Day two of the first Democratic presidential debate, held in Miami Thursday, brought ten more candidates discussing the future of the country and the biggest issues in the Democratic primary contest. Here are some of the things they said that CBS News fact checked or expanded upon in order to add context.
Did Vermont, Sanders’ home state, reject Medicare-for-All?
Michael Bennet pointed out to Bernie Sanders that “Vermont rejected Medicare-for-All” because of high taxes.
Fact check: True
Bernie Sanders’ has won election in Vermont numerous times while supporting Medicare for All, a plan to expand taxpayer-funded insurance to every American.
Trending News
But Vermont’s 2014 plan to extend government health care to all its residents, called Green Mountain Care, was scrapped before it went into effect anywhere in the state due to its high cost.
The Washington Post reported that then-Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, made choices about the program that would have doubled Vermont’s budget, increased the state’s income taxes by “up to 9.5%,” and imposed an 11.5% payroll tax on all of Vermont’s employers.
Green Mountain Care would have covered about 94% of the health care costs of all Vermont residents, according to the Post, but the cost would have been roughly $5 billion, an extremely high sum for the small state.
It was a cost the state couldn’t shoulder, Shumlin concluded. He said at a press conference killing the plan, “The risk of economic shock is too high at this time to offer a plan I can responsibly support for passage in the legislature.”
Do three people in the U.S. own more wealth than the bottom half of America?
Claim by Bernie Sanders: “We have a new vision for America and at a time when we have three people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America.”
Fact check: Likely true
Sanders’ claim that three people in the U.S. own more wealth than the bottom half of America appears to be referencing a 2017 study from the left-leaning Institute for Policies, which found that the three richest Americans — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos — together own more wealth ($248.5 billion) than the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population.
That bottom 50 percent owned roughly the same amount as the three billionaires in 2017.
In other words, these three people are worth more than “a total of 160 million people or 63 million American households,” the authors wrote.
That’s just one study, but Sanders’ claim is on the right track.
–Kathryn Watson
Did the Trump tax law benefit the top 1% and add $1 trillion to the nation’s debt?
Claim: Kamala Harris: “I hear that question, but where was that question when the Republicans and Donald Trump passed a tax bill that benefits the top 1% and the biggest corporations in this country contributing at least $1 trillion to the debt of America which middle class families will pay for one way or another? Working families need support and need to be lifted up, and frankly this economy is not working for working people.”
Rating: Mostly true
Mr. Trump’s tax law does disproportionately benefit wealthier people — who pay overall more in taxes — than lower-income families. The majority of Americans did receive a tax cut, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The law lowered the maximum corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a more significant cut than the changes made for the individual tax rates. And even the Trump White House acknowledged the GOP tax cut didn’t benefit middle-class Americans enough. Mr. Trump subsequently insisted he would push a second round of tax cuts to specifically help the middle class. That was days before the midterm elections. He never followed through.
Harris’ claim that Mr. Trump’s tax law adds $1 trillion to the debt is accurate but if anything, it’s an understatement. The Congressional Budget Office says the tax law is projected to increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion by 2028.
— Kathryn Watson
Who’s on the debate stage tonight?
On Thursday, Joe Biden, Michael Bennet, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper, Bernie Sanders, Eric Swalwell, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang debate.
Cory Booker, Bill de Blasio, Julián Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Tim Ryan and Elizabeth Warren debated Wednesday night.
