Fact-Check on President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union

Summary

President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address came up short of the facts on several topics:

• He embellished his record on jobs, citing “more than 14 million new jobs,” without mentioning that’s only private sector jobs and only since the job losses hit bottom in February 2010.
• Obama similarly omitted part of his presidency in boasting of nearly 900,000 manufacturing jobs “in the past six years.” Over his entire time in office, manufacturing jobs have gone down by 230,000.
• And he said he had cut the country’s deficits by “almost three-quarters.” But that’s measured from fiscal 2009, which included some increased spending by Obama.
• He repeated his now years-long claim of crediting the Affordable Care Act for a slowdown in health care spending, which economists have linked mainly to the economy. In fact, the growth rate jumped in 2014, when the law’s coverage provisions were implemented.
• Obama claimed, like he did in 2014, that the U.S. has “cut carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.” That’s true in terms of total tonnage but not in terms of percentage reductions.
• He said that the U.S. spends “more on our military than the next eight nations combined.” That’s close enough in terms of dollars, but as a share of the nation’s economy, the U.S. is only the fourth highest of the top 15 countries.

Analysis

Obama opened his Jan. 12 State of the Union address with a promise: “Tonight marks the eighth year that I’ve come here to report on the state of the union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it a little shorter.” And he sort of succeeded — if we only count the seven, not eight, official SOTU addresses. According to data from The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the latest speech clocked in at 58 minutes and 44 seconds, more than a minute shorter than 2013’s 59-minute-51-second address. (And several minutes below Obama’s average of one hour, two minutes and 45 seconds.)

But Obama’s 2009 speech, which the project notes was technically not a State of the Union, was only 51 minutes and 44 seconds.

Now we’ll look at what the president actually said in his 58-plus minutes.

Jobs & the Deficit

As he has done in the past, Obama embellished the statistical record of his presidency by selective omissions.

Jobs — He crowed about “more than 14 million new jobs,” when the net gain in total employment since he first took office is actually just under 9.3 million. What he didn’t spell out is that he was omitting the more than 4 million jobs lost during the first 13 months of his presidency, and ignoring losses of state and local government jobs as well.

Though he did not make it clear, he was actually referring to the change only in private sector jobs, and only since the job losses hit bottom in February 2010. And as of December that gain indeed stood at 14.1 million.

Unemployment rate — The president also referred to “an unemployment rate cut in half.” Actually, the jobless rate when he took office was 7.8 percent, and it has dropped to 5 percent as of December. It’s only “cut in half” if measured from the worst point of his presidency, which was the 10 percent rate recorded in October 2009.

Manufacturing — Obama also cherry-picked when he spoke of manufacturing jobs. The president said, “That’s just part of a manufacturing surge that’s created nearly 900,000 new jobs in the past six years.” The gain was 878,000 to be exact, measured from the low point in his presidency.

But of course, he has been president for seven years, not just six. And over his entire time in office, the U.S. has lost 230,000 manufacturing jobs, dropping from 12,561,000 jobs in January 2009 to 12,331,000 in December 2015, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Deficit — He also boasted that “we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.” That’s close to true if measured from the $1.4 trillion deficit run up in fiscal 2009. The final figure for FY 2015 — which ended Sept. 30 — was $438.9 billion.

So that’s still 31 percent of the 2009 figure, which is closer to a two-thirds reduction than a three-quarters reduction.

More important, it ignores Obama’s own contribution to that record 2009 deficit. As we’ve shown before, Obama’s early initiatives increased FY 2009 spending — and thus the deficit — by as much as $203 billion. So his claim to have reduced the deficit by three-quarters is akin to a merchant who raises his price one day and declares “75 percent off” the next.

Health Care Inflation

Obama again credited the Affordable Care Act for slow growth in health care inflation that economists have pinned largely on the economy, and that started before the ACA was even passed.

“Nearly 18 million people have gained coverage so far,” Obama said of his health care overhaul. “And in the process, health care inflation has slowed.”

As we have written severaltimesnow, health care spending has grown at historically low rates in recent years. From 2009 to 2012, total national health care expenditures rose at rates around 4 percent per year, and dipped as low as 2.9 percent in 2013. For 2014, the latest figure available, health care spending growth jumped up to 5.3 percent (see Table 1of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ health care expenditures data).

