Laura Bush: Rhetoric and reality

Published: August 11, 2004

Laura Bush's economic statements from Tuesday's address.

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Claim: "10 million women own their own business in America."

Verdict: Correct. The Center for Women's Business Research estimates 10.6 million firms are at least 50 percent owned by a woman or women.

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Claim: "Women are opening businesses at twice the rate of men, and female-owned businesses employ more than 18 million Americans. They also generate more than $2 trillion in sales."

Verdict: Correct. The Center for Women's Business Research estimates that female-owned firms employ 19.1 million people and generate $2.5 trillion in sales. The estimated growth rate in the number of women-owned firms was twice that of all firms -- not just male-owned firms -- from 1997 to 2004, according to the center.

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Claim: "Because of tax cuts, 25 million small-business owners have each saved an average of $3,000 this year alone."

Verdict: Undetermined, because we don't know which 25 million business owners Bush was referring to. According to the Tax Policy Center, self-employed, landlords, farmers, S-Corp and some other small businesses received an average $1,562 tax break in 2003. But two-thirds of those businesses received a tax break of $1,000 or less, and 25 percent received no break at all.

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Claim: "Since 2001, real after-tax incomes have risen by 11 percent."

Verdict: Correct. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, compensation to employees increased 11 percent from the first quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2004.

That number represents about a 3.5 percent increase per year, which is about average for the U.S. economy over time, said Louis Johnston, assistant professor of economics at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University.

"In fact, it is slow for an economy coming out of a recession," he said. "It is also an average, so it's skewed by higher income earners, and it doesn't factor in the country's population growth over that time."

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Claim: "Families are saving more because the president doubled the child credit, he reduced the marriage penalty, and he put the death tax on the road to extinction."

Verdict: Depends. According to a 2004 study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Tax Policy Center, the bottom four-fifths of American households will end up paying more -- through higher local and state taxes, higher fees, reduced services and payments on the national debt -- than they are getting taken off of their federal tax bills.

Only households with incomes of at least $200,000 a year would receive a net benefit, the study concludes.

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Claim: "Now, more than half of all minority families own homes."

Verdict: Undetermined. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 2003 home ownership rates were at 64 percent for all Americans in 2003, the most recent data available. But it doesn't break the numbers down into one lump for minorities.

Ownership rates for minorities were 46.7 percent for Latinos, 48.1 percent for blacks, 54.3 percent for American Indians, 56.3 percent for Asians and 72.1 percent for whites.

Overall rates and those for whites, blacks and Asians have increased since 2001, while ownership rates for American Indians and Latinos have decreased.

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Claim: "Consumer confidence is at an all-time high."

Verdict: Incorrect. Consumer confidence has increased for four straight months, but was higher as recently as June 2002, according to the Confidence Board's Consumer Confidence Index.