In an article we posted when John Edwards raised this issue, we noted that the FTC has repeatedly looked into allegations of market manipulation and fixing of gasoline prices. So far, it has found nothing to prosecute, not even in the post-Hurricane Katrina gas price spikes.
The FTC isn’t sitting on its hands as prices shoot skyward, at least according to information on its Web site. It monitors retail gas prices in 360 U.S. cities, to look for suspicious pricing. But the FTC does not disclose its ongoing investigations.
In fact, only individuals earning more than $102,000 a year would be affected. A spokesman for the union representing Philadelphia’s public school teachers tells FactCheck.org, “There are some affluent suburban districts where only the most senior educators with a master’s degree and probably 25 or more years of experience whose salaries might approach 100k. However, I think that’s a very small number overall.“
As for Philadelphia police officers, an officer would have to work more than 1,200 hours of overtime in a year to push even the highest base salary above $102,000.
The Clinton campaign pointed to budget figures showing that principals of Philadelphia’s large high schools earn $111,500 on average.
We review the record and conclude that she deserves plenty of credit, both for the passage of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation and for pushing outreach efforts to translate the law into reality.
The Boston Globe ran a story with the headline, “Clinton role in health programs disputed.“ We reviewed the Globe story: it quotes a political foe, Sen. Orrin Hatch. About Sen. Ted Kennedy, who cosponsored the original 1997 SCHIP legislation, the Globe said he wouldn’t criticize Clinton ”directly.“ Kennedy is now backing Obama, but said last year, ”The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.“ Others concur. Our conclusion: Clinton is right on this one.
Obama’s answer could mislead voters Obama cited just one of 99 Senate votes selected by National Journal’s reporters and editors for the study. Most of the votes chosen had to do with the minimum wage, renewable energy, immigration, embryonic stem cell research, and other issues that divide liberals and conservatives.
Clinton ranked 16th most liberal in the Senate, although she actually differed from Obama on just 2 of the 99 selected votes--the creation of an outside ethics office, and allowing certain immigrants to stay in the country while their visas were being renewed. A comparison of Obama & Clinton over the last three years (since Obama has been in the Senate) shows that Obama had an average composite “liberal” score of 88, which is higher than Clinton’s average of 77.6.
Which presidential candidate will solve America’s toughest economic problems? Only Hillary Clinton has the right solutions for America.
Hillary Clinton. A plan to cut taxes for the middle class. A comprehensive plan to end the housing crisis with a moratorium on foreclosures and a freeze in mortgage rates for at-risk homeowners. Redirect billions in oil company profits to alternative energy research to find solutions to our energy crisis and create 5 million new, good paying jobs.
Barack Obama. No plan to place a moratorium on home foreclosures. Voted for Dick Cheney’s energy bill that gives huge tax breaks to oil companies. And he wants to raise Social Security taxes by a trillion dollars.
Leadership Takes More than Talk.
The ad’s claim that Clinton “championed NAFTA” is misleading. It is true that Clinton once praised the North American Free Trade Agreement that her husband championed. As recently as 1998, she praised business leaders for mounting “a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA.“
But her position on trade shifted before her presidential run: In 2005, for example, she voted against the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and she told Time in 2007 that ”I believe in the general principles [NAFTA] represented, but what we have learned is that we have to drive a tougher bargain.“
Obama did vote against--and Clinton voted for--an amendment that would have placed a 30% cap on the interest rate that could be charged on any extension of credit. The amendment failed by a vote of 74 to 24 in 2005. When the amendment came up for a vote, Obama was standing next to Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-MD, the senior Democrat on the banking committee and the leader of those opposing the landmark bill, which would make it harder for Americans to get rid of debt. As for whether the 30% cap was too high, that’s certainly a matter of opinion.
Obama mischaracterized Clinton’s comments on her vote for an earlier, 2001 bankruptcy bill. Obama said, “Sen. Clinton said she voted for [the 2001 bill] but hoped that it wouldn’t pass. Now, I don’t understand that approach to legislation.“
That’s not exactly what Clinton said. When asked if she regretted voting for the 2001 bill, Clinton answered, ”Sure I do. It never became law, as you know. It got tied up. It was a bill that had some things I agreed with and other things I didn’t agree with. I was happy it never became law. I opposed the 2005 bill as well.
It’s true that Clinton sat on the Wal-Mart board for six years while her husband was governor of Arkansas, where the chain has its corporate headquarters. She was paid about $18,000 a year for doing it. At the time, she worked at the Rose Law Firm, which had represented Wal-Mart in various matters.
But according to accounts from other board members, Clinton was a thorn in the side of the company’s founder, Sam Walton, on the matter of promoting women, few of whom were in the ranks of managers or executives at the time. She also strongly advocated for more environmentally sound corporate practices. She made limited progress in both areas. In 2005 she returned a $5,000 contribution from Wal-Mart, citing “serious differences” with its “current” practices.
In the Jan. 21 debate, when Obama was criticized by Clinton for supporting Republican ideas, he responded, “The irony of this is that you provided much more fulsome praise of Ronald Reagan in a book by Tom Brokaw that’s being published right now, as did Bill Clinton in the past.“
Obama is correct: Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have lauded Reagan’s political skills. Tom Brokaw’s ”Boom! Voices of the Sixties“ quotes Clinton as saying that Reagan was ”a child of the Depression“ who understood pressures on the working and middle class.
We’ll leave it to others to decide who’s praising Reagan more. The fact is that Bill and Hillary have done it, not just Obama.
A three-judge panel ruled this week that the ads amounted to electioneering and could be run only with a disclaimer and only if Citizens United disclosed its donors to the FEC.
Given the passions, pro and con, that Hillary and Bill Clinton seem to ignite, it’s a good bet we can expect more such films before the election is over.
While it’s true that Republican lawmakers had once considered large tax breaks for oil and gas companies in the bill, the biggest of them had been stripped out of the bill by the time it passed.
It’s true that the Energy Policy Act contained $14.3 billion in tax breaks, but most went to electric utilities for such things as incentives for new transmission lines & “clean coal” facilities, and also for incentives for alternative fuels research and subsidies for energy efficient cars and homes.
The bill did give $2.6 billion in tax breaks for oil companies, but those were offset by $2.9 billion in tax increases.
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The above quotations are from FactCheck.org analysis of 2008 primary debates.
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