An ad from a PAC headed by tea party Republican Sharron Angle relies on several dubious comparisons to attack the Affordable Care Act’s state-run exchange in Nevada.

• The ad claims Nevada’s exchange “has brought the highest increase in premiums in the country” — 179 percent. The claim relies on an analysis from a conservative think tank that purports to compare pre- and post-ACA insurance rates on the individual market, but the state’s Department of Insurance says the comparison is not “fair” or “accurate.”
• The on-screen text claims that the Nevada exchange offers “33 percent of the benefits of the federal exchange.” All exchange plans — regardless of whether offered on state-based or federally run marketplace exchanges — are required to cover the same set of essential health benefits.
• The ad claims enrollment in the exchange has been far less than what was “projected, and needed.” Enrollment has, indeed, fallen short of initial goals, and even the more modest goals reset in February, but exchange officials say the program is “sustainable” with the current enrollment.

The ad comes from OurVoice PAC, which is chaired by Angle, who lost in a bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010. OurVoice PAC lists its top two goals as removing Reid, a Democrat, from office in the 2016 election, and winning back “a conservative (TEA Party) GOP majority in the United States Senate through the 2014 and 2016 elections.”

The group is also adamantly opposed to the Affordable Care Act, and seeks to repeal “state Obamacare exchanges.” The ad, called “Time for Some Truth,” argues that the Nevada exchange, the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, is a “failure” that must be made “unconstitutional.”

To be sure, the state-run Nevada exchange has gotten off to a rocky start with website problems, long wait times at call centers and lower-than-expected enrollment. But the claims in the ad go too far. We’ll address the ad’s three main claims in order.

Nevada: Highest Premium Increases in the Country?

The ad begins with the narrator stating, “It’s time for some truth: Nevada’s Obamacare exchange has brought the highest increase in premiums in the country.” On screen, it says, “Nevada’s Obamacare Exchange brings 179 percent increase in health insurance premiums for Nevadans; the highest increase in the U.S.”

That statistic is sourced on-screen to a Forbes magazine article, but the original source is an analysis by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. The analysis purports to provide a state-by-state breakdown of the change in insurance rates in the individual market both before and after passage of the Affordable Care Act. So first, viewers should know that the ad’s claim about a 179 percent increase in health insurance premiums refers only to those in the individual market (those who buy insurance on their own as opposed to through an employer). About 124,000 Nevadans, 5 percent of the state’s population, purchased their own insurance in 2012, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Representatives of the Nevada Division of Insurance said that, as a nonpartisan agency, they could not comment specifically on the ad. But they do take issue with the methodology of the Manhattan Institute study, as we did when we wrote about a Heritage Action mailer that cited the same analysis to criticize the Virginia exchange.

The Manhattan Institute report compared the lowest cost premiums on the individual market before the exchanges, adjusted for preexisting condition denials or rate hikes, in each state with the lowest cost premiums on the new exchanges. The methodology explains that the analysis included the five least expensive plans on a county basis before the law took effect and those now being sold on statewide exchanges, excluding catastrophic plans, for 27-, 40- and 64-year-old males and females who don’t smoke.

The institute didn’t adjust for the fact that the ACA requires certain minimum benefits, which many individual market plans don’t meet. By and large, the post-ACA plans are more robust (whether purchasers like or want that or not).

“They are not comparing the same types of plans and products,” said Jake Sunderland, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Insurance. “We don’t think it was a fair and accurate comparison. You can’t compare pre-ACA and ACA plans because they are so different. … Did rates go up? Yes. But so did benefits. They are not the same types of plans.”

The Manhattan Institute analysis didn’t include premiums for catastrophic plans, which could offer a cheaper option to those 27-year-olds. On the exchanges, those under age 30 can purchase catastrophic plans, which cover less than 60 percent of the average cost of health care. But these young adults won’t be eligible for subsidies if they choose such a plan. So, the analysis said the lowest cost premium in the individual market pre-ACA for a 27-year-old male was $71 on average, and that the lowest cost premium on the exchange was $304 on average. A catastrophic plan, however, is as low as $283 for a 27-year-old male (or as low as $172 a month for a 20-year-0ld male).

The figure cited in the ad also doesn’t account for subsidies, which the Manhattan Institute estimates will be available to 48 percent of uninsured Nevadans, or 246,771 people. Subsidies are available to those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which is nearly $46,000 for a single person and about $94,000 for a family of four. We can’t vouch for the claim about those eligible for subsidies in Nevada, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated that about 80 percent of all those buying exchange plans nationwide would qualify for subsidies.

Because of the new minimum coverage requirements, and offsetting subsidies, comparing pre- and post-ACA rates is fraught with difficulty.

“The products in the exchange are going to be significantly different than products available right now,” Nevada Insurance Commissioner Scott Kipper told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last summer. “They’re meeting new federal requirements, as well as wrapping around mandates we have here in the state. It’s very difficult to compare plans and make an apples-to-apples comparison.”

The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation also balked at comparisons of pre- and post-ACA plans in the individual market. It said the changes in this market — including minimum benefit requirements and no denial or price variation based on health status — “make direct comparisons of exchange premiums and existing individual market premiums complicated, and doing so would require speculative assumptions and data that are not publicly available.”

Fewer Choices? Less Benefits?

Next, the ad claims that even with its high cost, the Nevada exchange “has only a third of the health care choices offered by the federal exchange.” On screen, it says, “33 percent of the benefits of the federal exchange.” The voice-over and on-screen text don’t say the same thing.

The on-screen text claims that the Nevada exchange offers “33 percent of the benefits of the federal exchange.” All exchange plans — regardless of whether offered on state-based or federally run marketplace exchanges — are required to cover the same set of essential health benefits. So it’s unclear to which benefits the ad is referring.

The ad offers no on-screen citation for this claim, and we did not hear back from OurVoice after seeking clarification.

As for “choices,” it is difficult to compare the number of insurance carriers and health plans available in the Nevada exchange to state exchanges run by the federal government because the numbers vary from state to state, and even within different parts of each state.

Nevada has fewer insurance carriers participating than the average in state exchanges run by the federal government. There are four insurance carriers participating in the individual market on the Nevada exchange (though only two in rural areas of the state). On average, there are eight different health insurance issuers participating in each of the state exchanges run by the federal government, although it ranges from a low of one to a high of 13.

The number of qualified health plans offered in Nevada (excluding catastrophic plans) ranges from 87 in counties like Clark and Washoe (the homes of Las Vegas and Reno, respectively) to 12 in many of the rural counties. The number ranges from a low of six to a high of 169 plans in rating areas of federally run state exchanges. On average, individuals and families in the 36 federally run state exchanges will have 53 qualified health plans from which to choose within their rating area. We could find no comparable statewide average for Nevada.

