of each retail sale. Retail sales, except for medical use, would be subject to the sales tax. So, how did the governor arrive at that $165 million figure? According to Cudaback, the budget office looked at data from other states, including Colorado, which was the first state to legalize marijuana, and made adjustments for population and reported marijuana usage. She noted that other states have relied on Colorados data in developing their own budgets, and noted that the estimates were on the conservative side, meaning they could be closer to the low end of potential tax revenue. According to the Evers figures, if sales were to begin Jan. 1, 2022 -- roughly six months after expected passage of the budget -- $165.8 million would be reached if tax collections were $19 per-capita. That is, if -- on average -- every person in the state bought enough marijuna to generate $19 in annual tax revenue. Here is the math: $19 per capita per year x 5.8 million population x 1.5 years = $165.8 million. That includes a projected $65 million from taxes on sales at the wholesale level, $67.1 million from retail taxes and $33.6 million from the sales tax. Its difficult to compare states because of their varying size and different taxing structures around marijuana sales. For instance, Illinois has a lower excise tax, but far higher sales taxes on recreational marijuana, and more than double Wisconsins population. According to the Public Policy Forum, a non-partisan think tank that has analyzed the Wisconsin budget, Illinois likely collectedaround $175 millionin revenue in its first year of recreational implementation. Thats not much more -- despite twice the population size -- than what Evers is anticipating. The administration's estimate appears to imply a pretty rapid implementation, the Policy Forum said. Nevada, meanwhile, has a 15% tax on wholesale sales and a 10% tax on retail sales, so its framework is generally similar. Infiscal year 2020, with just over half of Wisconsins population, Nevada collected $105.2 million. That said, the Policy Forum notes Nevadas unique tourism industry -- i.e., legalized gambling -- may make it a poor basis for comparison. Andrew Reschovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Applied Economics pointed out that forecasting revenue from a new tax is always difficult. He said the State Budget Office has taken the sensible approach and based its estimates on the experience of other states that have already legalized marijuana sales. But that doesnt mean its sure to come true. The Administrations forecast, like all revenue forecasts, is based on a set of assumptions, he wrote. While some of the Administrations assumptions may result in an under-estimate of tax revenues, I do worry that the state may be overly optimistic about the time needed to implement the issuing of both medical and recreational marijuana retail sales licenses and the time needed to open retail outlets throughout the state. In other words, the state may not be able to get a system up and running in time to meet the Jan. 1, 2022 date the budget projections are based upon. Based on the experiences in Massachusetts and California, this may be an overly optimistic estimate of the time it takes to license and open retail sales outlets, Reschovsky wrote. If the rollout process is in fact slower than anticipated, revenue during the next biennium may be lower than the Administrations forecast. Evers tweeted Regulating and taxing marijuana  much like we do alcohol  would generate more than $165M in revenue starting in 2022. Experts consulted by PolitiFact Wisconsin, generally speaking, had no quarrel with the states math, but questioned the implementation schedule baked into the estimates. In other words, if legalized marijuana were to go forward, it may not generate the revenue Evers claimed because it may take too long to get a licensing system in place, and to license and open retail outlets. In a nutshell, the Evers projections are plausible, but may be overly optimistic. For a statement that is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, our rating is Mostly True. In December 2019, readers asked us about reports that claimed the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed changes to the way Social Security disability payments are made, which could cause thousands, even hundreds of thousands, to lose their benefits.  On Dec. 12, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune posted an article with the headline "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients." The article reported that: Inquirer Tribune "The Trump administration is proposing changes to Social Security that could terminate disability payments to hundreds of thousands of Americans, particularly older people and children. The new rule would change aspects of disability reviews  the methods by which the Social Security Administration determines whether a person continues to qualify for benefits. Few recipients are aware of the proposal, which is open for public comment through January." The left-leaning website Common Dreams published an article with the headline "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands.'" That story reported: article "Activists are working to raise public awareness and outrage over a little-noticed Trump administration proposal that could strip life-saving disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of people by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who is eligible for payments." On the face of it, the changes proposed by the Trump administration would not, in fact, directly or immediately strip disability benefits from thousands of would-be recipients, rather the changes would introduce more (and more frequent) eligibility reviews for those who wish to receive them. However, some critics have argued that those increased bureaucratic requirements would over-burden some would-be recipients, in particular especially vulnerable recipients, and would ultimately (albeit indirectly) result in thousands losing disability benefits.  