The following article by Meg Kelly, Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website March 2, 2018:
Since taking office, President Trump has made 2,436 false or misleading claims and flip-flops. He now averages 6 per day. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
In the 406 days since he took the oath of office, President Trump has made 2,436 false or misleading claims, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.
That’s an average of six claims a day.
When we first started this project for the president’s first 100 days, he averaged 4.9 claims a day. Slowly, the average number of claims has been creeping up.
Our interactive graphic, created with the help of Leslie Shapiro and Kaeti Hinck of the Post graphics department, displays a running list of every false or misleading statement made by Trump. We also catalogued the president’s many flip-flops, since those earn Upside-Down Pinocchios if a politician shifts position on an issue without acknowledging he or she did so.
As we were updating the database in recent weeks, we’ve found ourselves doing something unusual — double checking that we had not entered the same speech twice. The president’s sales pitch for his tax plan has been so consistent it made us do a double take. But consistency does not equal accuracy.
Before Congress even began debating tax legislation, the administration’s rhetoric was full of Pinocchio-worthy claims. And as much of that spin has reemerged, it is fresh with new or altered exaggerations. We have previously checked many of theseclaims in a variety of ways.
Regardless, the president’s spin seems to have enlightened new believers. Polling indicates a big swing in favor of the new law, with twice as many Americans approving of the law than at the end of 2017.
So as a reader service (and given the president’s penchant for repetition), here’s a summary of Trump’s most frequent false and misleading claims about the tax bill:
“[Our tax plan] is the biggest tax cut and reform in American history.” (Feb. 2)
The best way to compare tax cuts (or spending plans) over time is to measure them as a percentage of the national economy, as we’ve explained before. The budget blueprint approved by Republicans indicates that the tax cut would reduce revenue by $167 billion in 2018; it also averages out to $167 billion a year in the first four years.
If we use a gross domestic product of $19.5 trillion in 2018, which assumes the kind of growth Trump expects, the tax cut would be nearly 0.9 percent of GDP. And under those circumstances, Trump’s cut falls behind seven previous tax cuts dating back to 1945. That means, Trump’s tax cut is only the eighth largest — certainly not the “biggest.” It’s smaller than two of Obama’s tax cuts.
President Trump has made this claim 14 times since he signed the tax cuts into law.
He has repeated it over 64 times since he took office.
View the post here.