Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine faced off Tuesday in the one and only vice-presidential debate of the 2016 US election.
READ MORE: Tim Kaine and Mike Pence come out swinging in defence of Clinton, Trump
Both candidates attacked the records of their counterparts’ running mates: sometimes using the facts, and sometimes not. Here is a look at some of the statements that they made, and how they stack up against the facts.
Pence on the national debt:
REPUBLICAN MIKE PENCE: “The fact that under this past administration, we’ve almost doubled the national debt is atrocious…. Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine want more of the same.”
THE FACTS: As a share of the total U.S. economy, the national debt has gone up 35 per cent; not a doubling.
Still, the debt has ballooned to $19.6 trillion. This largely reflected efforts by the Obama administration to stop the Great Recession.
Would Clinton similarly increase the debt? Not according to an analysis by the independent Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The Clinton plan with its tax increases would increase the gross debt – both privately and publicly held- by $450 billion over 10 years. Mind you, that is on top of an $8.8 trillion increase already projected by the government under current law.
As for Donald Trump, the committee says his tax-cut-heavy plan would increase the gross debt by $4.3 trillion -nearly 10 times more than Clinton’s plan would do.
Kaine on the Islamic State:
DEMOCRAT TIM KAINE, on fighting the Islamic State: “Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan.”
THE FACTS: Clinton also doesn’t have a plan that is materially different than what President Barack Obama is already doing.
She’s described a three-part strategy that involves crushing IS “on its home turf” in the Middle East, disrupting its infrastructure on the ground and online, and protecting America and its allies. All are current elements of the Obama administration’s strategy, so it’s not clear what would change or if she would accelerate any portions of it.
It’s also the case that Trump has not laid out a clear plan.
Pence on Obama’s foreign policy:
PENCE, calling Clinton the “architect of the Obama administration’s foreign policy,” says the crisis in Syria was the result of a “failed and weak foreign policy that Hillary Clinton helped lead.”
THE FACTS: Clinton, as secretary of state, actually pushed for increased U.S. intervention after Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against rebels. But Obama is the commander in chief and nothing has swayed him thus far. Whatever her failings might be on foreign policy, it’s a stretch to accuse her of helping to lead a weak policy on Syria.
Kaine on immigration:
KAINE: “Our plan is like Ronald Reagan in 1986.”
THE FACTS: Hillary Clinton’s immigration plan is certainly similar to a bill signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. But Clinton’s proposal would offer a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally and would have far broader impact. The estimated population of immigrants living in the United States illegally is now roughly 11 million. In 1986, the so-called Reagan amnesty bill legalized the immigration status of about 3 million people.
There are also some notable differences between the so-called amnesty bill signed by Reagan and Clinton’s proposal. The Reagan bill included a provision that made it illegal for businesses to hire workers who don’t have the legal right to work in the United States. Enforcement of that provision has never fully materialized.
While Clinton’s proposal does include a proposal to deport criminal immigrants, the plan also includes a plan to roll back a law that bars most immigrants who had lived here illegally from returning after either deportation or voluntarily leaving for three or 10 years, depending on how long the person had been living here. That provision actually became law in 1996, while President Bill Clinton was in office but was considered a follow-on to the bill Reagan signed.
Pence on a “war on coal”:
PENCE: “We’ve seen an economy stifled by more taxes, more regulation, a war on coal.”
THE FACTS: The coal industry’s woes don’t come solely from onerous federal regulations. Pence omitted the effects of steep competition from cheap natural gas.
A string of major coal companies have filed for bankruptcy in recent years, including Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Peabody Energy. Layoffs and cutbacks have spread economic suffering through coal country in the Appalachians and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. By contrast, these are boom times for natural gas extraction, mostly due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Still, the Obama administration has implemented rules that aren’t making the coal industry’s life any easier. Obama last year imposed a rule requiring coal-fired power plants to cut their carbon emissions as part of his effort to combat climate change. The rule has been suspended pending a legal challenge. Obama also has halted new coal leases on federal lands until it completes a comprehensive review.
Kaine on Iran:
KAINE: “We stopped the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”
THE FACTS: Kaine is right – at least for now.
One year ago, on July 14, 2015, the United States, six other world powers and Iran finalized almost two years of negotiations on a pact outlining what Tehran had to do to pull back its nuclear program from the brink of weapons-making capacity. And it spelled out the West’s obligations to end many financial, trade and oil sanctions that had battered Iran’s economy.
So far, Iran has lived up to its end of the deal. It shut down thousands of centrifuges for enriching uranium and exported almost its entire stockpile of the bomb-making material. It disabled a heavy water plant that would have produced plutonium usable in a weapon. It opened up its supply chain to far greater scrutiny. An underground enrichment facility near Fordo operates under strict limits.
But the deal could let Iran start ramping up nuclear activity again after the pact ends in eight years.
Pence on balancing the budget:
PENCE, saying he’s proud that “the state of Indiana has balanced budgets.”
THE FACTS: True, but that’s not exactly to his credit as governor of Indiana. A balanced budget is required by law, as it is in every state except Vermont.
Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Deb Riechmann, Alicia Caldwell and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
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