The Social Security Administration distributes disability benefits in two principle ways: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their previous Social Security tax contributions and history of work, and is paid out of the Social Security insurance fund; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their disability status and inability to work, and is paid out of general tax coffers.  ways In order to prevent potential abuse and waste in the system, the Social Security Administration conducts "continuing disability reviews," essentially investigating whether each recipient still has a disabling condition, and if so, which kind. Those reviews take place more or less frequently, depending on the nature of each individual's disability, broken into three "medical diary categories," as follows: reviews In November, the Social Security Administration published its proposals to make several changes to the review system. The most significant proposal was to add a fourth medical diary category, "Medical Improvement Likely." Recipients placed in that category would undergo a review every two years. proposals According to a document accompanying the proposals, the decision to introduce the fourth category was made, in part, because the administration saw a pattern whereby some in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category were being prematurely subjected to re-evaluation, after six-18 months, before a medical improvement had the chance to take hold, and some in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category had successfully treated their impairment comfortably within the three-year review interval. The introduction of the new category would therefore mean the bureaucratic burden on some recipients would actually be lessened, since they would be subject to review less frequently, though clearly it would also mean others would be subject to more frequent reviews. On the whole, the administration has estimated that, between 2020 and 2029, the new category would tend towards requiring more frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category, rather than less frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category:   The administration expects the introduction of the "Medical Improvement Likely" category to lead to an 18 percent increase in the total number of reviews undertaken over the next decade. This would therefore lead to an increased up-front cost in administering the disability benefits programs, and an increased aggregate bureaucratic burden to recipients (even if some individual recipients would actually undergo reviews less frequently).  Greater scrutiny of individual cases, and enhanced enforcement of eligibility criteria, results in some recipients no longer being deemed eligible, and no longer receiving either SSDI or SSI, which saves money for the Social Security insurance fund and the Treasury, respectively. For the 2015 fiscal year, for example, the Social Security Administration calculated a 19.9:1 return on investment rate for disability benefits enforcement  meaning that for every $1 spent on performing reviews, the government would save $19.90 on disability benefits that would otherwise have been paid, over the course of a lifetime, to recipients who are now deemed ineligible. To be specific, the administration estimated that the $717 million spent on reviews in 2015 would ultimately save $14.3 billion in lifetime disability benefit payments.  calculated So the introduction of the Trump administration's proposals is highly likely to ultimately lead to thousands of disability benefits recipients no longer receiving those benefits  both because some will be overburdened by the bureaucratic demands of more frequent reviews, and because some recipients whose medical status no longer meets the eligibility criteria will have that ineligibility discovered sooner. A considerable measure of truth, therefore, exists in the reports published by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Common Dreams. However, those articles failed to mention an important component to the administration's proposals: They would not change how a recipient's eligibility is determined, only how often that determination takes place. As the proposal stated: "We are not changing the Medical Improvement Review Standard that we use to determine whether a person continues to meet the disability requirements of the Act." This means that, while the proposed increase in the number and frequency of reviews was highly likely to ultimately cause thousands to lose their benefits, that loss of benefits would not be arbitrary, or based on an application of a new and different standard for determining whether someone's health has improved. The standards and criteria for assessing whether an improvement has taken place would be the same as currently exist, and only the frequency of those reviews would change. In other words, some recipients would be subject to more frequent reviews, but if those more frequent reviews result in a finding that the recipient still has a qualifying disability or impairment  based on the same criteria as currently apply  the recipient would continue to receive disability benefits.  It could be that, as some critics have argued, the proposal represents an elegant way for the administration to save money by removing thousands from the recipient rolls without having to change eligibility criteria  the latter a move that would be more likely to cause public outrage or political opposition. However, on its face at least, the proposal involves enhanced enforcement of existing eligibility standards and criteria. That's an important distinction, and a significant omission from news articles that reported, with some justification, that the Trump administration had proposed changes to Social Security disability benefits that would cause thousands to be stripped of those benefits.  argued Lubrano, Alfred. "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients."
 The Philadelphia Inquirer/The Chicago Tribune. 12 December 2019. Johnson, Jake. "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands."
 Common Dreams. 16 December 2019. Social Security Administration. "Proposed Rule -- Rules Regarding the Frequency and Notice of Continuing Disability Reviews."
