Biden was generally factual in the interview, much of which aired on Wednesday. But he was wrong in three statistical statements.
The context around two of these inaccurate claims suggests that they may have been slips, rather than intentional lies. And in the third claim, regarding the history of the Senate obstruction, Biden explicitly told Stephanopoulos that he did not think the numbers he was using were correct.
Still, it is our job to correct the record when the president is incorrect. Here is a fact check on the three inaccurate statements and two other statements that Biden made in the interview.
Biden, publicizing the tax benefits of the $ 1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan pandemic relief law that he signed last week, said: “60% of all these tax incentives go – all of these tax incentives go to the Poorest 60% of the population. “
Facts first: Biden stumbled on his way to inaccuracy here. When CNN asked where Biden got this number from, the White House said Biden was referring to a Tax Policy Center number. But Howard Gleckman, a senior researcher at the Tax Policy Center, explained to CNN that the center actually found that 67.4% of the tax benefits this year of the new law would go to 60% of the household base – not that “all” benefits would go to the 60% of the base, as Biden said.
“He got the first half of the sentence right and actually softened it. But he missed the second half of the sentence,” said Gleckman.
Obama era assistance to Central America
Biden received credit for approving an Obama-era initiative to increase federal assistance to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, countries from which the United States had an influx of unaccompanied minors. He said that “I was able to pass a nearly $ 800 billion bipartisan bill to get to the root of the reason – why people are leaving.”
Facts first: The 2015 initiative that Biden was talking about – of which he, as vice president, played a significant role Occupation on being approved – provided up to $ 750 million in US financing for Central American countries, not “$ 800 billion”, as Biden said. We would have missed it if he had said “$ 800 million” instead of $ 750 million, but “$ 800 billion” is a significant mistake.
Central American funding was contained in a broader bill that was approved with bipartisan support.
The history of the obstructionist
Biden endorsed a change to the Senate’s obstruction rules, saying that senators should once again be forced to speak up and keep talking if they want to prevent the legislation. The current obstruction policy allows senators to obstruct without making speeches.
Biden said, “Look, I think – don’t restrict me to the numbers, George, but I think that between 1960 and 2000, there was – I’m making up that number, I don’t know – there were, like – you know, 50 obstructors. Now there are, like, 200 since then … ”
Facts first: As Biden himself said, he didn’t get the numbers right. Although experts say it is difficult even for them to identify the number of obstructors per year (here’s an explanation complexity), it is clear that Biden’s value was very low for both the previous period and the current period – although he was necessary in its general point that the number of obstructors increased significantly in the 21st century compared to the end of the 20th century.
Molly Reynolds, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution who studied the obstruction, said that most scholars think the best proxy measure is the number of motions tabled for coagulation, a measure to end a debate in the Senate. According to official data from the Senate, there were 755 coagulation motions filed from 1961 to 2000 (which results in an average of less than 20 per year) and 1,516 filed coagulation motions from 2001 onwards (which gives an average of around 75 per year)
Trump’s tax cuts
Biden said of the Republican opposition to his Covid relief plan: “They don’t like it because, in fact, their – their idea of a tax cut is to give Trump’s tax cut, where 83% went to 1% of top of the population in America. “
Facts first: This needs context. While it is correct to say that the wealthiest Americans were the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s tax cut in 2017, the figure of “83%” is a projection of what can happen in certain circumstances in 2027, not what has already happened.
The Tax Policy Center estimated in 2017 that the top 1% would get about 83% of benefits in 2027, if the individual tax cuts in the law (which were designed as temporary) were allowed to expire and the corporate tax cuts of the law (which were conceived as permanent) continued to exist. For 2018, on the contrary, the Tax Policy Center estimated that 1% of the top obtained 20.5% of the benefits, while the 95% -99% group received another 22.1%.
There is certainly a substantial difference in the way the new Biden law and the 2017 Trump law treat the rich and the poor. For example, the Tax Policy Center found that families earning $ 25,000 or less will receive an average tax cut of $ 2,800 this year under the new relief law, increasing their after-tax income by 20%. According to Trump law, these families saw an average reduction of $ 60 in the first year, or about 0.4% of their after-tax income.
American Rescue Plan Survey
Speaking of the American Rescue Plan, Biden boasted that “there are 78% of people say they support this program, 52% of Republicans.” He admitted that there could be some research error, saying, “Let’s assume it’s 15% wrong.”
Facts first: This statement is accurate enough; there were some public polls that showed general support for the American Rescue Plan, just before the 78% that Biden claimed, and support among Republicans even greater than the 52% that he claimed. Other public polls, however, found support lower than Biden’s claim, both for the general public and for Republicans. The poll results have seemed to vary with the formulation of the researchers’ questions.
A Morning Consult / Politico survey conducted February 19-22 found 76% overall support for the relief plan among registered voters and 60% support among registered Republican voters – after respondents were informed of the cost of $ 1.9 trillion of the plan and some important provisions, including direct payments of $ 1,400. A Morning Consult / Politico poll conducted March 6-8 found 75% overall support for the plan and 59% Republican support.
A Monmouth University survey conducted from February 25 to March 1 found substantially less support for the plan than the Morning Consult, particularly among Republicans: overall support was 62%, while Republican support was only 33% . In addition to the standard differences in survey and sampling methodology (Monmouth’s survey interviewed adults, not registered voters in particular), it is important to note that Monmouth mentioned the $ 1.9 trillion cost of the plan before asking respondents for their opinion, but did not mention the $ 1,400 payments until after that. question.