The larger point is that more densely populated states generally have more carriers and plan options than less densely populated states, and urban areas generally have more choices than rural areas. These decisions are made by the insurance companies, not the state or federal exchanges. The insurance companies decide whether they want to participate.

“Each carrier has the option to offer a plan,” CJ Bawden, a spokesman for the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, told us in a phone interview. “That’s part of the free market we have in this country.”

Enrollment

Finally, the OurVoice ad’s narrator claims, “It’s no surprise the enrollment in Nevada’s exchange is a fraction of what was projected, and needed.” On screen is a graphic showing enrollment of 118,000 was “needed,” but only 14,999 had “signed up.”

It’s true that the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange initially set a goal of 118,000 enrollees by March 31. That goal was later revised to 50,000 in February by the then-executive director (who later resigned).

As of March 15, 33,053 people had selected plans through the Nevada exchange, and 22,533 of them had made payments, said Bawden, the Nevada exchange spokesman. So there’s no question enrollment has fallen short of the stated goals — even the lower, revised goal of 50,000. But what’s “needed”?

“That [118,000] was the goal,” Bawden said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with sustainability. It [the exchange] is sustainable at the enrollment it has right now.”

In other words, it would certainly be fair to criticize the Nevada exchange for falling short of enrollment goals, but the ad goes too far by claiming enrollment has fallen short of what the state says is “needed.”

— Robert Farley

The post Silver State Slipups appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In the interview — which NBC taped a day before the Jan. 8 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, Ariz. — Reid spoke about the latest employment numbers. The economy added 113,000 private sector jobs in the month of December, dropping the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent. But Reid went too far in crediting the manufacturing sector for the latest job gains.

Reid: The economy is far from being good. It’s better, but it’s far from being good. That’s why I think we have to focus like a laser on creating jobs. What do you need to do? We have to make sure that we continue to help the manufacturing base. These job numbers that came out this week, they say that most of the jobs in the private sector created were in the manufacturing sector. That’s good.

That is good, but not as good as Reid portrays. Most of the jobs in the private sector were not created in manufacturing.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that most of the jobs were created in the leisure and hospitality sector, which gained 47,000 jobs, and education and health services, which gained 44,000 jobs. Manufacturing jobs were up by only 10,000. "Manufacturing employment changed little over the month," the BLS said in a Jan. 7 press release.

Manufacturing jobs declined by 4,000 in October and 8,000 in November, so the December increase was welcome news. Since December 2009, the economy has added 136,000 manufacturing jobs — 10 percent of the 1.3 million private sector jobs created in that 12-month span. But again, there were larger job gains during that time in other sectors, including education and health services (422,000), professional and business services (366,000), and leisure and hospitality (240,000).

As for the tea party, the Nevada Democrat dismissed the victories of candidates affiliated with the movement.

Reid: I don’t think the tea party had the vigor and support that people thought it would. You know, a couple of them won, but most of them lost.

Reid, who defeated tea party-backed candidate Sharron Angle, is correct that "most of them lost." About two-thirds of all tea party-affiliated candidates lost, according to an NBC analysis. But he grossly exaggerates when he says only "a couple of them won."

Of those identified by NBC as being affiliated with the tea party, five of the 10 Senate candidates and 43 of the 130 House candidates won election. That’s a total of 48 winning tea party-backed candidates. (Our figures include House candidates Joe Walsh of Illinois, Ann Marie Buerkle of New York and Blake Farenthold of Texas — all of whom won, but whose races were listed as "undecided" by NBC.)

The post Reid Wrong on Jobs, Tea Party appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Republican Sharron Angle says in a TV ad that Nevada Sen. Harry Reid "voted to raise taxes" 300 times. A "staggering 300 times." He didn't.

We reviewed the 304 votes provided by the Angle campaign and found its final tally was padded:

• 86 votes were against proposed tax cuts, not votes to raise taxes. That includes a few votes to cut taxes — just not as much as the Republicans wanted or the kind of taxes that the Republicans were seeking to cut.
• 153 votes were on concurrent budget resolutions, which are votes on non-binding resolutions that do not go to the president and do not have the force of law. By themselves, they could have not raised taxes.
• 19 votes were duplicates. This includes procedural votes on the same provisions — such as three votes in 1998 to raise the cigarette tax by $1.10 a pack. It also includes votes for or against a Senate bill and the House-Senate conference report on the same bill.

So, how many times did Reid vote to raise taxes? We found 51 of the 300 votes could fairly be labeled as such. And that's being generous. That number includes, for example, votes on bills that raised taxes for some and lowered taxes for others. And it includes six votes on GOP amendments to the stimulus bill — which overall contained $280 billion in tax relief.

Analysis

It has become a staple of GOP attacks on "liberal" or "tax-and-spend" Democrats to tally up the number of times he or she voted to raise taxes. We saw it during the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns against Sens. John Kerry (385 votes) and Barack Obama (94 votes). In both cases, we found "tax tally trickery," as we called it, to pad the numbers, and those same methods have been employed by Angle's campaign against Reid.

[TET ]

Angle for Senate TV Ad: "300"

Announcer: You're looking at every time Harry Reid voted to raise taxes. Income taxes, taxes on social security, taxes on small business, even the dreaded death tax. A staggering 300 times Reid voted to raise taxes. And it's a big reason for Nevada's economic meltdown. Now Reid and Pelosi are planning to raise taxes on 34 million families right after the election. Let's stop Harry Reid from ever raising our taxes again. [/TET]

The Angle ad — which first aired Oct. 13 and is simply called "300" — opens with bill and resolution numbers scrolling quickly across the screen as the announcer says: "You're looking at every time Harry Reid voted to raise taxes." But looks can be deceiving.

Opposing Tax Cuts Not the Same as 'Raising Taxes'

A quick way to get to 300 votes is to include every attempt by the Republicans to cut taxes since 1983 — which is when Reid first joined Congress as a member of the House of Representatives. He later became a senator. For example, the Angle campaign claims Reid voted to raise taxes 16 times in 1995 on various budget bills and amendments that concluded with Senate passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, a budget bill for fiscal year 1996 that contained $245 billion in tax cuts.

But all of Reid's 16 votes were either to block or reduce the scope of the proposed tax cuts. Angle's campaign cites, for example, Reid's vote for an amendment (No. 2785) offered by Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia that would have increased benefits for mentally disabled veterans and offset the cost by limiting the proposed tax cuts to only those families earning less than $100,000. Reid’s vote would not have raised taxes, but rather it would have cut taxes and increased benefits to mentally disabled veterans.

Also worth noting, the Angle campaign does not list a vote Reid cast against a tax hike in the Balanced Budget Act. The budget bill included tighter eligibility restrictions on the Earned Income Tax credit for the working poor to save $43 billion over seven years. That would have effectively raised income taxes on some working poor. Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey sought to send the bill back to the Finance Committee to remove the restrictions. But the GOP leadership succeeded in tabling and effectively killing Bradley’s amendment.

