During the April 6 “Make it your own Friday” broadcast of his News Radio 740 KVOR show, host Joseph Michelli echoed numerous conservative talking points and falsehoods on a variety of topics, such as Social Security, illegal immigration, global warming, and the expiration of President Bush's tax cuts.

1. Social Security

During the broadcast a caller asked Michelli, “What happened to all that money that [illegal immigrants] paid in taxes and that were taken out of their checks and sent to the government?” Michelli replied that “it's just all gone into the Social Security trust fund, which is actually, you know, veritably bankrupt anyway.”

In fact, as Media Matters for America repeatedly has noted, the claim that Social Security is “veritably bankrupt” is false. Michelli's assertion echoed false statements Bush made repeatedly throughout his 2005 campaign to add private accounts to the Social Security system, including in his 2005 State of the Union address.

According to the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds' (commonly known as the Social Security trustees) annual report for 2006, “Even if a trust fund's assets are exhausted, however, tax income will continue to flow into the fund. Present tax rates would be sufficient to pay 74 percent of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2040 and 70 percent of scheduled benefits in 2080.”

2. Illegal immigration

After the same caller speculated that perhaps the United States is not enforcing immigration laws because the government is “making too much money off the illegals” through Social Security revenue, Michelli cited “a study that just came out today” regarding “how much money” illegal immigrants pay in taxes “versus how much do they cost us in services and in resources.” Michelli stated that “according to that study, for every dollar we take in from an illegal immigrant in taxes, every dollar of taxes, we pay out three dollars in services.” He concluded that “if the study is true, we'd be better getting everybody out of here, because the dollar we're picking up in taxes is not covering what it's costing us to take care of them by a third.”

Michelli apparently was referring to a study released April 4 and conducted by Robert Rector, senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. According to its executive summary:

In contrast, low-skill households pay less in taxes than do other households. On average, low-skill households paid only $9,689 in taxes in FY 2004. Thus, low-skill households received at least three dollars in immediate benefits and services for each dollar in taxes paid. If the costs of public goods and past financial obligations are added, the ratio rises to four to one.

In repeating those findings, Michelli distorted the results as pertaining to illegal immigrants; in fact, the study examined “low-skill households” and made no mention of illegal immigrants.

Michelli also failed to note that the Heritage Foundation published an earlier, now-discredited study, also by Rector, which originally claimed that "[i]f enacted, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act [CIRA, S.2611] would ... allow[] an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years -- fully one-third of the current population of the United States." As Media Matters noted, Rector later reduced that number to 66 million after the Senate passed Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) amendment that would limit the number of legal immigrants who could enter the United States under the bill's guest worker program. According to a May 23, 2006, Knight Ridder Newspapers (now known as McClatchy Newspapers) article, the Heritage study “helped persuade” the Senate to pass Bingaman's amendment to the immigration bill.

In addition, Rector's estimates of future illegal immigration were called “preposterous” and “widely unrealistic” by Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, and William Frey, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, respectively. There also was an enormous disparity between Rector's figures and those given in a May 16, 2006, Congressional Budget Office report, which concluded that the Senate bill without Bingaman's amendment only would have allowed approximately 8 million immigrants to enter the United States legally, not the 103 million Rector originally suggested.

3. Global warming

Two callers repeated conservative falsehoods in attempts to downplay the human causes of carbon dioxide accumulation in the Earth's atmosphere. Michelli agreed with both, the first of whom attributed global warming to solar activity:

CALLER: For them to say that, that this is what's going on is just so patently ridiculous. Our sun has more to do with global warming than, than the fossil fuels we burn. They --

MICHELLI: Amen. Try to -- try to convince people.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in examining whether changes in solar activity might be responsible for recent warming, found a substantial “rise in solar forcing during the early decades of the 20th century,” but not in later decades. The IPCC stated, “Such a forcing history is unlikely to explain the recent acceleration in surface warming, even if amplified by some unknown feedback mechanism.”

Media Matters also noted that a 2004 study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research similarly concluded that solar brightness contributed little to the dramatic warming during the last few decades. As a press release explained, the study concluded that “the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years” and “the Earth's temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time.”

4. Tax cuts

Finally, during a discussion with a caller about government spending, Michelli echoed another conservative talking point, claiming that if Democrats in Congress “don't extend this tax break it's going to be equivalent to the greatest increase in taxes we've known. Much more than even [former President Bill] Clinton increased our taxes.”