The journal Health Affairs noted in 2012 that the growth rates were the lowest since CMS started compiling the National Health Expenditure Accounts data in 1960.

But what impact would the ACA have had on spending growth rates? Note that the slowdown began in 2009, a year before the health care law was enacted. And the latest figure for 2014 — a year in which the major coverage provisions of the law went into effect, including the establishment of the health care exchanges and expansion of Medicaid — actually went up.

In fact, experts have said the lower rates of growth have been largely a reflection of the sluggish economy. A 2013 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation said that “much of the decline in health spending growth in recent years was fully expected given what was happening more broadly in the economy.” CMS’ experts said in 2014 that the ACA had had a “minimal impact.”

The health care law could have had some effect on the slower growth: Drew Altman, CEO of KFF, wrote in 2013 that the law could be having an indirect effect, and the White House Council of Economic Advisers’ November 2013 report said that the ACA’s reductions in Medicare spending would have a “spillover effect” on spending overall.

Obama ties an increase in the number of insured to a slowdown in health spending, but back in 2014 CMS’ experts projected the opposite: a bump up in the growth rate in the future, due to expanded insurance coverage under the ACA. CMS estimated an average growth of 6 percent per year for 2015 through 2023, “largely as a result of the continued implementation of the ACA coverage expansions, faster projected economic growth, and the aging of the population.”

And 2014’s growth rate of 5.3 percent moves health care spending toward that very projection.

As for Obama’s claim that “nearly 18 million have gained coverage so far,” that’s an administration estimate based largely on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index Survey through September 2015. The administration says 15.3 million gained insurance coverage through the individual marketplace, including the state and federal exchanges, and Medicaid, and another 2.3 million young adults have gained coverage due to the ACA’s September 2010 provision requiring insurers to keep them on their parents’ plans until age 26.

These are estimates, and the more robust and official numbers from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey only go through June 2015. But they show a drop in the uninsured of 17.8 million from 2009, a year before the ACA was enacted (46.3 million), to the first six months of 2015 (28.5 million).

Cutting Carbon Emissions

As he did in his 2014 address, Obama claimed that the U.S. has “cut carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.” That’s true, at least in terms of the total tonnage of emissions reduced. However, other countries have reduced their emissions by a larger percentage than the U.S.

We most recently checked this claim in December when Secretary of State John Kerry said “the United States of America has already reduced its emissions more than any other country in the world.”

As we pointed out then, the U.S., the second largest emitter of carbon pollution, reduced its emissions by 583 million metric tons between 2003 and 2012. That’s more than any other country, according to Energy Information Administration data. But that’s also a 10 percent reduction, and other nations including France (10.7 percent) and the United Kingdom (12.9 percent), to name a few, saw larger percentage reductions during that time period.

Military Spending

The president said that the U.S. spends “more on our military than the next eight nations combined.” That’s not quite accurate but close enough in terms of raw dollars, based anApril 2015 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on military expenditures of the top 15 spenders.

That report shows that the U.S. spent $610 billion on defense in 2014, while the next eight nations spent a combined total of $646.4 billion. (The spending amounts for three of the eight countries — China, Russia and Germany — are estimates.)

Also, the report makes a couple of points worth noting, including that military spending in the U.S. has been on the decline while “China, Russia and Saudi Arabia continued to make substantial increases in military expenditures” in 2014.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, April 2015: While the USA remains clearly the world’s largest military spender, at nearly three times the level of second-placed China, its expenditure dropped by 6.5 percent in 2014, largely as a result of budget deficit control measures put in place by the US legislature under the 2011 Budget Control Act. US military spending is expected to fall again in 2015 but at a slower rate. … In 2014 China, Russia and Saudi Arabia were the second, third and fourth highest military spenders, respectively. China’s expenditure rose by 9.7 percent, Russia’s spending was up 8.1 percent and Saudi Arabia’s by 17 percent.

Also, as a share of the nation’s economy, the U.S. spends 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product — which is only the fourth highest of the top 15 countries. Saudi Arabia (10.4 percent), United Arab Emirates (5.4 percent) and Russia (4.5 percent) spend more on the military as a share of GDP than the United States.

