Checking the facts

Jim Bourg/Reuters/PoolTom Brokaw of NBC News moderated the presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, which was held at Belmont University in Nashville last night. (Jim Bourg/Reuters/Pool)

OBAMA
Obama: "[McCain] voted 23 times against alternative fuels."

Fact check: McCain actually opposed alternative-energy funding 11 times, according to Factcheck.org, which analyzed a list of 23 votes the Obama campaign provided to back up its claim. Some of them were votes against ethanol mandates or to allow exemptions from those mandates, a link on the site to the list shows. For example, in 2003, McCain voted to limit the ethanol mandate to the Midwest and to let governors waive ethanol mandates. McCain has generally opposed ethanol subsidies; Obama supports them.

Obama: "[McCain] believes in deregulation in every circumstance, that's what we've been going through for the last eight years, and it hasn't worked."

Fact check: McCain has strongly championed deregulation throughout his career in the Senate. But in 2006, McCain also backed an unsuccessful effort to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole," McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor. The bill, notes Factcheck.org, never made it to the Senate floor, and Republicans had a majority at the time.

Obama: "Now, when Senator McCain is proposing tax cuts that would give the average Fortune 500 CEO an additional $700,000 in tax cuts, that's not sharing a burden."

Fact check: That's true - as long as you assume the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. "The $700,000 in reduced taxes for CEOs comes from McCain's extending of the lower tax rates that those CEOs benefit from that were in place under the Bush tax cuts," the Tax Foundation's website notes.

Obama: "We're going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year."

Fact check: Obama and McCain agree that lowering health costs is an important objective. But it's not at all clear that Obama will be able to slash costs by $120 billion a year, or $2,500 a family, by the end of his first term. According to Factcheck.org, which calls this assertion "wishful thinking," Obama's campaign backs up this claim partly by pointing to a study that showed that using electronic medical records would lower costs by up to $77 billion a year, but the study says it would take until 2019.

MICHAEL KRANISH

MCCAIN
McCain: "I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. I am in favor of leaving tax rates alone."

Fact check: The so-called Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. McCain wants Congress to vote to extend those cuts for all taxpayers; Obama wants to extend them for couples earning less than $250,000.

McCain: Charged that Obama received the second-highest amount of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the recently bailed out quasi-governmental agencies.

Fact check: McCain is right, according to Opensecrets.org, which reports Obama was the second-highest recipient between 1989 and 2008. He received $120,349, second only to Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut. McCain received $21,550. However, McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, and Davis's lobbying firm, have been paid more than $2 million since 2000 by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the Associated Press.

McCain: Charged that Obama's healthcare plan has "mandates and fines for small businesses."

Fact check: Obama responded to the charge by saying: "There's no mandate involved. Small businesses are not going to have a mandate. What we're going to give you is a 50 percent tax credit to help provide healthcare for those that you need." Obama did say he would require children to have health insurance and, in an effort to draw a contrast, said McCain voted against a program for children in lower-income households. The children's healthcare plan would have been funded by a 61 cents-per-pack increase in cigarette taxes, a point Obama did not mention in the debate.

McCain: Charged that Obama sought a $3 million earmark for an overhead projector for a planetarium in Chicago.

Fact check: Obama did request the $3 million project, saying the theater's failing projection system was "leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience." The project was not funded, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

McCain: Said Obama has "the most liberal big spending record in the United States Senate."

Fact check: National Journal magazine has devised its own ranking system, in which it determined that Obama had the most liberal voting record in 2007. Obama has said the magazine's rating system is faulty. NBC has noted that Obama missed about a third of the votes because of his campaign schedule and that said he ranked 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006.

LISA WANGSNESS