 Federal Register. 18 November 2019. Claim:  The "Cap and Trade energy bill" requires that all existing real estate must meet new energy standards before it can be sold.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] For those of you who have real estate for sale or rent, be advised that the Cap and Trade energy bill that passed Congress has the following provisions: Before any real estate, new or old, commercial or residential, can be sold or rented, the building must meet the new energy standards set forth in the Bill. These standards are about a general 35% increase in what is now required in building codes. It requires such things as requiring solar reflective roofs, double pane windows, energy efficient appliances and lighting, increased insulation, leak test, and on and on and on. In order to sell or rent any building, you will be required to have a certificate of efficiency issued by a federal building efficiency inspector (new division of the US Dept. of Energy). No certification, no sell or rent, simple as that.  [Collected via e-mail, August 2010] A License Required for your HOUSE? Thinking about selling your house.  Take a look at H.R. 2454 (Cap and Trade bill), that has passed the House of Representatives and being considered by the Senate. Home owners take note & tell your friends and relatives who are home owners! Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act. H.R. 2454, the "Cap & Trade" bill will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced. The Congressional Budget Office (supposedly non-partisan) estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded. A year from now you won't be able to sell your house. The caveat is, that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. But, if not, then forget it. Even pre-fabricated homes ("mobile homes") are included. In effect, this bill prevents you from selling your home without the permission of the EPA administrator. To get this permission,you will have to have the energy efficiency of your home measured. Cost $200 to start. Then the government will tell you what your new energy efficiency requirement is and you will be forced to make modifications to your home under the retrofit provisions of this Act to comply with the new energy and water efficiency requirements, which easily could cost over $50,000. Then you will have to get your home measured again and get a license (called a "label" in the Act) that must be posted on your property to show what your efficiency rating is; sort of like the Energy Star efficiency rating label on your refrigerator or air conditioner. If you don't get a high enough rating, you can't sell. And, the EPA administrator is authorized to raise the standards every year, even above the automatic energy efficiency increases built into the Act. The EPA administrator, appointed by the President, will run the Cap & Trade program  (AKA the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009") and is authorized to make any future changes to the regulations and standards he/she alone determines to be in the government's best interest. Requirements are set low initially so the bill will pass Congress; then the Administrator can set much tougher new standards every year.  The Act itself contains annual required increases in energy efficiency for private and commercial residences and buildings. However, the EPA administrator can set higher standards at any time. Sect. 202 Building Retrofit Program mandates a national retrofit program to increase the energy efficiency of all existing homes across America. The label will be like a license for your car. You will be required to post the label in a conspicuous location in your home and will not be allowed to sell your home without having this label. And, just like your car license, you will probably be required to get a new label every so often - maybe every year. The government estimates the cost of measuring the energy efficiency of your home should only cost about $200 each time. Remember what they said about the auto smog inspections when they first started: that in California it would only cost $15. That was when the program started. Now the cost is about $50 for the inspection and certificate; a 333% increase. Expect the same from the home labeling program. Origins:  HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the "cap-and-trade energy bill"), is a bill intended to "create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."  The bill was passed by the Houseof Representatives in June 2009, but it has not yet been voted upon by the Senate. HR 2454 The version of the bill passed by the House sets energy efficiency standards benchmarks that must be met by new buildings, both residential and  commercial, constructed after the bill takes effect (i.e., after the bill was passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law).  Contrary to what is claimed above, however, HR 2454 contains no provisions requiring that existing homes "must meet the new energy standards" before they can be re-sold.  Likewise, the bill includes no requirements that an existing residential property undergo an energy usage-related audit or inspection and be assigned a "certificate of efficiency issued by a federal building efficiency inspector" before it can be re-sold or rented. This misinformation about mandatory energy standard retrofits and licensing requirements has been promulgated primarily through a misunderstanding of Section 202 of HR 2454, which is headed "Building Retrofit Program" and calls for the establishment of "standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy."  However, those standards are specifically indicated as being part of the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) program, a program intended to establish state programs to provide cash incentives to property owners who voluntarily choose to make their buildings more energy efficient.   