Angle's campaign also padded its count with votes on major tax-cut legislation in 1999 (seven votes), 2001 (21 votes) and 2003 (18 votes). In all, we found 86 votes that either opposed tax cuts or tried to reduce the scope of the proposed tax cuts.

In 1999, for example, the Senate passed a bill that would have cut taxes by $792 billion over 10 years. President Bill Clinton had proposed a $250 billion tax cut over 10 years and threatened to veto the $792 billion bill. So, the debate wasn’t about whether to cut taxes but how large the tax cuts should be. Nevertheless, the Angle campaign claims Reid “voted to raise taxes” in one instance because he supported an amendment offered by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts that would have reduced the size of the GOP tax cuts in order to provide prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients. That’s not raising taxes. Reid's votes would have cut taxes (although not as much as the Republicans wanted) and provided prescription drug coverage for seniors. (This was at a time of budget surpluses.)

Non-binding Resolutions

The majority of the votes Angle counts toward raising taxes — 153 of the 300 — were not bills at all, but rather non-binding concurrent budget resolutions that did not go to the president and did not carry the force of law. The resolutions serve as guidelines or a blueprint for the appropriations and tax-writing committees to follow when writing the annual spending bills. But they are non-binding.

Similarly, there were nine votes on non-binding bills that stated a “sense of the Senate” — such as a vote in 1995 on an amendment (No. 362) that expressed the sense of the Senate that tax cuts would "hinder efforts to reduce the federal deficit." Those, too, do not carry the force of law.

It's true that such votes indicate support for tax increases or opposition to tax cuts, but those votes by themselves do not raise or cut taxes.

Double-Counting

Angle’s list also includes 19 duplicate votes. For example, she counts three votes on a tobacco bill that Reid and other Democrats supported in 1998. But they were all procedural votes that failed to advance the same bill: S. 1415, or the National Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act, which would have raised taxes by $1.10 per pack of cigarettes. Vote 162 was a procedural vote to advance the tobacco bill. The measure failed, and the bill did not come to a floor vote. Twice, then-Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota attempted to insert the exact same language of the failed tobacco bill into two other bills: the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act (vote 164) and the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (vote 198). All three attempts failed. Angle counted that as three votes to raise taxes; we counted it as one.

There were also 10 times when Angle counted both the vote on the Senate bill and Reid’s vote on the House-Senate conference report on the same bill. You can count passage of the Senate bill or the conference report, but not both, since it is a vote on the same bill. That padded the count by 10 votes. (Some of the duplicates were also on tax-cut measures.)

We did count, however, the numerous times when Reid voted on individual tax-raising measures that were added to the bill and the final vote on that bill.

When Did Reid Raise Taxes?

Reid did vote to raise taxes, of course. But not all tax hikes are equal:

• Six votes to raise taxes were on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the much-maligned stimulus bill championed by Reid. We counted those. But we should note that the bill contained $280 million in tax cuts, and Angle doesn’t give Reid credit, of course, for his vote on the bill. According to a February 2009 report by the tax-information company CCH, the $280 billion in tax relief represented 35 percent of the bill’s total cost. That includes payroll tax cuts for most Americans and business tax cuts and credits designed to stimulate spending and hiring. Still, Angle counts only the times Reid blocked attempts by the Republicans to cut different taxes.
• Six of the votes would have raised taxes only on those earning more than $1 million annually. Typically, the new additional revenue would have gone to fund popular programs. Reid, for example, voted in 2004 to reduce the existing tax cuts enacted in 2001 for millionaires to provide an additional $15.8 billion to fund police, fire, and other state and local emergency forces.

We also agreed to include votes on amendments and bills that raised taxes for some, while cutting them for others. For example, Reid voted in 1995 for a motion offered by Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey that sought to expand tax deductions for home-based businesses but raise the corporate tax rate from 28 percent to 32 percent. Two other votes would have imposed a "windfall profit tax" on oil companies with the new revenue going to provide consumer rebates or a $100 tax credit for each personal exemption claimed by all taxpayers.

We also included in our tax-raising tally Reid’s votes against any attempts to extend or make permanent existing tax cuts, such the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts during the Bush administration. We recognize that most Democrats would not view these as tax increases, but the public does.

– by Eugene Kiely and Michael Morse, with Lara Seligman and Joshua Goldman

Sources

U.S. Senate. "Glossary: Concurrent resolution." Accessed 22 Oct 2010.

FactCheck.org. "Bush Accuses Kerry of 350 votes for ‘higher taxes.’ Higher than what?" 23 Mar 2004.

Robertson, Lori. "Tax Tally Trickery." FactCheck.org. 3 Jul 2008.

Office of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. "About Harry Reid." Accessed 22 Oct 2010.

U.S. House. "H.R. 2491, Balanced Budget Act of 1995." 16 Nov 1995.

Purdum, Todd S. "President Warns Congress to Drop Some Tax Cuts." New York Times. 29 Oct 1995.

U.S. Senate. S.Amdt 2785 to H.R. 2099, roll call #466. 27 Sep 1995.

U.S. Congressional Record. 26 Sep 1995: 14320-14321

U.S. Senate. S.1357, roll call #501. 26 Oct 1995.

Hosler, Karen. "Senate puts own stamp on spending GOP majority passes balanced-budget bill after House success." Baltimore Sun. 28 Oct 1995.

U.S. Congressional Record. 26 Oct 1995: 15777-15778

Lightman, David. "Senate Approves Huge Tax Cut." Hartford Courant. 31 Jul 1999.

Stevenson, Richard W. "G.O.P. to Seek Cut in Capital Gains Tax." New York Times. 8 Jul 1999.

"Presidential Statement on the Senate Vote on Tax Cuts." Press release. William J. Clinton Presidential Center. 30 Jul 1999.

U.S. Senate. S.1429, roll call #231. 29 Jul 1999.

U.S. Congressional Record. 29 Jul 1999: 9682-9683.

Congressional Budget Office. "Budget and Economic Outlook: Historical Budget Data." Jan 2010.

U.S. Senate. S.Amdt. 362 to S.Amdt. 347 to S. 4 , roll call #110. 22 Mar 1995.

U.S. Congressional Record. 21 Mar 1995: 4284.

GovTrack.us. S. 1415, National Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act. 7 Nov 1997. Accessed 22 Oct 2010.

U.S. Senate. S.1415, roll call #162. 17 Jun 1998.

U.S. Senate. S. 2138, roll call #164. 18 Jun 1998.

U.S. Senate. S.Amdt. 2729 to S. 2159, roll call #198. 14 Jul 1998.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Pub. L. 111-5. 17 Feb 2010.

"President Signs Massive Stimulus Bill; Nearly $300 Billion in Tax Relief." CCHGroup.com. 17 Feb 2010.

IRS. "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Information Center." 6 Jul 2010.

