The One Complete SOTU Fact Check
These are the 21 factual statements that the President made in order of their appearance in The State of the Union Address:
Fact Check
1) “….our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis. More of our kids are graduating than ever before; more of our people are insured than ever before; we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve been in almost 30 years.”
2) “for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over. Six years ago, nearly 180,000 American troops served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, fewer than 15,000 remain.”
3) “And over the past five years, our businesses have created more than 11 million new jobs.”
4) “America is number one in oil and gas. America is number one in wind power. Every three weeks, we bring online as much solar power as we did in all of 2008. And thanks to lower gas prices and higher fuel standards, the typical family this year should save $750 at the pump.”
5) “our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. And more Americans finish college than ever before.”
6) “And in the past year alone, about ten million uninsured Americans finally gained the security of health coverage.”
7) “… our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health care inflation at its lowest rate in fifty years.”
8) “Wages are finally starting to rise again. We know that more small business owners plan to raise their employees’ pay than at any time since 2007.”
9) “Basic childcare for Jack and Henry costs more than their mortgage, and almost as much as a year at the University of Minnesota.”
10) “Today, we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers. Forty-three million workers have no paid sick leave.”
11) “By the end of this decade, two in three job openings will require some higher education.”
12) “Forty percent of our college students choose community college.”
13) “Since 2010, America has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and all advanced economies combined. Our manufacturers have added almost 800,000 new jobs.”
14) “But ninety-five percent of the world’s customers live outside our borders”
15) “More than half of manufacturing executives have said they’re actively looking at bringing jobs back from China.”
16) “2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record.”
17) “14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.”
18) “That’s why we’ve set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history.”
19) “…it makes no sense to spend three million dollars per prisoner to keep open a prison that the world condemns and terrorists use to recruit. Since I’ve been President, we’ve worked responsibly to cut the population of GTMO in half.”
20) “…teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows”
21) “…for the first time in 40 years, the crime rate and the incarceration rate have come down”
Like him or not, this is a president that understands that we are living in a technological age where claims will be scrutinized and inspected. The era of “tall tales” in politics is over in the internet age as Obama himself found out with “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”
Of course opponents of the President would say it’s more about what he didn’t say than what he did. They are probably right, but that’s politics.
