Washington
CNN
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President Joe Biden spent three days this week campaigning within the vital swing state of Pennsylvania. He littered his remarks with false and deceptive claims on topics starting from his annual earnings to his cap on seniors’ prescription drug spending to the demographics of China to the frequency of his previous journey to Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in Biden’s most eyebrow-raising remarks of the marketing campaign swing, he told and then retold a story by which he strongly instructed his late uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, was eaten by cannibals after his aircraft was shot down whereas he fought in World Conflict II. Biden’s dramatic particulars don’t match the Protection Division’s official account of the aircraft crash.
Here’s a truth examine of eight of Biden’s Pennsylvania remarks.
Within the same Tuesday speech in Scranton, Biden repeated his common promise that no one making lower than $400,000 per 12 months can pay even a cent extra in taxes beneath his proposals. He then added, “I hope you’re all in a position to make $400,000. I by no means did.”
Info First: Biden’s “I by no means did” declare is fake. Actually, his presidential salary is $400,000 per year; the joint tax filings of President Biden and first woman Jill Biden showed $619,976 in income last year, $579,514 in 2022 and $610,702 in 2021. As well as, Biden earned tens of millions in 2017 and 2018, when, throughout his time as a personal citizen following his vice presidency, he and Jill Biden signed a lucrative book deal and he delivered paid speeches. The Bidens’ joint tax filings showed a complete of about $11 million in 2017 earnings and about $4.6 million in 2018 earnings.
Biden, who was a US senator for 36 years previous to his vice presidency, did usually earn lower than $400,000 per 12 months earlier than 2017. As PolitiFact has previously noted, the Bidens’ joint filings reported lower than $400,000 in earnings in annually from 1998 via 2016 aside from 2013, after they have been simply over $407,000.
In the identical speech in Scranton, Biden touted provisions of the Inflation Discount Act he signed in 2022. He said: “For instance, seniors, starting in 2024, regardless of how a lot their prescription drug prices are, they’ll by no means should pay greater than $2,000 a 12 months, it doesn’t matter what.”
Info First: Biden’s declare is fake in two methods. First, the $2,000 cap on Medicare Half D enrollees’ out-of-pocket prescription drug spending takes effect in 2025, not 2024; there’s a larger cap, greater than $3,000, in place this year. (The White Home corrected the official transcript of Biden’s speech to clarify Biden ought to have stated 2025 as an alternative of 2024.) Second, it’s not true that seniors will “by no means” should spend greater than $2,000 per 12 months on pharmaceuticals “it doesn’t matter what.” The cap is indexed to annual inflation in Part D costs, so it’s extremely prone to be set larger than $2,000 in future years. Additionally, the cap doesn’t apply to out-of-pocket spending on Medicare Part B drugs like these administered at docs’ workplaces.
Biden has appropriately stated on numerous previous occasions that the $2,000 cap takes impact in 2025, however he has additionally beforehand incorrectly stated that the cap took effect in 2023 or 2024.
– CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this merchandise.
In a Wednesday speech in Pittsburgh that was centered on US metal competitors with China, Biden stated, “I at all times say to my colleagues — after I meet different world leaders, I say, ‘Would you commerce locations with China? Would you commerce locations with their issues?’ They’ve bought a inhabitants that’s extra individuals in retirement than working.”
Info First: The declare that China has extra retired individuals than working individuals is fake. Fuxian Yi, a College of Wisconsin-Madison senior scientist who’s an expert on Chinese demographics, known as Biden’s declare “overstated and untimely.”
China reported having greater than 740 million employed individuals on the finish of 2023, whereas it additionally reported having simply shy of 297 million individuals age 60 or above that 12 months. (Sixty is the normal retirement-benefits age for Chinese language males; it’s 50 to 55 for girls relying on the character of their jobs.) And some of the 60-plus population is still working.
Yi famous that China’s ratio of working individuals to seniors is shrinking as the country’s population ages. However Biden’s declare that the variety of retirees already exceeds the variety of individuals working is clearly not right, even in case you apply the standard dose of skepticism to official Chinese language knowledge.
“It’s actually the path they’re heading, however nonetheless an exaggeration,” Derek Scissors, a senior fellow on the conservative American Enterprise Institute assume tank who’s an professional on the Chinese language financial system, stated of Biden’s declare.
Biden made the same declare in 2021, which CNN fact-checked as false at the time.
