Campaign ’04: The Debates: WHO STRETCHES THE TRUTH?

JOHN KERRY ON …

TAXES “The President got $84 from a timber company that [he] owns, and he’s counted as a small business.”

Kerry responded to the charge that his tax plan would raise levies on “900,000 small businesses” by arguing that even the President would qualify as one, thanks to investment income. Kerry had a basis in fact, although an obscure one. Bush reported $84 in income in 2001 from an entity called Lone Star Trust, whose main business was oil and gas; it later listed a stake in a timber company.

WAR IN IRAQ “General Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, told [Bush] he was going to need several hundred thousand [troops]. And guess what? They retired General Shinseki for telling him that.”

Eric Shinseki did assert that more troops were needed, but he retired on schedule in June 2003. Shinseki had clashed with Donald Rumsfeld, though, and a leak from Rumsfeld’s allies turned the general into a lame duck 15 months before he hung up his uniform–long before he called for more troops.

TORT REFORM Malpractice lawsuits amount to “less than 1% of the total cost of health care.”

Kerry was answering a charge that he opposed tort reform and that “frivolous” lawsuits were costing the government $28 billion. Kerry’s percentage figure was in the ballpark; health-care spending in 2002 was $1.6 trillion, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, malpractice costs were an estimated 1.5% of the total. Moreover, several studies have concluded that capping malpractice-lawsuit awards would have a negligible impact on health-care costs.

GEORGE W. BUSH ON …

KERRY’S SPENDING “He’s proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending.”

Kerry acknowledges $1.2 trillion in new spending. The Bush campaign points to a study by a conservative think tank, which concludes that Kerry’s plan would add as much as $2.5 trillion to the deficit. But Bush’s wish list is pricey too: at least $1.5 trillion to create private Social Security accounts and $1 trillion to make all his tax cuts permanent, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other analysts.

THE ENVIRONMENT “The quality of the air is cleaner since I’ve been the President. Fewer water complaints since I’ve been the President. More land being restored since I’ve been the President.”

Air-pollution emissions have dropped 7.8% since 2000, thanks mainly to enforcement of Clean Air Act standards passed before Bush took office. He did introduce rules to clean up off-road diesel-powered vehicles like farm tractors and bulldozers. Critics say the drop in water-quality complaints reflects laggard enforcement: criminal water-pollution prosecutions are down 28% since 2001. In 2002, Bush signed a law aimed at revitalizing abandoned urban industrial sites.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS “I haven’t yet [blocked drugs from Canada]. Just want to make sure they’re safe.”

Actually, the Bush Adminstration has actively opposed congressional efforts to allow Americans to buy drugs from Canada. In March, Bush appointed a longtime foe of reimportation, Mark McClellan, to run Medicare and Medicaid. Republican leaders in the Senate have refused to allow a vote on the issue this year, waiting for the results of a study on safety. Critics call the study a delaying tactic. –By Daren Fonda and Jyoti Thottam. Reported by Melissa August, Perry Bacon Jr., Viveca Novak, Eric Roston and Mark Thompson/Washington