POLITICO's analysis of where the Democratic field stretched the truth, steered around some inconvenient facts, or just plain got it wrong.



Sanders's surveillance goals might not be possible

Bernie Sanders said tonight that he wants Silicon Valley to help uncover pro-ISIL Internet content without violating Americans' privacy rights. The U.S. needs to “get Silicon Valley to help us to make sure the information being transmitted through the Internet by ISIS is in fact discovered,” Sanders said during the Democratic debate. “But I do think we can do that without violating the constitutional privacy rights of the American people.”

That sounds reasonable, but it's not at all clear how it could be done. The Obama administration has already been making that request, under pressure to identify extremist content on the Internet after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. Top officials have recently met with tech executives in Silicon Valley to ask for help. But there's no obvious way to install a "back door" that lets law enforcement snoop on potentially dangerous communications without opening access to wrongdoers or foreign spies, and the tech industry is reluctant to hand over users' messages itself. Companies worry they'll be seen as an arm of the U.S. government, particularly after the blowback the industry received over Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA's Internet surveillance.

— Maggie Severns



Clinton's been clear on how she'll pay for her policies? Nope.

Hillary Clinton said you can visit her website and see how she will pay for each of her policy proposals: "I have actually documented every way that I'm going to pay for what I'm doing, because I think the American public deserves to know. And you can go to my website and actually see that."

That’s not true. On infrastructure, the site says, “Hillary will fully pay for these investments through business tax reform.” On education—a $350 billion proposal—it says ‘[the plan] will be fully paid for by closing tax loopholes and expenditures for the most fortunate.” On paid leave, it says, “She’ll ensure that the plan is fully paid for by a combination of tax reforms impacting the most fortunate.” Clinton also wants to provide more tax credits for child care and to create universal pre-K, but her website doesn’t offer any details for how she’d pay for those proposals at all.

— Danny Vinik



Hillary's wrong about health costs going down

In hailing the benefits of the Affordable Care Act during Sunday's debate, Hillary Clinton asserted that “we now have driven costs down to the lowest they've been in 50 years." That's not true. She may have been referring to the fact that health care spending has been growing at historically slow rates in recent years, but it's still growing—and there are signs that cost growth is picking up again. According to National Health Expenditures data released in December 2014, national health spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the lowest annual increase since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began tracking numbers in 1960. But numbers released by CMS just last month show that spending is on the rise again.

Health care spending grew by 5.3 percent in 2014. Health policy experts attribute the growth to more people getting insurance coverage because of the ACA, as well as the increase in costs related to prescription drug spending.

— Rachana Pradhan



Mayor O'Malley ignored a huge program for cities

Martin O’Malley claimed that we haven’t had a new agenda for cities since Jimmy Carter was in office. But that’s not true: Former president Bill Clinton created a plan called HOPE VI to overhaul public housing via the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the early 1990s. In the years since its creation, the program has distributed billions of dollars in grants to cities throughout the country.

— Danny Vinik



Sanders and O'Malley are wrong about wages

In his opening statement, Bernie Sanders delivered a line that his supporters often hear from the Vermont senator on the campaign trail: “People are working longer for smaller pay.” Former governor Martin O’Malley echoed that sentiment a minute later when he said that wages have gone down. But the Democratic candidates repeated claims that wages are declining, it’s not true. The best estimates show that median wages are stagnant since 2000 and, in fact, real wages grew around 2 percent last year because inflation was zero thanks to the fall in price of oil. Wages may not be doing well—but they aren’t shrinking.

— Danny Vinik

