Fact Check

Facts are funny things. Its unbelievable how easy it is to spin an absolute Truth into an unconscionable lie. Maybe I'm getting old but I'm getting tired of being manipulated so easily. I've decided to find things out on my own and share this information with YOU.

Campaign Smears Candidates can get away with almost anything if you let them.

Energy As the costs to our pocket book and national security rise, we need to know some real facts.

Campaign Smears

Q. Obama wants to enact the single largest tax increase since the Second World War, according to John McCain on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 in Washington, D.C

A. Mostly Lie

According to the non partisan Tax Policy Center's computations, "under Mr. Obama's plan, the middle of the middle class, or those earning $37,595 to $66,354, would see taxes cut by $1,042 a year. Under Mr. McCain's plan, taxes for people in that category would also fall, but by $319; the largest chunk of the benefits would go to those making $2.8 million a year or more."

Obama wants to allow the Bush tax cuts on incomes over $250,000 to expire - not raise the taxes.

Both Obama and McCain support renewing the current estate tax with a few changes. McCain proposes to increase the exemption to $5-million ($10-million for couples) and reduce the tax rate to 15 percent. Obama proposes to increase the exemption to $3.5-million ($7-million for couples) and leave the top rate at 45 percent.

Politifact.com

Energy

Q. Motorists could save more than 1 billion gallons of fuel a year, right now. But expanded offshore drilling would eventually produce even more.

A. TRUE

We find that proper tire inflation could save more than a billion gallons of fuel per year and do it several years sooner than expanded drilling could produce a single drop. McCain has exaggerated by representing Obama's suggestion as a silly notion or implying that it constitutes his entire energy policy.

But we also figure that expanded offshore drilling is projected to produce far more oil eventually than can be saved by proper tire inflation  nearly three times as much even by the conservative estimate of government experts, and more than 10 times as much if an industry-endorsed estimate is correct. And even taking into account additional fuel savings from tune-ups, which Obama also mentioned, he greatly exaggerated.

FactCheck.org