News Reporter: Fact Checker: Thanks to readers, we fact-checked your local congressional town halls. Here's what we found.

Friday, 21 April 2017

Fact Checker: Thanks to readers, we fact-checked your local congressional town halls. Here's what we found.

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

Thanks to readers, we fact-checked your local congressional town halls. Here’s what we found.

When members of Congress when on recess two weeks ago, Fact Checker wanted to know what they were going to tell their constituents at their town halls. After all, you elected them, and they answer to you. But since we’re based in Washington, we enlisted the help of our readers across the country. We were inundated by submissions from coast to coast — thank you!

We ended up fact-checking claims from members of Congress in seven different states. We noticed some common themes that particularly riled up constituents, and led to defensive answers from lawmakers. So we looked into them in four fact-checks this week, and here’s what we found.

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One lawmaker in Oklahoma claimed his constituents by repeatedly asserting that taxpayers don't pay for his salary or his insurance, or his staffs' insurance. Further, he said members of Congress and their staff pay for 100 percent of their health insurance. That’s not correct. Lawmakers and staffers who use the Obamacare exchanges receive a taxpayer-funded subsidy for two-thirds of their premiums, though some lawmakers give the subsidy to charity. We awarded Three Pinocchios.

One senator in Nebraska claimed the “real number” for the national debt is $70 to $75 trillion. Upon digging, we found that he was being a bit misleading because he called long-term obligations (such as entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare) as the “real number” for the debt. Congress has the ability to adjust those obligations in the future. We awarded One Pinocchio.

Constituents also wanted to know: How much are Trump’s travels to Mar-a-Lago costing us? Several lawmakers were asked about this, and we looked into claims made by members in Florida, Arizona and Iowa — particularly, one claim comparing $60,000 in Trump travel costs to Obama’s $97 million in travel costs over eight years. That’s a flawed comparison. The $60,000 represents a fraction of the costs per trip to Mar-a-Lago, and the $97 million represents much bigger costs. We awarded Two Pinocchios.

Lastly, we looked into several claims made by a lawmaker in Oregon. We didn’t issue a Pinocchio rating because his answers were defensible, but we wanted to note some fine print behind his remarks about Medicare and the GOP health care proposal. Dig into it here.

We’re on Google! (Really prominently!)

If you’ve searched a politician’s claim lately on Google, like “Trump and China devaluation,” you may have noticed our fact-checks featured prominently in search results. We’re excited to announce that Google is now highlighting fact-check results from Washington Post Fact Checker, and other reputable, independent fact-checking organizations. This is the latest development in an ongoing partnership between fact-checking organizations and Google. For more, see Google’s announcement.

We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions! You can also reach us via e-mail, Twitter (@myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP or use#FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker or myhlee). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter.