Here are the statements to fact-check from the July 25, 2010 Meet the Press:
VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT

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Statements are listed in chronological order


TIMOTHY GEITHNER | The US has seen six months of private sector job growth.

SEC’Y GEITHNER: They’re — I think businesses across the country , you know, again, faced with the prospect of an economy falling off the cliff, are still cautious, still very cautious. So they’ve been trying to get as much productivity out of their employees as possible. They’re in a very strong financial conditions, though, and I think that’s very promising, because there’s a lot of pent-up demand and there’s a lot of capacity still for them to step up and start to invest and hire again. But you’re seeing it start. You know, we’ve had six months of private sector job growth . Not as fast as we like, not as fast as we need, but I think you’re going to see it, again, gradually start to get better.

TIMOTHY GEITHNER | In the recently passed financial markets reform bill, Congress did not grant the power to get back the bonuses that were paid to bank executives during the financial crisis.

MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about the achievement of financial reform legislation that you’ve worked so hard on. The, the pay czar, Ken Feinberg , has been working on compensation, just issued a new report saying that, at the height of the crisis , you had some of the biggest banks paying bonuses that were not warranted. Do you have any way to get any of that money back?

SEC’Y GEITHNER: You know, he spoke to that earlier. Congress did not give him the authority to do that. But they did give him authority he used very effectively to change how Wall Street was paying its executives, and he did an enormously important job in trying to make sure that we have in place ways to make sure these guys don’t go back in the future — don’t go in the future back to paying executives to take risks that could imperil the stability of the economy . He did a great job, limited authority, but he used that authority very well.

MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | Andrew Breitbart doctored the video of Shirley Sherrod before posting it on his website.

MR. MORIAL: He threw a firecracker in a crowded room. He yelled “fire” in a crowded theater and doctored a video, which caused an innocent, hard-working, responsible woman, whose story was of racial reconciliation , to be cast in a negative light. And then it began from there.

MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | There have been more filibusters in the last two years than in the previous century.

MR. MORIAL: One of the things this distracts from is the news of the week that the Senate cut out $1 billion for summer jobs, but is prepared to spend $60 billion on a troop surge if — in Afghanistan. One of the things this distracts from has been the repeated use of the filibuster to block legislation and block measures that would help the economy in urban communities, and that, to me…

MR. MORIAL: …that, to me, and the persistent use of the filibuster, it being used more times in the last two years than in the previous century…

MARC MORIAL (Urban League President)

1) Latino unemployment is lower than white unemployment.
2) African American unemployment is lower than Latino unemployment.

MR. MORIAL: I don’t agree that Latinos and Asians have not suffered discrimination in this country or that Native Americans have not suffered discrimination in this country . I think the question is, how do you target and tailor policies that are going to help all economically and socially disadvantaged people. And it’s a fair debate to have, but it also needs to be positive with facts . Look at the Latino unemployment rate . It’s higher than the white rate. The black rate is higher than the Latino rate. So to suggest that there are not disparities that affect the Latino community , that affect the Native American community , most in depth, the African- American community , we’ve got to have the discussion that Jim Webb wants to have. We have facts , real facts , that give a picture of how life is in this nation.

RICK SANTELLI (CNBC)

1) 41 cents of every dollar the US government spends in fiscal year 2010 will go to pay debt.
2) The 2010 budget is $3.5 trillion.

MR. SANTELLI: Forty-one cents of every dollar this government spends in fiscal 2010 goes to pay debt. It’s borrowed money. Forty-one cents of every dollar. Marcus , we have a $3 1/2 trillion 2010 budget . Let’s look at that $34 billion for extension. These people need help, but to think that this administration — and in Timothy Geithner ‘s interview, he talks about getting their fiscal house in order. In a $3 1/2 trillion budget , they can’t come up with a way to offset $34 billion in spending. It isn’t that the conservatives want to be mean-spirited. It’s that at the end- game, if the country is broke, everybody loses.

DAVID BROOKS (NY Times)

1) In the past year the Obama administration’s approval rating has dropped about 20%.
2) A poll last week indicated that faith in the US Congress was 11%, the lowest the nations history.

MR. BROOKS: Right. There’s been a, there’s been a massive recall in the past year. The Obama administration has dropped about 20 percent among independent voters, in part because of the debt and other issues. But faith in government has plummeted back to its historic lows. Faith in Congress this week hit an 11 percent, an historic low forever. So how do you persuade people that you can do things when you have that kind of distrust, and that hasn’t been solved? The stimulus obviously created some jobs. But the fact is, it’s taken forever to get out; and the underlying reality is, the more the debt goes up, the more people are scared, and the more they’re scared, especially small business , they’re just not investing.


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