EDITOR’S NOTE: A look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don’t tell the full story

WASHINGTON (AP) — Viewers of the latest Republican

presidential debate didn’t get a straight story from the candidates on

U.S. taxes vs. the world, the state of the health insurance marketplace

under “Obamacare” or what might happen if that law is taken away.

Among other fumbles:

—Marco Rubio seemed unaware that Kurds are Sunnis.

—In

his zeal to condemn the Obama administration’s immigration record, Ted

Cruz once again vastly overstated deportations under the previous two

presidents. And he continued, as in a previous debate, to struggle with

the meaning of carpet-bombing.

—Chris Christie misstated the U.S. policy on paying ransom to hostage-takers.

A look at some of the claims Saturday night and how they compare with the facts:

DONALD TRUMP: “Right now, we’re the highest taxed country in the world.”

THE FACTS: Far from it. The U.S. tax burden pales in comparison with that of other industrialized countries.

Taxes

made up 26 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2014, according to the

34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That

measure looks at the entire tax burden, which is different than tax

rates that can be gamed through loopholes, deductions and credits.

In

Sweden, the tax burden is 42.7 percent of the economy. It’s 33.6

percent in Slovenia (Trump’s wife, Melania, was born in the part of

Yugoslavia that became Slovenia). Britain clocks in at 32.6 percent,

while Germany’s burden is 36.1 percent.

Where is the tax burden lower than the United States?

South Korea, Chile and Mexico.

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CRUZ,

defending his vow to deport 11 million people living in the U.S.

illegally: “I would note that in eight years Bill Clinton deported 12

million people. In eight years George Bush deported 10 million people.

Enforcing the law. We can do it.”

THE FACTS: Statistics from

Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that roughly 1.6 million were

deported under Bush, not 11 million. Under Clinton, about 870,000

immigrants were deported, not 12 million, according to the Migration

Policy Institute. So far, about 2.4 million have been deported under the

Obama administration.

To get the swollen figures, Cruz appears to

be combining deportations with arrests made by the Border Patrol in the

previous administrations, according to the institute.

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TRUMP: “The insurance companies are getting rich on Obamacare.”

THE

FACTS: Although some insurance companies are making a profit from their

business under President Barack Obama’s health care law, the industry’s

biggest player lost money.

United Health last year reported deep

losses from its business on the health law’s insurance exchanges and

said it will re-evaluate whether it wants to continue in that market.

Anthem, the second-largest insurer, said its enrollment in the law’s

markets fell, and the business has been less profitable than expected.

Aetna,

the third-largest insurer, said it has been struggling with customers

who sign up for coverage outside the health law’s annual enrollment

window and then use a lot of care. This dumps claims on the insurer

without providing enough premium revenue to counter those costs.

Some

industry analysts say insurers are struggling to attract enough healthy

patients, and it’s too easy for customers to manipulate the system by

doing things like signing up for coverage, using health care, and then

stopping premium payments.

A dozen of the 23 nonprofit health insurance co-ops created under the law have folded.

___

RUBIO:

“Under Chris Christie’s governorship of New Jersey, they’ve been

downgraded nine times in their credit rating. This country already has a

debt problem, we don’t need to add to it by electing someone who has

experience at running up and destroying the credit rating of his state.”

CHRISTIE: “Incorrect and incomplete information.”

THE

FACTS: Rubio is right that the state’s credit rating has been

downgraded nine times since Christie took office, a reflection of

concern by the major rating agencies about New Jersey’s fiscal health

and pension system.

___

CHRISTIE: “The president and his

former secretary of state are for paying ransoms for hostages. When

(you) do that, you endanger even more Americans around the world to be

the subject of this type of hostage-taking and illegal detention.”

THE

FACTS: President Barack Obama said exactly the opposite in June, when

the White House reaffirmed its opposition to paying ransom to terrorist

groups that hold American citizens hostage.

The president said

such payments only serve to endanger more Americans and finance “the

very terrorism that we’re trying to stop” — points that Christie

actually echoed during the debate.

Though the new White House

policy precludes ransom payments by the U.S. government, the Obama

administration did leave open the door to communication with

hostage-takers — whether by the government, families of victims or

third-parties — and said relatives who on their own decide to pay ransom

won’t be threatened with prosecution.

___

CRUZ: “We will

adopt commonsense reforms, No. 1, we’ll allow people to purchase health

insurance across state lines that will drive down prices and expand the

availability of low-cost catastrophic insurance.”

THE FACTS:

Allowing the interstate sale of health insurance policies is not a new

idea, and not the straightforward solution that it may sound.

This

long-standing Republican proposal has previously run into opposition

from regulators in many states. State insurance and consumer protection

regulators say such an approach could trigger a “race to the bottom,”

allowing skimpy out-of-state policies to undercut benefits that

individual states require. Proponents of interstate competition say a

basic benefits plan would be spelled out.

Some insurance industry

insiders see another complication: Out-of-state companies may not have

adequate local networks of hospitals and doctors.

It’s a tricky

position for Republicans in Washington, who argue broadly (Cruz

included) that the federal government should defer to state and local

decision-making. On this matter, many states don’t want the solution

that Republicans are pushing.

___

RUBIO on fighting the

Islamic State group: “The Kurds are incredible fighters and they will

liberate the Kurdish areas, but Kurds cannot and do not want to liberate

and hold Sunni villages and towns.”

THE FACTS: The Kurds are

overwhelmingly Sunni. Rubio did not distinguish between Sunni Arabs and

Sunni Kurds. The areas predominantly held by IS fighters are in Sunni

Arab territory. They did infiltrate Kurdish regions in both Iraq and

Syria, but it is problematic to paint this picture with a broad

sectarian brush.

___

CRUZ, defending his vow to “carpet

bomb” to defeat the Islamic State: “When I say saturation carpet

bombing, that is not indiscriminate. That is targeted at oil facilities.

It’s targeted at the oil tankers… It’s using overwhelming air

power.”

THE FACTS: Cruz is trying to rewrite the dictionary, which

defines the term as dropping many bombs on a small area to prepare it

for advancing ground troops. The U.S. military uses precision-guided

bombs against the kinds of specific targets that Cruz is talking about,

which also reduce the risk of killing civilians — a goal the U.S.

military has embraced under Republican as well as Democratic presidents.

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Associated Press writers Alicia A. Caldwell, Deb Riechmann, Eric Tucker and Vivian Salama contributed to this report.

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