— by Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley and D’Angelo Gore

Sources

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 12 Jan 2016.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Private Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 12 Jan 2016.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Manufacturing Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 12 Jan 2016.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 12 Jan 2016.

Office of Management and Budget. “Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2020.” Mar 2015.

U.S. Treasury. “Final Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2015.” Oct 2015.

Jackson, Brooks. “Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?” FactCheck.org. 4 Jun 2012.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, National Health Statistics Group. Table 1: National Health Expenditures, Aggregate and Per Capita Amounts, Annual Percentage Change and Percent Distribution, Selected Calendar Years, 1960-2014. Accessed 13 Jan 2016.

Martin, Anne et. al. “Growth In US Health Spending Remained Slow In 2010; Health Share Of Gross Domestic Product Was Unchanged From 2009.” Health Affairs. Jan 2012.

Kaiser Family Foundation. “Assessing the Effects of the Economy on the Recent Slowdown in Health Spending.” 22 Apr 2013.

Martin, Anne et. al. “National Health Spending In 2012: Rate Of Health Spending Growth Remained Low For The Fourth Consecutive Year.” Health Affairs. Jan 2014.

Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary Burwell previews third Open Enrollment. press release. 22 Sep 2015.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Early Release of Selected Estimates Based on Data From the National Health Interview Survey, January–June 2015.” Nov 2015.

Altman, Drew. “How ACA may be holding down costs.” Politico.com. 26 Sep 2013.

FactCheck.org. “Facts of the Union.” 29 Jan 2014.

FactCheck.org. “Climate Change Review.” 14 Dec 2015.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2014.” 13 Apr 2015.

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President Obama's Speech on Sept. 10, 2013

President Obama delivered the following remarks making the case for a military strike against the Syrian government on Sept. 10, 2013, at the White House.

"The world saw thousands of videos, cell phone pictures, and social media accounts from the attack, and humanitarian organizations told stories of hospitals packed with people who had symptoms of poison gas."

PRESIDENT OBAMA: My fellow Americans, tonight I want to talk to you about Syria -- why it matters, and where we go from here.

Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has turned into a brutal civil war. Over 100,000 people have been killed.

Millions have fled the country. In that time, America has worked with allies to provide humanitarian support, to help the moderate opposition, and to shape a political settlement. But I have resisted calls for military action, because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The situation profoundly changed, though, on August 21st, when Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The images from this massacre are sickening: Men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas. Others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath. A father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk. On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off-limits -- a crime against humanity, and a violation of the laws of war.

This was not always the case. In World War I, American GIs were among the many thousands killed by deadly gas in the trenches of Europe. In World War II, the Nazis used gas to inflict the horror of the Holocaust. Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them.

And in 1997, the United States Senate overwhelmingly approved an international agreement prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, now joined by 189 governments that represent 98 percent of humanity. On August 21st, these basic rules were violated, along with our sense of common humanity. No one disputes that chemical weapons were used in Syria.

The world saw thousands of videos, cell phone pictures, and social media accounts from the attack, and humanitarian organizations told stories of hospitals packed with people who had symptoms of poison gas.

Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible. In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces. Shortly after those rockets landed, the gas spread, and hospitals filled with the dying and the wounded.

We know senior figures in Assad’s military machine reviewed the results of the attack, and the regime increased their shelling of the same neighborhoods in the days that followed.

We’ve also studied samples of blood and hair from people at the site that tested positive for sarin.

When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied. The question now is what the United States of America, and the international community, is prepared to do about it. Because what happened to those people -- to those children -- is not only a violation of international law, it’s also a danger to our security.

Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas, and using them.

Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons, and to use them to attack civilians.

If fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. And a failure to stand against the use of chemical weapons would weaken prohibitions against other weapons of mass destruction, and embolden Assad’s ally, Iran -- which must decide whether to ignore international law by building a nuclear weapon, or to take a more peaceful path.

This is not a world we should accept. This is what’s at stake. And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.

The purpose of this strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime’s ability to use them, and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use.