U.S. Senate. S.Amdt. 3604 to H.R. 4567, roll call #170. 9 Sep 2004.

U.S. Senate. S.1357, roll call #550. 27 Oct 1995.

U.S. Congressional Record. 27 Oct 1995: 16032.

U.S. Congressional Record. 27 Oct 1995: 16033.

GovTrack.us. S.Amdt. 2587: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. 16 Nov 2005

GovTrack.us. S.Amdt. 2635: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. 17 Nov 2005

The post Tall Tax Tales appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Angle, the Republican who’s trying to win Democrat Reid’s seat, is running both ads in Nevada as the candidates enter the final stretch of one of the closest Senate races in the nation.

A basic premise of both ads is true: Reid has come a long way from his dirt-poor, son-of-a-coal-miner childhood. His most recent financial disclosure statement indicates that in 2009, his assets (including retirement plans, but not including personal residences) were worth between $3.1 million and $6.7 million; Senate rules require values to be reported only within ranges, so a more precise number is difficult to come by. Either way, he is affluent by just about anyone’s standards – except, perhaps, those of the U.S. Senate, where Reid ranked 37th in personal wealth in 2008, and 114th in Congress overall. It’s a rarefied club indeed.

It’s also true — as both ads claim — that Reid made $1 million in a real-estate deal, nearly tripling his money in a few years during the state’s boom. But while the Associated Press described the profit as a "windfall," the ads don’t back up their claims that it was "shady" or a "sweetheart deal." The fact is Reid wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing, aside from some omissions from financial disclosure reports that were corrected.

Modern Family Ethics

Angle’s "Harry vs. You" ad alleges that Reid has been "pushing loopholes in ethics laws for his own family."

That charge, which has to do with lobbying by Reid’s sons, is false. The truth is that Reid banned family members from lobbying his staff, adhering to a stricter standard than Senate rules required.

The on-screen citation for the claim is a 2003 Los Angeles Times story about Reid’s four sons and his son-in-law. At the time, all of Reid’s sons worked at Nevada’s largest law firm, and the son-in-law was a lawyer with another firm. They all represented significant interests in Nevada that stood to gain from Reid’s actions: developers and municipalities that were seeking public-private land swaps, mining interests trying to stave off tighter regulation, gaming companies that didn’t want Congress to ban college betting.

The story certainly paints a picture of a lawmaker’s family doing well in the influence game. But it doesn’t say that Reid sought, created, backed or exploited "loopholes" in ethics laws for his relatives. Here’s what it does say:

Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2003: In September 2001, Reid sent a letter to his staff telling them that he had sought guidance from the Senate Ethics Committee and had been advised that there was no restriction on lobbying by a relative of a senator. He told his staff to treat his family members who were lobbyists no better or worse than any other lobbyist.

Soon after The Times interviewed him about his children’s activities last fall, the senator decided to ban relatives from lobbying his office entirely.

The story doesn’t even hint that Reid used ethics loopholes to his family’s advantage. Reid (who was chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee at the time) was simply following the Ethics Committee’s rules, until queried about it by the newspaper.

At that point, he changed his practice and set rules that were stricter than necessary to avoid "even the appearance of impropriety," his chief of staff said.

At the time, Republicans didn’t jump on the story. "There’s really no smoking gun there," said a Republican political consultant in the state.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported in January 2004 that Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, whose son Scott was a lobbyist on pharmaceutical and asbestos issues, said he would see no problem in having his son lobby him and that Congress shouldn’t set rules in that area.

We take no position on whether restrictions on lobbying by family members should exist, but the fact is that Reid wasn’t working any "loopholes" on the matter. It was perfectly legal for his sons and son-in-law to contact his office to advocate for projects on which they were working. When Reid took the initiative to cut off any such contact, he was going beyond what the rules required.

(None of the Reid offspring is still at the firm employing them at the time the Los Angeles Times story was written. One of Reid’s sons, Rory, is now chairman of the Clark County Commission and the Democratic candidate for Nevada governor.)

Land Deal

The "Harry vs. You" ad accuses Reid of "making a million dollars from a sweetheart land deal," while on screen we see a quote attributed to the Associated Press: "Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years." The second ad, "Public Servant," opens by asking, "How did Harry Reid get so wealthy on a public servant’s income?" The screen cuts to a clip of Reid from his Oct. 14 debate with Angle, in which he says: "I did a very good job of investing." The narrator snaps back, "Really? Like the shady deal where Reid made an astronomical million bucks doing nothing."

AP did call the transaction a "windfall" for Reid, but it didn’t call it a "sweetheart" deal or a "shady" one, and the evidence that it was either of those is lacking. There’s also no basis for the second ad’s implication of corruption on Reid’s part.

The AP’s story about Reid’s land transactions with his friend Jay Brown came out in 2006. According to the article, Reid bought what the AP called "undeveloped residential property on Las Vegas’ booming outskirts" in 1998 for about $400,000, and bought a second, adjacent parcel jointly with Brown, a former casino lawyer. In 2001, Reid sold the first parcel for the same price to a holding company that Brown created, AP said. Then in 2004, Brown’s company sold the land to other developers, and Reid got $1.1 million of the proceeds. So according to the records that AP looked at, it seemed as though Reid got his $400,000 back when he sold the land to the company in 2001, and also got $1.1 million on top of that when the company sold the land several years later, even though he no longer owned it.

On top of that, AP reported, Reid never disclosed on his Senate financial disclosure statement the 2001 sale of the land to the holding company, and when he collected the $1.1 million in 2004, he reported it on that year’s statement as a sale of land he owned personally.

Reid’s office, however, said no money changed hands when Reid transferred the land to the holding company in 2001; instead, Reid got an ownership stake in the company equal to the value of his land. If true, that means Reid didn’t get paid for the property until the company sold it in 2004, when he received nearly triple what he paid for it originally. Reed’s aides said he continued to pay taxes on the property and didn’t disclose the change in ownership because he considered it a "technical transfer."

Reid asked the Senate Ethics Committee whether he should amend his annual financial disclosure statements to reflect what had actually happened with the land. Then several days later, without waiting for a response from the panel, Reid did adjust his disclosure statement to reflect the circumstances of the land transfer, and also reported two much smaller land deals that had previously been unknown to the public. That pretty much put an end to press stories about the deal, until the matter was recently revived by the Angle campaign.

Collecting a profit of almost twice the original investment may indeed qualify as a "windfall." Many who bought land in Las Vegas as the real estate bubble swelled during this time had similar good fortune. But was it a "sweetheart land deal," as one of Angle’s ads claims, or a "shady deal," as the other one says? The AP story contains no interviews with witnesses or any other information that indicates anything fishy took place, only that there was a discrepancy between records in Nevada and Reid’s Senate financial disclosure statement on this parcel of land. Reid was never charged with any ethics or legal violations, nor – at least according to public records – was he even investigated in connection with the matter.