REEP The House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has jurisdiction over the implementation of cap-and-trade legislation, notes in their section-by-section explanation of HR 2454 that Section 202: explanation Establishes the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance program to provide allowances to states to conduct cost-effective building retrofits. Provides that states may use local governments or other agencies or entities to carry out the work and may use flexible forms of financial assistance providing up to 50% of the costs of retrofits, with funding increasing in proportion to efficiency achievement. Provides additional assistance for the retrofitting of historic buildings. Directs the Administrator of EPA to establish standards and guidelines for the program, in consultation with the Secretary of DOE. Allows federal funds provided to disaster victims to qualify as a building owner's contribution toward matching requirements. Requires states to offer preferential access to at least 10% of dedicated program funding to public and assisted housing. Nothing would require a homeowner to audit or retrofit their home to ensure that it meets building code requirements. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) also noted of that section of HR 2454:  NAR [HR 2454] does not require that buildings be retrofitted. Rather, it provides federal funding for states to offer financial incentives, such as loans or grants, for property owners to voluntarily decide to improve energy efficiency. In order to receive the funding, there are conditions on how states can spend the money, such as verification of energy improvements performed by private contractors, but that is only to ensure that taxpayer dollars are actually spent on the purpose for which it is intended (building efficiency improvements). There is no point-of-sale guideline or any other requirement of any sort in the House passed bill. Nowhere does this bill create a federal requirement that a property owner would have to retrofit a property to any guideline at any time  let alone at point of sale. The bill does stipulate federal guidelines to ensure that states spend and verify that bill funding goes to financial incentives for property owners to voluntarily make improvements. An entirely separate bill would have to be drafted, introduced, passed by committees and both houses of Congress, and signed by the President into law in order for the Federal government to go beyond [HR 2454's] financial incentives for voluntary energy improvements. Last updated:  7 September 2010 <!--    Ellen, Daryn.  "Guide to Tipping."   O, The Oprah Magazine.  December 2002. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO On May 4, 2020  as federal leaders debated how to respond to an unprecedented interruption to the U.S. economy due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic  a conservative provocateur tweeted that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wanted the country's next economic relief package to establish "guaranteed minimum incomes" for "illegal aliens." COVID-19 Suggesting that only legal U.S. residents should benefit from federal stimulus packages, Charlie Kirk  who's the founder of the conservative political group Turning Point USA and social media ally of U.S. President Donald Trump  said in the tweet to his roughly 1.7 million followers:   To investigate the validity of his claim, we examined Pelosi's public statements and media appearances to determine if, or when, she used the phrased "guaranteed income"  and under what circumstances. While Kirk provides no explanation for where or when or to whom Pelosi made the remarks in the above-displayed tweet  aside from the tweet's indication with the word "BREAKING" that the House Speaker had made the comments shortly before he composed the post  we considered statements by Pelosi since the beginning of the COVID-19 U.S. outbreak in early 2020 for our investigation. Within that timeframe, she used or referenced the phrase "guaranteed income" in three public statements, two of which were televised interviews. First, the House Speaker spoke the words on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on April 24. In light of the federal government's approval of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020 (and stimulus bills totaling about $500 billion since then), Maher asked Pelosi if the federal government could afford similar economic relief packages for Americans should the pandemic keep businesses closed and systems locked down in the coming months. She responded: April 24 CARES I think that it should be clear that this (COVID-19 stimulus spending so far) is not doing the job that it is set out to do completely, that we may have to consider some other options. Others have proposed a sovereign fund  profits of which go to these unemployed people  or guaranteed income, other things that may not even be as costly as continuing down this path. She provided no further details on the so-called proposals for "guaranteed income," which generally refers to a government-imposed system so that every citizen receives a minimum income  a central idea of the 2020 presidential campaign by former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang. Also in the conversation with Maher, Pelosi did not explicitly state that she wanted the system implemented via Congressional legislation. Andrew Yang Three days later, however, the House Speaker again said the words "guaranteed income" in a televised interview, this time with more specificity on her openness to the social welfare system. In the April 27 segment of MSNBC's "Live with Stephanie Ruhle," while explaining federal leaders' next