As he has on numerous previous occasions, Biden cited a 2021 report from the Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage assume tank that discovered that 55 of the nation’s largest firms had made greater than $40 billion in whole revenue of their earlier fiscal 12 months however not paid any federal company earnings taxes.
Biden said in the same Tuesday speech in Scranton: “When Trump was president in 2020, 55 of the most important firms in America of the Fortune 500 made $40 billion in revenue and paid zero — zero — in federal earnings taxes.” After somebody within the viewers known as that “sinful,” Biden continued, “Effectively, guess what? I got here alongside and took care of the sin. Not anymore. Due to the regulation that I wrote and signed, huge firms now should pay a minimal — they need to be paying extra — a minimal of 15% tax.”
Info First: Biden’s “not anymore” declare is fake — the identical exaggeration he delivered in his State of the Union address in March. Whereas the 15% company minimal tax he signed into regulation within the Inflation Discount Act will scale back the variety of huge firms that don’t pay any federal taxes, it’s not true that “not anymore” will any huge company — reminiscent of those on the record of 55 corporations Biden talked about — ever achieve this. That’s as a result of the minimal tax, on the “e book earnings” corporations report back to traders, solely applies to corporations with at the very least $1 billion in common annual earnings. In response to the Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage, solely 14 of the businesses on that 2021 record of 55 non-payers reported having US pre-tax earnings of at the very least $1 billion.
In different phrases, there’ll clearly nonetheless be some huge and worthwhile firms paying no federal earnings tax regardless of the existence of the brand new Biden tax. The precise quantity just isn’t identified.
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow on the Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage, informed CNN in 2022 that the brand new tax is “an necessary step ahead from the established order” and that it could increase substantial income, however he additionally stated: “I wouldn’t wish to assert that the minimal tax will finish the phenomenon of zero-tax worthwhile firms. A extra correct phrasing could be to say that the minimal tax will *assist* be sure that *probably the most worthwhile* firms pay at the very least some federal earnings tax.”
There are many nuances to the tax; you may learn extra specifics here. Requested for remark in early 2023, when Biden made the same declare, a White Home official informed CNN: “The Inflation Discount Act ensures the wealthiest firms pay a 15% minimal tax, exactly the companies the President centered on through the marketing campaign and in workplace.”
Billionaires and taxes
Biden delivered one other model of a declare he has usually made about billionaires’ tax charges. He said in the identical Tuesday speech in Scranton: “Have you learnt what the common federal tax fee for a billionaire is at this time in America? For actual: 8.3%.” After some individuals within the viewers laughed, Biden continued, “That’s how a lot federal ta- — no, I’m severe. Not a joke. Far lower than the overwhelming majority of Individuals pay in federal taxes. No billionaire ought to pay a decrease tax fee than a instructor, a nurse, a sanitation employee.”
Info First: Biden’s “8.3%” declare is deceptive within the absence of any clarification of what this determine is. As in previous speeches, together with the State of the Union address in March, Biden didn’t clarify that the determine is the product of another calculation, from economists in his personal administration, that elements in unrealized capital positive factors which are not treated as taxable earnings beneath federal regulation. In different phrases, whereas Biden made it sound like he was speaking a few federal tax fee, he was really citing a determine that isn’t primarily based on the way in which the US tax system really works at current.
There’s nothing inherently incorrect with the choice calculation itself; the administration economists who got here up with it explained it in detail on the White House website in 2021. (They stated the determine was 8.2%.) Biden, nevertheless, has tended to cite the figure with none context about what it’s and isn’t, leaving open the impression that he was speaking about what these billionaire households pay beneath present regulation.
So what do billionaires really pay beneath present regulation? The reply just isn’t publicly identified, however specialists say it’s clearly greater than 8%.
“Biden’s numbers are means too low,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow on the City-Brookings Tax Coverage Middle on the City Institute assume tank, informed CNN in 2023. Gleckman stated that in 2019, College of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman “estimated the highest 400 households paid a median efficient tax fee of about 23 p.c in 2018. They bought plenty of consideration on the time as a result of that fee was decrease than the common fee of 24 p.c for the underside half of the earnings distribution. Nevertheless it nonetheless was far more than 2 or 3,” numbers Biden has utilized in some earlier speeches, “and even 8 p.c.”