Reid’s most recent financial disclosure statement and his previous ones list numerous pieces of property, mining patents, municipal bonds, mutual funds and other investments he’s made over the years. There’s no public record that questions have been raised by ethics or law enforcement bodies about his handling of any of them — and certainly nothing to justify the implication in Angle’s ad that Reid took advantage of his position as a public servant to get rich.

Ritz-y Digs

"Harry vs. You" claims that Reid is "living large in the DC Ritz-Carlton," while "you" are "worried about paying the mortgage." The other ad, "Public Servant," claims Reid "lives in a $1 million Washington Ritz-Carlton condo."

That’s true, but there’s more to the story. Reid does own a condo at the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton where he stays when he’s in Washington – and given the Senate calendar, that’s quite a lot. He bought it in 2001 for $750,000. Its current assessed value is just over $1 million, property tax records show. Those same records indicate that he does not claim the homestead exemption for the condo. His campaign says that’s because his principal home is in Searchlight, Nev., where he and his wife, Landra, own a two-bedroom, one-story house that they built on 4.7 acres of land in 2002. The Clark County tax assessor valued the property at $260,846 for 2010-2011 — about $5,500 less than the previous year, perhaps due in part to the real-estate bust that has hit the state so hard. Searchlight (population 576, according to the 2000 census) is where Reid grew up.

Reid’s office issued a statement Oct. 19 in response to Angle’s attacks: “Harry Reid was born, raised and still lives in Searchlight today. Period. Everyone in Nevada knows that and no matter how hard Angle may try, she can’t take that away from him.”

Context, Please

Finally, one of Angle’s ads shows Reid saying, "I’ve been on a fixed income since I went to Washington." He said that after being attacked by Angle during their Oct. 14 debate for becoming "so wealthy on a government payroll." Most people wouldn’t think of a senator’s salary (as majority leader, he now makes $193,400) as a "fixed income." That term is usually applied to people living on much smaller payments, such as those from Social Security.

The quote has certainly flown through the blogosphere. But Reid, who generally has an awkward way with words, said more than that.

Reid, Oct. 14: I think most everyone knows I was a very successful lawyer. I did a very good job in investing. I’ve been on a fixed income since I went to Washington. I’ve lived off of what I made in the private sector. I put my five kids through 100 semesters of school, and I paid for every penny of it. So her suggestion that I made money being a Senator is simply false, and I’m really disappointed that she would suggest that.

We’ll let readers judge whether Reid’s full response tempers his "fixed income" quote.

The post Angle Misleads on ‘Ethics Loopholes,’ ‘Shady’ Land Deal appeared first on FactCheck.org.

It’s true that Reid voted to table an amendment that would have barred convicted sex offenders from getting coverage for drugs like Viagra from health plans sold through state-based exchanges. But that measure was one of a series of amendments that Republicans proposed in an effort to delay passage of the health care legislation.

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, was not intended to counter some provision of the law that provided these drugs to convicted sex offenders. There’s nothing in the legislation that supports, requires or even mentions such prescriptions. It also is true that the Congressional Research Service said that nothing in the health care law would mandate that health plans "limit the type of benefits that can be offered based on the plan beneficiary’s prior criminal convictions." The new law will be just like the old: Convicts who are not in prison, including those convicted of sex offenses, will be able to buy any health plan they choose, some of which may cover drugs that treat erectile dysfunction. And former prisoners will be able to buy plans from the state-administered health exchanges with tax subsidies, if they qualify. The health exchanges aren’t set up yet, so it’s not clear whether Viagra (and similar drugs) will be one of the medications exchange plans cover.

Reid was certainly against the political move behind this amendment — his office released a statement described it as Republicans "throwing a temper tantrum." He and 56 others — all Democrats and one Independent — voted to table the amendment and move on to a vote on the reconciliation bill itself. But it’s a serious leap to conclude that Reid is therefore in favor of sex offender sex enhancement. 

Some of the stalling amendments, including this one, were written so as to be hard for Democrats to vote against without embarrassment. And Reid isn’t the first politician to have the vote used against him. In May, Don Benton, a Republican Senate hopeful from Washington state, made a similar claim about his opponent, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. We wrote that "Murray voted against a Viagra ban, and not explicitly to provide Viagra, as this ad claims." The same is true of Harry Reid.

The post Angle’s Shocking – and Misleading – Viagra Claim appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In the Nevada Senate race, the state’s economy — it has the highest unemployment in the country — has prompted two new ads that deal with illegal immigration.

• Republican challenger Sharron Angle falsely claims Sen. Harry Reid voted to give “special tax breaks to illegal aliens." He did nothing of the kind. In fact, Reid sponsored an amendment to the comprehensive immigration bill in 2007 that made it clear that illegal immigrants remain ineligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers.
• Reid’s response ad repeats his claim that Angle wants to "wipe out Social Security and Medicare" — although she has moderated her initial statements that she wants to phase out the programs. The ad is misleading when it juxtaposes images of the elderly with this claim, since Angle has always — then and now — pledged to honor the commitment to current retirees.

Note: This is the second in an occasional "Toss-ups" series, in which we will focus on ads appearing in the tightest Senate races.

Analysis

Angle’s ad — “Best Friends,” which first aired Sept. 16 — begins ominously, as the announcer intones: “Illegals sneaking across our border, putting American’s safety and jobs at risk." Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 14.4 percent, and Angle has made it a recurring theme in her ads. This time, she uses it to criticize Reid’s votes on comprehensive immigration legislation that would have given millions of illegal immigrants the chance to remain here legally and, ultimately, gain citizenship.

[TET ]

Friends of Sharron Angle TV Ad: "Best Friend"

Announcer: Illegals sneaking across our border putting Americans’ safety and jobs at risk. And what does Harry Reid do? He comes out opposed to Arizona’s tough new immigration law. Nevada families struggling with the nation’s highest unemployment. Harry Reid, he votes to give special tax breaks to illegal aliens, and to give illegals Social Security benefits, even for the time they were here illegally. Harry Reid, the best friend an illegal alien ever had.

[/TET]

No ‘Special Tax Breaks’

In particular, the ad attacks Reid’s "votes to give special tax breaks to illegal aliens.” Angle is primarily referring to the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers. But Reid is not proposing to pay benefits to illegal immigrants — not until and unless they become U.S. citizens or are granted legal status. And these are not “special tax breaks” for illegals, but rather existing tax credits for low-income legal residents.

What’s the basis for Angle’s claim? She points to the 2006 and 2007 immigration bills. Both would have created a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans. In the context of that legislation, there was a debate about whether former illegal immigrants who received probationary Z visas as part of a four-step process to become legal permanent residents would be eligible for this tax credit. But illegal immigrants are not eligible for the credit, and the bill would not have changed that.

