We’ll borrow again from our friends at the Cherokee Phoenix and their new online edition of the paper. They do a truth report, which gets to the facts behind the claims candidates are making and either verify, disprove, or throw a big confusing question mark on the whole deal. We try to sort through the question marks to the truth.
Rather than take them one by one, we’ll do two separate posts, each of which might make one of the candidates mad. Basically, we’ll do one on the things the Phoenix says Baker is truthful about and/or Smith is lying about, and another one on the things Smith is truthful about and/or Baker is lying about.
We’ll start with what the Phoenix says Baker is truthin’ about (scroll down to page 10 on the link to follow along).
First, the Phoenix says Baker is telling the truth there are $42 million in health care carryover. No context is provided as to what this means, or what Smith might say about it, but the Phoenix confirms it is true on face value.
Next, it also says that Baker is telling the truth when he says the housing authority has $25 million in ‘current assets’ that could be used for housing.
The Phoenix says that Baker is telling the truth when he says ‘only a nickel out of every dollar of CNB’s revenues went towards services to the people.’ We’ve spent some time on that, with our Show Me The Money blog.
It’s very misleading, but not false, because revenues mean total dollars taken in. So if you buy gas at the Outpost, Cherokee people get a nickel for every dollar you spend there, even before the Outpost buys the gas from whoever they buy it from. Cherokee Nation gets 30% of the PROFITS and 70% stays at CNB for reinvestment and to create jobs.
The Phoenix says Baker is telling the truth when he says Cherokee Nation has tied up “$24 million in vacant jobs” in the budget. No explanation or context is given, though we presume everyone wants those jobs filled with Cherokees.
Tomorrow: The Double Truth About Chad Smith
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