Fact-Checking the Arizona Gubernatorial Debate

Updated: Thursday, 02 Sep 2010, 5:50 PM MST
Published : Thursday, 02 Sep 2010, 5:50 PM MST

PHOENIX - The Arizona governor's race candidates were fired up and opinionated Wednesday night during their televised debate. FOX 10 delved into what they said, and did a little fact-finding when it comes to some of their statements.

We looked into the job outlook, Arizona's budget battle and that infamous beheadings statement.

At the same time, we are reminded of an old lesson. Politicians will look at the same numbers and interpret them in different ways.

Beheadings?

On FOX News earlier this year, Brewer said: "We can not afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it. Everything from the crime to the drugs, the kidnappings, the extortion, the beheadings."

During the debate, Goddard said, "I call on you today to say that there are no beheadings. That was a false statement and it needs to be cleared up right now."

We got to the bottom of it. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are both unaware of any beheadings in Arizona.

Gov. Brewer corrected her statement post-debate, saying she meant the border region, not Arizona.

The budget

Brewer: "We have balanced the budget."
Goddard: "And what she has done has failed to balance the budget any year she has been governor."
Goddard: "Check your facts. You haven't balanced the budget yet since you've been governor."
Brewer: "We have balanced the budget."

The Arizona State Treasurer's Office said "on paper’ the budget is balanced." But a state budget report shows potential problems. If certain propositions fail in November, and if revenue and federal stimulus money is less than expected, the shortfall could be up to $700 million.

Job outlook

Goddard: "Just since Jan Brewer became governor, we have lost 128,000 jobs."
Brewer: "Under my administration, we have already brought thousands of jobs into Arizona."

The Arizona Department of Commerce calls these statements "symantics." Jobs are both lost and created, but the good news is we're losing fewer jobs.

More on the governor's race

Keep your comments civil - MyFOXPhoenix.com reserves the right to remove comments that are obscene, profane, abusive, hateful, racist, spam, "trolling," or otherwise inappropriate. Repeat offenders will be banned. If you see such comments, report them to us by flagging them. (Click on 'Flag' beneath a post -- hover your mouse below the post's text for it to appear.)

Comments should be flagged for: spamming, violating our commenting policy, being clearly unrelated and attacking other commenters personally. Comments should not be flagged for: Disagreeing with the content or disputes with other commenters.

Be sure to refer to our Terms of Service.

Stay on topic: Don't discuss an entirely different subject or spam the section asking about another story. Send us an e-mail instead. Continue to spam comment sections and your acccount will be banned. Keep your posts brief and to the point. Remember this is a comment section, not your personal blog.

When posting a comment on myfoxphoenix.com, a valid e-mail address, Facebook, Yahoo!, OpenID or Twitter account is necessary. The e-mail is not available for viewers to see. You will be required to verify the e-mail address before posting a comment. Users with third party logins (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are already considered verified accounts.

Choose a user name you'll remember - don't use your real name unless you want it to be known.

Accounts that use obscenities in their user names and/or avatar pictures are not allowed.

To avoid your posts being labeled as spam, simply provide a link to an article instead of copying and pasting the entire text.

Posts with obscenities will be removed by moderators.

Click here if you need help signing up for an account or using your profile.

Comments Powered By Disqus

Fact-Checking the Arizona Gubernatorial Debate

Top Stories

Popular

Most Commented