AP FACT CHECK: Trump's claims in his State of Union address

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump's claims in his State of Union address
By: CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press
POSTED: JAN 30 2018 10:58PM EST
UPDATED: JAN 31 2018 12:21AM EST
http://www.fox5atlanta.com/national-news/fact-check-state-of-the-union

WASHINGTON (AP) — Boastful even within the traditional confines of a State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump inflated the impact of his tax cuts Tuesday night, declared an end to a "war" on energy that did not exist when he took office and displayed a faulty grasp of immigration policy.

A look at some of the statements in his speech and how they compare with the facts:

TRUMP: "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history."

THE FACTS: No truer now than in the countless other times he has said the same. The December tax overhaul ranks behind Ronald Reagan's in the early 1980s, post-World War II tax cuts and at least several more.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in the fall put Trump's package as the eighth biggest since 1918. As a percentage of the total economy, Reagan's 1981 cut is the biggest followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.

Valued at $1.5 trillion over 10 years, the plan is indeed large and expensive. But it's much smaller than originally intended. Back in the spring, it was shaping up as a $5.5 trillion package. Even then it would have only been the third largest since 1940 as a share of gross domestic product.

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TRUMP: "After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."

THE FACTS: Actually, they are not rising any faster than they have before. Average hourly pay rose 2.5 percent in 2017, slightly slower than the 2.9 percent increase recorded in 2016 under President Barack Obama.

Most economists say that wages should increase at a faster rate as the unemployment rate drops. The unemployment rate stands at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, but that has done little so far to spark rising wages.

The last time unemployment was this low, in the late 1990s, average hourly pay was rising at a 4 percent pace.

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[...]

[Formerly Once-Ler]

Then there should be little opposition to cutting taxes further.  I like how a study done before the law was debated and passed is used as a "fact check."

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AP had some very biased reporting in the earlier version of this.  It said that the diversity wasn't "random" but now it says that it's not "that random".