Preexisting conditions: One of Trump’s biggest, most important outright lies during the SOTU was that “We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions.” It cannot be emphasized enough what a flaming lie this is. The Trump administration is backing a court case that would completely overturn the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for people with preexisting conditions. In this very same speech, he promoted short-term plans that don’t cover preexisting conditions.
Prescription drug prices: SOTU healthcare lies weren’t just restricted to preexisting conditions. Trump said he was “pleased to announce that last year, for the first time in 51 years, the price of prescription drugs actually went down.” First, in the very specific way Trump measured it—by calendar year—it’s 46, not 51. But more importantly, if you look at non-calendar years, i.e. any time the cost of prescription drugs fell over a 12-month period, it happened just 5.5 years ago.
Work, wages, and unemployment: Trump claimed that “This is a blue-collar boom.” Not so much. “The manufacturing sector is in a technical recession and only 9,000 manufacturing jobs have been gained since June, compared to the 460,000 in the first 2½ years of Trump’s presidency,” The Washington Post reports. “Job growth has slowed in many ‘blue-collar’ sectors such as transportation, construction and mining.”
Trump’s claims about the picture for workers more generally were extremely problematic. He said “In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce,” which is simply a lie. President Obama came into office as the economy crashed, but over his eight years in office, millions of people entered or rejoined the workforce. Meanwhile, contrary to Trump’s rosy picture of the working economy, wage growth slowed in 2019—and states that have gone around Trump and congressional Republicans and raised their minimum wages are where wage growth is strongest.
Trade and manufacturing: Trump also inflated the jobs likely to be created by the USMCA, his tweaking of NAFTA, and the jobs likely to be created through his “Pledge to American Workers.” He bragged about “12,000 new factories,” but the gain in “manufacturing establishments” doesn’t mostly fit what you’d think of as factories. It’s a category that includes bakeries and custom tailors, and “more than 80 percent of these ‘manufacturing establishments’ employ five or fewer people.”
Border wall: Trump claimed that “We have now completed over 100 miles and have over 500 miles fully completed in a very short period of time. Early next year, we will have substantially more than 500 miles completed.” But in reality, just about a single mile has been built where there was no previous barrier, and the administration’s numbers include “104 miles of replacement barriers” and “10 miles of ‘secondary’ reinforcement barriers.”
Energy: “Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far,” Trump said. But “Trump is taking credit for a U.S. oil and gas production boom that started under Obama. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the U.S. has been the world’s top natural gas producer since 2009, top petroleum hydrocarbon producer since 2013, and top crude oil producer since 2018.” And of course, it would be far better to be talking about green energy …
To be clear, this just scratches the surface of Trump’s vast dishonesty during the State of the Union, which was still less vast than his dishonesty at a typical rally speech. The man will not tell the truth, and the State of the Union shows that his entire staff is complicit in that.
Source: http://feeds.dailykosmedia.com/~r/dailykosofficial/~3/1XvW–lTl-4/-Trump-s-State-of-the-Union-doesn-t-need-a-fact-check-it-needs-a-lie-check