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  • 2017-12-27 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Donald Trump Say 'Police Officers and Firefighters Make Too Much Money'? (en)
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  • On 26 December 2017, a story raced across social media with a headline suggesting that United States President Donald Trump had said that firefighters and police officers make too much: The BlueDotDaily.com article attached to this claim refers to a controversial tax bill passed in late 2017. A number of readers clearly only saw the headline and believed it to reflect a direct quote made by the President. However, the article went on: Nowhere in the article is any indication that Trump said or even implied that police, firefighters, or any first responders make too much money. Its actual focus was the taxpayers who used various miscellaneous deductions when filing their 2015 income tax returns, not whether any party involved said or implied police officers and firefighters were overpaid. (The same provision was addressed in a previous Snopes.com fact check involving misinformation about the effects of the 2017 tax bill.) The Blue Dot Daily article cited a piece from Salon.com to bolster its claim, but that article mentioned law enforcement as only one example out of many: Tax preparation chain H&R Block's tax information center addressed three changes to itemized deductions introduced by the bill in a 22 December 2017 post, noting that the new act has eliminated or restricted many itemized deductions beginning in 2018 and raised the standard deduction: Despite headlines heavily implying that the president had said that police and firefighters in particular are overpaid, itemized deductions for all professions have been eliminated in favor of a higher standard deduction. All professions retain the option to itemize some deductions, but fewer are likely to do so, in part because the increased standard deduction would benefit more affected taxpayers than itemizing. The claim moved across social media (as so many do) as in a game of Telephone, with one editorial using police and firefighters as an example, and another essentially attributing a quote based on that example to the president. (en)
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