However, what Michelli characterized as an “increase in taxes” comes from projections in the House and Senate budget resolutions, both of which passed in March, to achieve certain budgetary goals by not extending current provisions of the tax code due to expire in several years. As The Christian Science Monitor reported on April 2, noting the Republican talking point that Michelli repeated:

Congress is not proposing extending key Bush tax cuts set to expire on Dec. 31, 2010. If current law plays out, that means that income tax rates increase in all tax brackets, as well as for capital gains and dividends; the child tax credit drops from $1,000 to $500; and the estate tax, set to phase out in 2010, returns in 2011. Republicans are calling it the largest tax hike in US history: more than $700 billion over the next five years.

The Monitor further noted the Democratic response to the Republican claim that Democrats are raising taxes:

Democrats say that they are simply following current law -- not repealing tax cuts, as many members of their caucus had proposed. “The '01 and '03 tax cuts remain in place for '07, '08 '09, and '10. When we get to December 31, 2010, we have a big decision to make. But we can approach that bridge when we come to it,” says Rep. John Spratt (D) of South Carolina, who chairs the House Budget Committee.

From the April 6 broadcast of News Radio 740 KVOR's The Joseph Michelli Show:

CALLER: Hey, I got a question for you.

MICHELLI: All right.

CALLER: All right, we've -- they've had these illegal aliens here in the country for years, you know, with fake IDs and all this, and fake Social Security numbers, and --

MICHELLI: Yeah.

CALLER: So they've been working semi-legally and they had all these taxes taken out.

MICHELLI: Yep.

CALLER: Taken out of their checks.

MICHELLI: Yep.

CALLER: What happened to all that money that they had -- that they paid in taxes and that were taken out of their checks and sent to the government?

MICHELLI: Well, OK, so you're talking about, first off, the Social Security money, which they would be eligible for if their Social Security number was really legitimate --

CALLER: Right.

MICHELLI: -- and they'd be eligible for when they were 65.

CALLER: Right.

MICHELLI: But the number isn't legitimate, so it's just all gone into the Social Security trust fund, which is actually, you know, veritably bankrupt anyway.

CALLER: Right. So maybe the reason they're not really -- the Congress and the, and our politicians aren't stopping all this is 'cause we can't afford to because they're making too much money off the illegals as it is now. And that's why they haven't really cracked down on the whole system.

MICHELLI: Well, there was a study that just came out today -- go figure -- that says, looking at that, how much money do they give us in taxes -- illegal immigrants -- versus how much do they cost us in services and resources. And according to that study, for every dollar we take in from an illegal immigrant in taxes, every dollar of taxes, we pay out three dollars in services. Now, I don't know if you want to buy into that study, but if the study is true, we'd be better getting everybody out of here, because the dollar we're picking up in taxes is not covering what it's costing us to take care of them by a third.

CALLER: Ah, so then we're still going in the hole.

MICHELLI: Exactly. That's according to this most recent study as of this very day in which we speak. Hey, thank you for your call. I don't know. You know, what do you believe? It's a great question. Do you believe that the government is actually spending the money of the illegal immigrants like drunken sailors and because of that they don't want to actually get rid of the immigrants because they're a source of revenue? Or do you believe, as the study suggested today, that we're spending three dollars of our money to collect one dollar of taxes from illegal immigrants?

[...]

CALLER: For them to say that, that this is what's going on is just so patently ridiculous. Our sun has more to do with global warming than, than the fossil fuels we burn. They --

MICHELLI: Amen. Try to -- try to convince people.

CALLER: Our galaxy within our galaxy has more to do with our temperatures than fossil fuels.

[...]

CALLER: I was just going to say there's more carbon dioxide that was emitted in the famous Mount Saint Helens eruption than there has been emitted by every single vehicle that has ever been driven on the face of this planet, all time. One eruption.

MICHELLI: Yeah, well, you know, we gotta -- we gotta figure out how to cork those things too. But that's after we stop all of us from using our vehicles and producing anything for the economy.

CALLER: Absolutely. Have a good one, Joe.

MICHELLI: Thank you. Appreciate it. Now, I see the world from your same viewpoint there. You know, in the natural occurrences of carbon dioxide, it's just -- it's, it's silly for us to have this discussion. But -- but, you know, Al Gore knows more, so, so be it.

[...]

MICHELLI: Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand. I just -- I know in general the instinct is to spend money to retain power for both Republicans and Democrats, let's be honest. It's just the Republicans aren't quite as good at it yet, at spending the money to the degree that Democrats are.

CALLER: Yeah, because when Clinton cut all that money and cut the money from the vets and everything of that nature, a lot of us lost out. And where did that military money go?

MICHELLI: Yeah, well, it certainly didn't make us safer from the war on terrorism, I'll tell you that much. And the -- and I'll take it one step further about the money. I mean, if these guys don't extend this tax break it's going to be equivalent to the greatest increase in taxes we've known. Much more than even Clinton increased our taxes.