In February 2024, Gleckman supplied extra calculations from the Tax Coverage Middle. The middle found that the highest 0.1% of households paid a median efficient federal tax fee of about 30.3% in 2020, together with a median earnings tax fee of 24.3%.
Biden and the price range deficit
Throughout the identical Tuesday speech in Scranton, Biden repeated a well-recognized boast about his supposed affect on the federal price range deficit. He said, “Much more to do, however guess what? Throughout the entire time, I’ve been in a position to minimize the federal deficit on the similar actual time by over $1 trillion — $1 trillion.”
Info First: Biden’s declare leaves out such vital context that it’s deceptive. Whereas the annual federal budget deficit was greater than $1 trillion decrease within the 2023 fiscal 12 months than it was in each the 2020 fiscal 12 months (beneath President Donald Trump) and the 2021 fiscal 12 months (partially beneath Trump and partially beneath Biden), analysts have repeatedly noted that Biden’s personal actions, together with legal guidelines he has signed and government orders he has issued, have had the general impact of worsening annual deficits, not lowering them. As in past remarks, Biden didn’t clarify that the primary reason the deficit fell by a document quantity throughout his tenure was that it had skyrocketed to a document excessive on the finish of Trump’s time period due to bipartisan emergency pandemic reduction spending, then fell as anticipated when that spending expired as deliberate.
“The deficit is a trillion {dollars} decrease, roughly, than when President Biden took workplace. That’s true. However that’s pushed not as a result of he ‘lowered’ the deficit by a trillion {dollars}, however as a result of when he took workplace it was the center of Covid and we had been briefly injecting big sums of cash into the financial system,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice chairman on the Committee for a Accountable Federal Finances, an advocacy group that promotes deficit discount and tracks the problem, stated in a February interview.
Biden can fairly say that his insurance policies have contributed to a robust financial restoration that has boosted tax revenues and thus eaten into deficits. On the entire, although, Goldwein stated deficits beneath Biden have been “larger than they in any other case would have been due to legislation President Biden has signed into law and executive actions he’s taken.”
Biden made the identical declare throughout his State of the Union handle in March. You’ll be able to learn a extra detailed truth examine here.
Biden’s visits to Iraq and Afghanistan
Biden claimed in another Tuesday speech in Scranton: “I used to be in, I believe, 36, 38 occasions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a senator and as a vice chairman.”
Info First: These figures are false, based on statistics beforehand launched by Biden’s personal 2020 presidential marketing campaign. The marketing campaign stated in 2019 that Biden had visited Iraq and Afghanistan on a complete of 21 events, the Washington Post reported at the time.
Biden has delivered comparable falsehoods about his journey to Iraq and Afghanistan on numerous previous occasions — together with within the 2019 remarks that prompted his marketing campaign to right the document — they usually have been beforehand fact-checked by media shops including CNN.
In Scranton, the place Biden was born, he visited a memorial that honors native residents who died in World Conflict II, together with his late uncle Ambrose Finnegan. Earlier than Biden left the town on Wednesday, he told a dramatic story about Finnegan: “He bought shot down in an space the place there have been plenty of cannibals in New Guinea on the time. They by no means recovered his physique.” He blamed cannibalism much more instantly in his Pittsburgh speech later within the day, claiming Finnegan “bought shot down in New Guinea, they usually by no means discovered the physique as a result of there was — there have been plenty of cannibals, for actual, in that a part of New Guinea.”
Info First: Biden’s declare differs from the account supplied by the Protection Division, as CNN’s Donald Judd reported Wednesday. The Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company’s web page on Finnegan says this concerning the 1944 incident: “For unknown causes, this aircraft was pressured to ditch within the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. Each engines failed at low altitude, and the plane’s nostril hit the water onerous. Three males did not emerge from the sinking wreck and have been misplaced within the crash.” This official account, which notes that an extra crew member survived the crash, makes no point out of the aircraft being shot down or of attainable cannibalism; whereas Biden stated the crash occurred “in” New Guinea, the place there was certainly some cannibalism on the time, the official account notes the boys went down within the close by ocean.
White Home spokespeople didn’t repeat Biden’s assertions about cannibals or the aircraft being shot down when requested about his story. “President Biden is pleased with his uncle’s service in uniform, who misplaced his life when the navy plane he was on crashed within the Pacific after taking off close to New Guinea,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates informed CNN on Wednesday.
– CNN’s Donald Judd contributed to this merchandise.