According to a 2007 report by the conservative Heritage Foundation, “all individuals in probationary Z visa status will be given lawful Social Security numbers, which makes the Z visa holder immediately eligible for… the EITC.” The law would have to be specifically amended for former illegal immigrants whose status is adjusted to not be eligible for the EITC.

The Angle campaign refers specifically to two amendments offered by Republican senators during the 2006 debate. Reid voted against both:

• Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama offered an amendment, which failed, that would have banned legal residents who lived here illegally prior to Jan. 7, 2004, from ever receiving the EITC.
• Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada offered an amendment, which passed, that would have banned legal residents who once lived here illegally from retroactively claiming a tax refund or credit prior to 2006. 

Both amendments apply to those whose status would have been adjusted to make them legal as a result of the immigration bills being debated. So, Angle’s ad is wrong to say Reid "votes to give special tax breaks to illegal aliens."

And there is nothing "special" about the EITC, which is available to all workers living here legally. Under the immigration bill, those granted probationary Z visas — the first legal step toward citizenship — would receive the same tax break as other low-income legal residents who qualify.

The Angle campaign also pointed to an amendment Reid proposed, but that amendment backs up Reid’s claim that he does not support giving the EITC to illegal immigrants. Reid’s amendment, which passed 57-40, clarified the status of the EITC: “Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, may be construed to modify any provision of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 which prohibits illegal aliens from qualifying for the earned income tax credit under section 32 of such Code.”

No ‘Social Security for Illegals,’ Either

Angle’s ad also charges that Reid voted “to give illegals Social Security benefits.” That’s false.

Yes, Reid voted against Ensign amendments in 2006 and 2007 that would have barred someone living here legally from receiving Social Security credits for work done while that person was living in the country illegally. The key phrase in that sentence is living here legally. Reid did not propose giving Social Security to illegal immigrants until and unless they are living here legally and have paid into the system long enough to become eligible for benefits.

According to the same report released by the Heritage Foundation: “All individuals placed in probationary Z visa status will be given lawful Social Security numbers. …Upon receipt of a lawful Social Security number, Z visa holders will also be granted the right to earn entitlement to future Social Security and Medicare benefits. After 10 years of employment, they will become fully eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits, although in most cases the benefits will not commence until the individual reaches age 67.”

What the ad does get right is that Reid would give those on the path to citizenship benefits “for the time they were here illegally.” That is true.

Reid’s Response

Reid responded to Angle’s immigration ad with one of his own called “400 miles.” While replaying the opening portion of the Angle ad, the announcer says: “This fence? It’s Harry Reid who got 400 miles of new barriers, 4,000 new border agents, drones, even the National Guard.” And it is true that Reid voted for bills that added to U.S. border security resources.

[TET ]

Friends for Harry Reid TV Ad: "400 Miles"

Announcer: Sharron Angle’s new attack ad. More crazy talk and outright lies. This fence? It’s Harry Reid who got 400 miles of new barriers, 4,000 new border agents, drones, even the National Guard. And Reid never has and never will support Social Security for illegal immigrants. He wrote the bill opposing it. Remember, it’s Sharron Angle who said she’d wipe out Social Security and Medicare, and Harry Reid who’s protecting it for Americans.

[/TET]

Reid’s ad also claims that he "never has and never will support Social Security for illegal immigrants" — giving himself a perfect segue: “Remember, it’s Sharron Angle who said she’d wipe out Social Security and Medicare.” This has been a favorite topic for Reid. 

In June, we wrote about a similar claim Reid made in a TV ad that said Angle wanted to “get rid of Medicare and Social Security.”

Both Reid ads — then and now — mislead viewers when they juxtapose images of the elderly with this claim. As we wrote before, this “could easily mislead senior citizens into thinking that their benefits are at risk, but Angle has repeatedly pledged to fulfill contracts with those currently receiving Social Security benefits.”

Secondly, Angle has moderated her position since we last wrote about her comments on Social Security. At the time, she advocated phasing out the current Social Security system. Older workers would have the option to invest in private individual retirement accounts, but younger workers would have no choice but private accounts. Now, she talks about keeping Social Security and making individual retirement accounts voluntary for all workers, even younger ones, as a recent article in the Las Vegas Journal-Review states.

Las Vegas Journal-Review, Aug. 13: Angle said she wants to save Social Security by restoring $2.5 trillion to its trust fund, and not kill it, although in the spring she had called for "transitioning out" of the program. She also says she wants to let young workers opt out of Social Security and open personal accounts.

While Angle also has said she would like to phase out Medicare, she has not offered details for how to do that or how a new health care program for the elderly would operate.

— by Michael Morse

Sources

U.S. Internal Revenue Service. "Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Questions and Answers." Updated 23 Mar 2010, accessed 23 Sept 2010.

U.S. Senate. "S. 2611 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006." 7 Apr 2006.

U.S. Senate. "S. 1348 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007." 9 May 2007.

Rector, Robert. "Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers at Least $2.6 Trillion." Heritage Foundation. 6 Jun 2007.

U.S. Congressional Record. 23 May 2006: 4973-4974

U.S. Congressional Record. 23 May 2006: 4980

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT.1331, To clarify the application of the Earned Income Tax Credit." 6 Jun 2007.

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT.1331, roll call vote #191." 6 Jun 2007.

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT.3985, roll call vote #130." 18 May 2006.

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT.2355, roll call vote #263." 19 Jul 2007.

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT 4108, roll call vote #154." 25 May 2006.

U.S. Senate. "S.AMDT 4136, roll call vote #155." 25 May 2006.

Bank, Justin. "Republican Campaign Theme Debunked: Social Security for Illegal Immigrants." FactCheck.org. 11 Oct 2006.

Ferguson, Kelsey. "Reid Attacks Angle on Social Security."  FactCheck.org. 18 Jun 2010.

Myers, Laura. "U.S. Senate campaign: Angle, Reid still tight." Las Vegas Review-Journal. 13 Aug 2010.

The post Toss-ups: Nevada appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Like Angle’s, Reid’s ad covers familiar ground. All of its claims are rooted in true statements or proposals. But Reid goes too far in one case. Angle did not say that "Medicare and Social Security violate the Ten Commandments." That’s his campaign’s interpretation of what she said.

Angle’s ad blames Reid (together with Pelosi and Obama) for "taxpayer-funded bailouts for Wall Street." But in fact the bailout legislation had wide bipartisan support. It’s true that Reid and Pelosi supported the bailout — known formally as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110–343), as did then-Senator Obama. But so did the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and most Senate Republicans. In the House, it was backed by GOP Leader John Boehner and 90 other Republican House members (108 voted against it). The bailout bill was signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 3, 2008, and he said he was grateful to "members of both parties in both Houses" for passing the legislation, which his Treasury Department officials urgently sought. "By coming together on this legislation, we have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said.