That’s my judgment as Commander-in-Chief. But I’m also the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. So even though I possess the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress. I believe our democracy is stronger when the President acts with the support of Congress. And I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together. This is especially true after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the President, and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force. Now, I know that after the terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea of any military action, no matter how limited, is not going to be popular. After all, I’ve spent four and a half years working to end wars, not to start them. Our troops are out of Iraq. Our troops are coming home from Afghanistan. And I know Americans want all of us in Washington -- especially me -- to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at home: putting people back to work, educating our kids, growing our middle class.

It’s no wonder, then, that you’re asking hard questions. So let me answer some of the most important questions that I’ve heard from members of Congress, and that I’ve read in letters that you’ve sent to me. First, many of you have asked, won’t this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are “still recovering from our involvement in Iraq.” A veteran put it more bluntly: “This nation is sick and tired of war.”

My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.

I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo.

This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons, and degrading Assad’s capabilities.

Others have asked whether it’s worth acting if we don’t take out Assad. As some members of Congress have said, there’s no point in simply doing a “pinprick” strike in Syria.

Let me make something clear: The United States military doesn’t do pinpricks. Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver. I don’t think we should remove another dictator with force -- we learned from Iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next.

But a targeted strike can make Assad, or any other dictator, think twice before using chemical weapons.

Other questions involve the dangers of retaliation. We don’t dismiss any threats, but the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military. Any other retaliation they might seek is in line with threats that we face every day. Neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise. And our ally, Israel, can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakeable support of the United States of America.

Many of you have asked a broader question: Why should we get involved at all in a place that’s so complicated, and where -- as one person wrote to me -- “those who come after Assad may be enemies of human rights?” It’s true that some of Assad’s opponents are extremists. But al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death.

The majority of the Syrian people -- and the Syrian opposition we work with -- just want to live in peace, with dignity and freedom. And the day after any military action, we would redouble our efforts to achieve a political solution that strengthens those who reject the forces of tyranny and extremism.

Finally, many of you have asked: Why not leave this to other countries, or seek solutions short of force?

As several people wrote to me, “We should not be the world’s policeman.” I agree, and I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions. Over the last two years, my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warning and negotiations -- but chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime.

However, over the last few days, we’ve seen some encouraging signs. In part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action, as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin, the Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons.

The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons, and even said they’d join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use. It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments.

But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies.

I have, therefore, asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path.

I’m sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday, and I will continue my own discussions with President Putin.

I’ve spoken to the leaders of two of our closest allies, France and the United Kingdom, and we will work together in consultation with Russia and China to put forward a resolution at the U.N. Security Council requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons, and to ultimately destroy them under international control.

We’ll also give U.N. inspectors the opportunity to report their findings about what happened on August 21st. And we will continue to rally support from allies from Europe to the Americas -- from Asia to the Middle East -- who agree on the need for action.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad, and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails. And tonight, I give thanks again to our military and their families for their incredible strength and sacrifices.

My fellow Americans, for nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements -- it has meant enforcing them.

The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world is a better place because we have borne them.

And so, to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.

To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain, and going still on a cold hospital floor. For sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.

Indeed, I’d ask every member of Congress, and those of you watching at home tonight, to view those videos of the attack, and then ask: What kind of world will we live in if the United States of America sees a dictator brazenly violate international law with poison gas, and we choose to look the other way?

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”

Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used.

America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

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Transcript courtesy of the White House.

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Obama is 11th great-grandson Descendant of America's First Slave through President Obama’s Caucasian mother’s family.

We’ve all heard about President Obama’s Irish roots, and we know his father came from Kenya. But a research team from Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, has also concluded that the nation's 44^th president is also the 11^thgreat-grandson of John Punch, the first documented African enslaved for life in American history.
And what’s more, the connection comes through President Obama’s Caucasian mother’s family.
This discovery follow years of research by Ancestry.com genealogists who, using early Virginia records and DNA analysis, linked Obama to John Punch. Punch was an indentured servant in Colonial Virginia who fled to escape servitude in 1640. After he was caught, his punishment was enslavement for life. Punch’s is the first documented case of slavery for life in the colonies, occurring decades before slavery laws were enacted in Virginia.