steps to help small businesses survive the financial crisis, Pelosi said: MSNBC As we go forward, let's see what works: what is operational and what needs other attention. Others have suggested a minimum income for  a guaranteed income for  people. Is that worthy of attention now? Perhaps so, because there are many more people than just in small business and hired by small business, as important as that is to the vitality of our economy. And other people who are not in the public sector, you know, meeting our needs in so many ways, that may need some assistance as well. Soon after she made the statement on live TV, news outlets including CBS News and CNBC published stories with headlines such as, "Pelosi says 'guaranteed income' for Americans is worth considering for coronavirus recovery." In a story by Business Insider about the televised comments, an aid to Pelosi said the House Speaker was referring to proposals that would guarantee worker paychecks  not a sweeping system for universal basic income. CBS News CNBC Business Insider guarantee worker paychecks Then, on May 1, the House Speaker and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus made themselves available to journalists via a conference call to discuss provisions within the CARES Act that exclude immigrants without Social Security numbers from receiving one-time stimulus checks.  May 1 receiving one-time stimulus checks.  In the call, Pelosi expressed support for legislation that would guarantee COVID-19 economic relief to not only people with Social Security numbers but also immigrants and their families who use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), which the IRS assigns to workers without Social Security numbers, to pay annual taxes. According to the IRS, the federal agency issues the numbers "regardless of immigration status, because both resident and nonresident aliens may have a U.S. filing or reporting requirement under the Internal Revenue Code." In other words, some immigrants who use the identification numbers (ITINs)  not social security numbers  to pay taxes may be "undocumented." According to a transcript of the May 1 call, at one point a reporter asked Pelosi: transcript Pretty recently you said that Congress should consider adding some form of guaranteed monthly income into the next coronavirus relief package. So I was wondering if you would extend that form of guaranteed income to undocumented immigrants and non-citizens who file taxes with tax ID numbers, ITINs, instead of Social Security numbers? In her response, Pelosi reiterated that she thinks federal leaders should consider guaranteed income and that she would talk to chairs of House committees about exploring the idea further. Additionally, as they consider future economic benefits for Americans during the pandemic, she said: Any way we go down the path that [ITINs] should apply, whether its direct payments, whether its participation in PPP (the federal Paycheck Protection Plan loan program)... I said it [guaranteed income] should be considered. And, why it should be considered, in my view, is because there is a lot of money, federal taxpayer dollars, going out the door. Whether its PPP, whether its Unemployment Insurance, whether its direct payments ... But, whatever we do, I think the tax number is an easy entre to many more people who deserve it, who should get this, but are being cut out now, in whatever it is that we are putting out there.  Given the nature of and circumstances surrounding the May 1 call, and considering the fact that Pelosi did not mention "guaranteed income" in any other public statements after the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak and before Kirk's viral posting, we determined it to be the most likely source of inspiration for his May 4 tweet. However, though Pelosi said she wants people who use ITINs to receive economic relief from the federal government during the pandemic  a group that would include "undocumented" immigrants  she did not say she wants the government to provide stimulus payments to all "undocumented" immigrants. Additionally, the House Speaker said she wanted federal leaders to consider, not implement, "guaranteed income" for Americans, unlike what Kirk's tweet implies. In sum, given those reasons  as well as the lack of clarity for what Pelosi means by the phrase "guaranteed income," the context in which she made the comments analyzed above, and the fact that she did say she wanted future stimulus money to help foreign people without Social Security numbers  we rate this claim as "false."   Rosenberg, Mattew and Rogers, Katie. "For Charlie Kirk, Conservative Activist, the Virus Is a Cudgel."
 The New York Times. 19 April 2020. Ruhle, Stephanie. "Pelosi says guaranteed income may be worth considering amid coronavirus hardships."
 MSNBC. 27 April 2020. Real Time with Bill Maher. "Speaker Nancy Pelosi | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)."
 YouTube. 24 April 2020. Silverstein, Jason. "Pelosi says 'guaranteed income' for Americans worth considering for coronavirus recovery."
 CBSNews. 28 April 2020. Zeballos-Roig, Joseph. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opens the door to guaranteed income for Americans, saying it's 'worthy of attention.'"
 Business Insider. 27 April 2020. Pelosi, Nancy. "Pelosi Remarks on Press Call with Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Mixed-Status Families on Denial of COVID-19 Stimulus Checks."
 Newsroom. 1 May 2020. Pelosi, Nancy. "Transcript of Pelosi Interview on MSNBC's Live with Stephanie Ruhle."
 Newsroom. 27 April 2020. Pelosi, Nancy. "Transcript of Pelosi Interview on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher."
 Newsroom. 24 April 2020. Internal Revenue Service. "Individual Taxpayer Identification Number."
 Accessed 11 May 2020.