The ad also claims that the stimulus measure (which Obama signed and nearly all Republicans opposed) has "failed." But in fact the bill has succeeded, at least to some extent. It’s true that the unemployment rate remains at 9.5 percent nationally as of last month, but it’s also true that the jobless rate has declined from its peak of 10.1 percent last October. Furthermore, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the stimulus bill "[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points" and "[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million."

The ad goes on to speak of "spending so reckless it led to record deficits and skyrocketing unemployment." It’s true that the federal deficit for the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30 was $1.41 trillion, a record. And the White House Office of Management and Budget recently estimated that the deficit will set a new record of $1.47 trillion this year, the figure shown in the ad’s graphics. But as we just noted, CBO also says the stimulus spending led to lower unemployment, not higher. And as we’ve noted before, CBO estimated that the deficit was running at $1.2 trillion when Obama took office. Bush’s tax cuts and war spending were major factors. (Footnote: Angle’s ad puts the cost of the stimulus at $787 billion, which was the original price tag. CBO now estimates it will cost $814 billion. The cost is spread over several years.)

Extreme or Just Conservative?

Reid’s ad — as the title "Extreme" suggests — seeks to portray Angle as out of the mainstream. Reid repeatedly has used her statements on Social Security and Medicare as Exhibit A in his case against her, as we have written about before.

But in this instance he is reading too much into her comments about entitlement programs, when he claims Angle "says that Medicare and Social Security violate the Ten Commandments." The ad is referring to an April interview she had with TruNews Christian Radio. Angle said that Obama was putting government ahead of God — violating the First Commandment. The First Commandment says, "You shall have no other gods before me." The Las Vegas Sun provides an audio clip and transcript :

Angle, April 21: And these programs that you mentioned — that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward — are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.

She does not say Social Security and Medicare violate any commandments. But she did say that the expansion of government programs by Obama, Reid and Pelosi was a violation of the First Commandment. She was warning that such an expansion will make people too dependent on government. It’s a conservative philosophy, and we leave it up to the voters in Nevada to decide if they agree with it or not.

Reid also has repeatedly pointed to Angle’s comments about the Second Amendment, which says the people have the right to bear arms and maintain a well-regulated militia. The ad starts by asking, "What do you call a candidate who says, the way things are going the time may be coming for Second Amendment remedies, an armed response to our government?" It is true that she talked about "Second Amendment remedies" during an interview with Lars Larson, who gives free Second Amendment hats with annual web memberships. She appeared Jan. 14 — a few weeks after the Senate approved the health care bill and tensions were running high. She acknowledged those tensions and spoke of "a revolution," although she did add: "I hope that’s not where we are going." In an audio clip posted by the Washington Post, Larson asked, “Where do you stand on gun rights?” She responded:

Angle, Jan. 14: Well, I qualified for my CCW [permit to carry a concealed weapon] with a Dirty Harry cannon, so maybe that tells you a little bit. But, you know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. In fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every twenty years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies. They’re saying, ‘My goodness what can we do to turn this country around’ and I’ll tell ya, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

The Post’s audio cuts off just when she says "take Harry Reid out," but she appeared to be referring to an election not a coup. The National Review wrote that she went on to say: “And it’s not just Nevadans that need to get in this game, we need to all over the nation begin to support those candidates that we believe in, like I said, that have walked the walk, that know what’s really at stake here.”

Less ambiguous is Angle’s position on abortion. She opposes it in all cases, including rape and incest, and believes it violates the U.S. Constitution. The ad says: Angle "says a teenage rape victim should be forced to have the baby." It cites her comments in January to radio talk show host Bill Manders, who asked whether there is "any reason at all for an abortion." When she replied no, Manders asked about rape and incest. She said, "I’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things."

She has not, however, proposed any legislative action to remove legal access to all abortions without exceptions. She has made it clear on other occasions that she is talking about her personal belief. In a June 30, 2010, interview with conservative talk show host Alan Stock, Angle was asked where she stands on abortion in the cases of rape and incest. She said: “Well, right now our law permits that. My own personal feelings — and that is always what I express, my personal feeling — is that we need to err on the side of life. There is a plan and a purpose and a value to every life no matter what its location, age, gender or disability.” 

On July 7, she posted a response to Reid’s criticism: “It’s easy to use rare situations such as the tragedies of rape and incest to skew the debate about the value of human life. … If abortion advocates really believed in choice as they claim, they would be just as eager to present women in these tragic situations with choices they can actually live with for years to come. That was the point I was making.” The nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute studied the reasons women gave for having an abortion between the years of 1987 to 2004. Few women said they had abortions because of rape (1 percent) or incest (less than 0.5 percent). So, yes, it is rare, but it happens.

Finally, as we have written before, it is true that Angle years ago advocated for a drug rehabilitation program developed by a non-profit affiliated with the Church of Scientology. She considered introducing legislation eight years ago to use the Second Chance Program, as it was called, for women prisoners in Nevada. Reid can say she "proposed a Scientology massage program for prisoners," because the rehab program included massage therapy "to drain the body of drug residue," as the Associated Press reported at the time. But Angle never introduced the legislation and no longer promotes its use.

The post Reid, Angle Trade Familiar Charges appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In fact, the housing bubble was already starting to deflate by the time Reid became Democratic leader of the Senate.

The ad is another dubious attempt by the Republican tea party enthusiast to pin responsibility for Nevada’s economic woes on the incumbent.

The ad begins with the narrator bemoaning the decline in property values in Nevada since Reid became Senate majority leader. "They’ve fallen more than 50 percent," the narrator exclaims.

Angle ad, "Wipeout": That means if your home was worth $300,000 before, now thanks to Harry Reid’s disastrous economic policies, you’ve lost over $150,000. Wiping out people’s retirement savings overnight.

Angle is right about the drop in the value of Nevada homes: In the first quarter of 2010, they were about half what they were in the first quarter of 2007, when Reid became majority leader, according to statistics from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

But is that due to Reid’s "disastrous economic policies?"

Experts blame a range of actors for the mortgage crisis. Among them: the Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates and whose chairman encouraged Americans to take out adjustable-rate mortgages, payments on which are initially low and then can balloon; bankers who increasingly made subprime loans, or loans to home buyers whose credit was questionable; the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), which underwrote those risky loans; Wall Street, which bundled those loans into mortgage-backed securities to sell; and the Bush administration, which failed to regulate all this.

The public bears some responsibility, too, for taking on mortgages they couldn’t afford and continuing to believe that housing prices would keep going up, fast and forever.

Angle’s ad tries to blame Reid, and Reid alone, for the bust. But the fact is that by the time Reid became leader Nevada had already gone through a period of unsustainable inflation in home prices — far worse than in most other states — and the bubble already had begun to deflate. According to the Case-Shiller home price index, home prices peaked in mid-2006. Reid became leader in January, 2007.

