🚀 go-pugleaf

A version of this column appeared in the print edition of The 
Washington Post.

A State of the Union address is often difficult to fact-check, 
no matter who is president. The speech is a product of many 
hands and is carefully vetted, so major errors of fact are 
relatively rare. But State of the Union addresses often are very 
political speeches, an argument for the president�s policies, so 
context is sometimes missing.

Here is a guide through some of President Obama�s more fact-
challenged claims, in the order in which he made them. As is our 
practice with live events, we do not award Pinocchio rankings, 
which are reserved for complete columns.

�After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created 
over 6 million new jobs.�

The president is cherry-picking a number that puts the 
improvement in the economy in the best possible light. The low 
point in jobs was reached in February 2010, and there has indeed 
been a gain of about 6 million jobs since then, according to 
Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But the data also show that 
since the start of his presidency, about 1.2 million jobs have 
been created � and the number of jobs in the economy is about 
3.2 million lower than when the recession began in December 2007.

�We buy � less foreign oil than we have in 20 [years].�

This claim lacks context. The Energy Department has cited a host 
of reasons why foreign oil imports have declined, noting the 
main reason was �a significant contraction in consumption� 
because of the poor economy and changes in efficiency that began 
�two years before the 2008 crisis� � in other words, before 
Obama took office.

�Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to 
reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion � mostly through 
spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 
percent of Americans. As a result, we are more than halfway 
towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that 
economists say we need to stabilize our finances.�

This is debatable, depending on how you do the numbers. Many 
budget analysts measure the decline in deficits from August 2010 
� which was a high point for spending. (Obama�s $2.5 trillion 
figure adds in interest savings from reducing anticipated debts, 
which is different from actually cutting spending or adding 
revenue.)

But agreement starts to break down quickly about the $4 trillion 
goal, which translates to just $1.5 trillion in additional work. 
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a recent 
report, argued that $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 
years has been enacted so far, including tax increases, but that 
another $2.4 trillion was needed to reduce the ratio of debt to 
gross domestic product to 70 percent. The left-leaning Center on 
Budget and Policy Priorities argues instead that $1.5 trillion 
is needed to achieve a 73 percent ratio. Those numbers could 
have real-world consequences for government programs.

�On Medicare, I�m prepared to enact reforms that will achieve 
the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the 
next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-
Bowles commission.�

This carefully crafted phrase recently earned the president a 
prized Geppetto Checkmark. Obama wants us to compare the savings 
in 2022. Granted, that would be six years after Obama�s second 
term ends. But administration officials argue that changes in 
health-care policies take time to achieve budget savings, and 
that the right mix can produce greater savings in the long run.

Using Congressional Budget Office estimates of the president�s 
budget, we see that over 10 years, Obama�s proposals would 
achieve $337 billion from 2013 to 2022, compared to $483 billion 
for Bowles-Simpson in the same time period. (Bowles-Simpson, or 
more accurately the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility 
and Reform, is considered by many in Washington to be the model 
for a bipartisan approach for deficit reduction.)

However, in 2022, both would achieve exactly the same amount of 
savings � $68 billion.

Administration officials say they believe their proposals would 
achieve greater savings than Bowles-Simpson after 2022, which 
would be consistent with the increase in savings toward the end 
of the first 10-year budget window.

�Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 
to our economy.�

This interesting factoid comes from this 2011 study, which we 
have not had a chance to fully study. But about two-thirds of 
the calculated impact comes from �indirect impacts" and �induced 
impacts� (see page ES-3) � which is always the subject of debate 
and conjecture.

�After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers 
have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three.�

Obama again is cherry-picking a jobs number. The low point for 
manufacturing jobs was reached in January 2010, and so there has 
been a gain of 500,000 jobs since then. But BLS data show that 
the number of manufacturing jobs is still 600,000 fewer than 
when Obama took office in the depths of the recession � and 1.8 
million fewer than when the recession began in December 2007.

Moreover, growth in manufacturing jobs has essentially stalled 
since last July.

�I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living 
equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness 
Act this year.�

There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices 
of men and women � such as women tending to leave the workforce 
when they have children � make it difficult to make simple 
comparisons.

The administration�s back-up document for this statement 
asserted that �on average women generally make 23 cents on the 
dollar less than men.� But the White House is using a figure 
(annual wages, from the Census Bureau) that makes the disparity 
appear the greatest. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for 
instance, shows that the gap is 19 cents when looking at weekly 
wages. The gap is even smaller when you look at hourly wages � 
it is 14 cents � but then not every wage earner is paid on an 
hourly basis, so that statistic excludes salaried workers.

In other words, since women in general work fewer hours than men 
in a year, the statistics used by the White House may be less 
reliable for examining the key focus of the legislation � wage 
discrimination. Weekly wages is more of an apples-to-apples 
comparison, but it does not include as many income categories.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis surveyed 
economic literature and concluded that �research suggests that 
the actual gender wage gap (when female workers are compared 
with male workers who have similar characteristics) is much 
lower than the raw wage gap.� They cited one survey, prepared 
for the Labor Department, which concluded that when such 
differences are accounted for, much of the hourly wage gap 
dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar.

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--
Are you obligated as an armed civilian, to defend unarmed 
liberals while you are both under fire by foreign agents of the 
outlaw Obama administration?

No.  Shoot the liberals immediately so they can't stab you in 
the back while you are defending yourself, then return a 
controlled rate of aimed fire.

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