How two GOP senators handled infrastructure fact-checks Some politicians will drop a misleading talking point after being fact-checked. Others will proceed unfazed. We usually try to explain how a politician responded to the process of being fact-checked, whether they corrected a Pinocchio-worthy line or not, because that reaction says something about their regard for accuracy and setting the record straight. Which brings us to this week's fact check about President Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal — and the contrasting responses we got from Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). Blunt had tweeted that the "proposed tax increases in the Biden administration's infrastructure plan could lead to 1 million fewer jobs in the first two years," but his source was a report, from the National Association of Manufacturers, that did not actually analyze the tax increases in Biden's infrastructure plan but rather a different set of proposals. To Blunt's credit, his staff deleted the tweet when we engaged them with our questions. Otherwise, he was headed for Three Pinocchios. Wicker, on the other hand, stuck to his guns with a Three Pinocchio claim. He said on ABC News that Biden's plan to pay for the $2.3 trillion proposal would be "a massive tax increase on small-business job creators." Biden mainly proposes to raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, after President Donald Trump and Republicans lowered it from 35 percent to 21 percent in 2017. Most small businesses are structured as pass-through entities — such as partnerships, S corporations and so forth — meaning that the companies themselves pay no taxes. The owners pay tax on the business income at their individual tax rate and report the business income on their personal tax returns. A relatively small percentage of small businesses file as C-corporations subject to the corporate tax. Of those that do, many owe little in taxes, so Biden's tax increase would not affect them. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Biden says the 'average rapist rapes about six times' This is one of those easy-to-remember statistics that emerge out of academic research. But whether it is accurate is another question. Biden, in mentioning this statistic during a White House event, most probably was referring to a 2002 study, "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists," principally by David Lisak, then at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. (The White House did not respond to questions about where the president got this statistic.) The 2002 report, its methodology and its now-decades-old data have been criticized by other academic researchers. But even leaving aside those issues, Biden mischaracterized its findings. Published almost two decades ago, the Lisak study primarily focused on campus sexual assault, not the "average rapist," as Biden put it. Moreover, the statistics come from a relatively small sample of men who were randomly self-selected as they walked across a college campus. It was not based on a nationwide sample. Obviously, The Fact Checker cannot litigate the debate between Lisak and his critics. But the White House should be more cautious about attributing statistics when they are in serious dispute. The president earned Three Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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