Previously, California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada had experienced much higher home price appreciation than the rest of the country, going back several years. The bubble was bigger in those places, and it burst with more force. By 2008, more than a quarter of 2006 subprime mortgage originations in those four states and 18 percent of the 2007 subprime mortgage originations were in default. Nationally, the figures were just 13 and 9 percent.

In fact, pinning the blame for an event that has as many moving parts as the housing crisis on a single individual is a bipartisan tactic — and fallacy. In 2008, we critiqued two ads, one from the liberal MoveOn.org and one from GOP presidential candidate John McCain, each of which tried to blame the economic meltdown on the other party. We said then: "The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation."

We believe that’s still the case.

The post Angle’s Blame Game, Reprise appeared first on FactCheck.org.

The ad is called "Please Stop," and it mocks Democratic Sen. Harry Reid’s campaign slogan of "no one can do more" for Nevada. In the ad, Angle concedes that Reid "has done more for Nevada," but she doesn’t mean it in a good way. The ad, which began airing July 21, gets the basic facts right:

• Angle says in her ad, "We have the highest bankruptcy rate in the nation," and that’s true. Nevada’s per capita bankruptcy filing rate of 11.7 percent was tops among all states for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2010, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

• She also says that "we have the highest foreclosure rate in the nation," and that’s true as well. The state had the highest rate of foreclosure filings during the first six months of 2010, according to RealtyTrac, a company that monitors foreclosures throughout the country. (But the group did find Nevada’s filings actually had decreased 13 percent compared with the last six months of 2009 and 6 percent compared with the first six months of the same year.)

• And just as Angle states, the state’s unemployment rate has also gone from just 4.4 percent when Reid became Senate majority leader in January 2007, to its current projected rate of 14.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Things could definitely be better in the Silver State, to be sure. But Angle’s ad attempts to attribute all these woes to Reid personally; Angle repeatedly says "he’s done" these things. That’s questionable, to put it mildly. Many analysts attribute Nevada’s high unemployment rate to the recession, compounded by the fact that so many of the state’s jobs have been in the leisure and hospitality sector, which is dependent on discretionary spending by Americans who have been doing less of that lately, and construction, which is off nationwide. Bankruptcies and foreclosures go hand-in-hand with high unemployment.

Could one senator wreck the state’s economy, as Angle’s ad invites viewers to conclude? Would things have turned out any differently if Angle had been in the Senate instead of Reid? Those are questions for Nevadans to ponder.

The post Nevada Blame Game appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Angle’s 60-second ad first aired July 9, and a 30-second version is also airing. It presents a gloomy, menacing picture of the Nevada economy with shaky, blue-tinged shots of melancholy faces, accompanied by background music fit for a funeral. There is no announcer. Words appear on screen, all of them accurate, pointing out that Nevada now has the highest unemployment rate of any state.

It says, "When Reid became Senate Majority Leader, Nevada’s unemployment rate was 4.4%." That was in January 2007, and it’s true, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The ad continues with a series of quotations and statements, all accurate and properly cited. We’ve provided hyperlinks to the cited sources:

•       "Nevada unemployment hits 14%, leads nation – AP/CBS News"

• "Nevada is tops in unemployment” – MSN Money"

• "Unemployment falls in 37 states, rises in Nevada” – AP

• “Nevada overtakes Michigan for nation’s worst” – Wall Street Journal

• “Nevada’s jobless rate continues to rise… as most states have seen unemployment declines.” – Las Vegas Review Journal

• “Nevada takes dubious jobless title from Michigan” – CNN

• "In just three years, Nevada’s economy has fallen from one of the strongest performing to possibly the weakest." – Nevada Employment Agency

• Since Harry Reid has become Majority Leader, 135,000 more Nevadans are unemployed – U.S. Department of Labor 

   

What "Help?"

The ad concludes with the statement, "Help is on the way." That’s a clear statement of opinion, of course. The ad doesn’t say what sort of help Angle would bring, if elected. The ad refers the viewer to Angle’s campaign Web site, where the diligent visitor might find Angle’s free-market approach to job creation. Here’s how it’s phrased:

Angle Web site: The fastest way to get the economy moving again is to cut spending, pay back the national debt, and make permanent the Bush Tax Cuts.

But the site offers no specifics on what spending Angle proposes to cut. To "pay back the national debt" would not be easy. The debt currently stands at $8.6 trillion, not counting money the government owes to itself. (Intergovernmental holdings such as the Social Security trust fund bring the debt to $13.2 trillion.) In theory, the portion of the national debt held by the public could be repaid by devoting nearly every dollar of tax revenue for the next three fiscal years to debt reduction, while simultaneously cutting all federal spending — including Social Security, Medicare and Pentagon funding — to zero. We base that on the most recent Congressional Budget Office projections of federal income and spending. That still might not be enough if the Bush tax cuts are extended as Angle proposes, however.

Greed or Reid?

Interestingly, Angle does not appear in her own ad, except to deliver the legally required statement that "I approve this message." But she’s a featured player in Reid’s ad, where she is heard saying it’s "not my job as a U.S. senator" to develop jobs in the state.

Reid’s ad also first appeared July 9. It features a construction worker blaming "Wall Street greed" for the state’s economic troubles. That’s another statement of opinion, and we’ll leave it to our readers to decide for themselves whether to blame Wall Street’s greed, Reid’s Senate leadership or other factors for the state’s terrible unemployment rate.

"Not my job"

The remainder of the ad quotes Angle, and does so accurately.

She’s heard saying, "People ask me, what are you going to do to develop jobs in your state? Well, that’s not my job as a U.S. senator."

The audio is taken from a shaky, cell-phone video of Angle speaking to a small gathering, which Reid’s campaign had posted on YouTube in June. The quote is in context. In the video, Angle continues: " . . . to bring industry to the state. That’s the lieutenant governor’s job, that’s your state senators’ and assemblymen’s job. That’s your secretary of state’s job, to make a climate in the state that says, ‘Y’all come.’"

According to Reid’s campaign Web site, that video was taken at an Angle campaign event on May 14, 2010. Angle’s campaign, contacted by FactCheck.org, did not dispute the accuracy of the video.

The Reid ad also shows another cell-phone video of Angle saying, at a different appearance, "I am not in the business of creating jobs." The full quote, as posted by Reid on YouTube, is, "As your senator, I am not in the business of creating jobs." The Reid campaign says that one was taken at a forum in Elko County, Nevada on May 11, 2010. Angle’s campaign didn’t dispute the accuracy of this video, either.

Just as Angle’s ad doesn’t say what "help" she would offer, Reid’s ad also says nothing about what he would do to create jobs. His Web site touts, among other actions, Reid’s support for the stimulus bill passed in 2009. But since the state’s unemployment rate is still going up, Nevada viewers might well ask, "How’s that working out?"

As we said at the outset: Both ads are accurate, as far as they go. But neither gives a full picture.

-Brooks Jackson and Lara Seligman

The post Jobs Jabs appeared first on FactCheck.org.