BOSTON — Even as she neglects Massachusetts by spending more and more time on the campaign trail in other states, Elizabeth Warren still manages to put the Commonwealth on the map – though not in the best of ways. Embarrassingly for Massachusetts, our senior senator saw one of her biggest lies of the year land on the Washington Post’s “Biggest Pinocchios” list of 2015.
Washington Post names Elizabeth Warren one of its ‘biggest Pinocchios of 2015’
At the end of every year, veteran journalist Glenn Kessler, who runs the Washington Post’s political “Fact Checker” blog, releases his biggest Pinocchios of the year.
This is an honor, awarded to the highest degree of false claims, most politicians may like to avoid.
That said, congratulations Sen. Elizabeth Warren, you made the list!
The Massachusetts Democrat was given “Four Pinocchios” for a speech in April in which she cited a flawed study that estimated auto-dealer markups cost consumers $26 billion a year.
The 2011 study, conducted by the Center for Responsible Lending, only collected data on subprime auto loans, which accounted for only one-fifth of the overall market at the time. Pressed by Kessler, even the CRL’s senior vice president admitted the data was incomplete.
But the Pinocchio didn’t end there.
Though Warren said the $26 billion number represented “auto dealer markups,” the figure also included “compensation for dealers who arranged the loans for car buyers”—compensation for additional services to the customer, rather than a “markup.”
“But besides citing a faulty number, Warren misleadingly says it represents ‘auto dealer markups,’” Kessler wrote. “The group that produced the report said that figure includes reasonable compensation owed to car dealers.”
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