Fact Check: McCain, Obama Charges and Countercharges

Oct. 7, 2008 — -- ABC News independently checked some of the claims made by John McCain and Barack Obama during the debate tonight.

With reporting by the ABC News Fact Check team John Berman, Lisa Chinn, Dennis Dunlavey, Brian Hartman, Tom Giusto, Kimberley Randolph, Z. Byron Wolf, Justin Rood, Teddy Davis, Karen Travers, Kirit Radia, Luis Martinez, Ariane deVogue, Arlette Saenz, Reynolds Holding and Jerika Richardson.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Money

Early in the debate tonight, McCain charged that Obama had the second highest donations of anyone in the Senate from troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

TRUE. The Illinois senator has received $126,349 ($120,349 from employees and $6,000 from Political Action Committees or PACs) since he joined the Senate in 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His total is the second largest of any member of Congress, right behind Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., at $165,400.

McCain has received $21,550 from employees (nothing from PACs) since 1989 -- a period 14 years longer than Obama has been in the Senate -- according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Pork Barrell Spending

McCain charged that Obama was guilty of driving up pork barrel spending -- government spending on programs that benefit his state of Illinois. McCain said, "While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks, he voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill."

TRUE: In July 2007, Obama requested a $3 million earmark for the Adler Planetarium to repair the 40-year-old projector to the Sky Theater, as detailed on his Web site.

AND FALSE: As to the first part of the claim, that Obama voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, any senator, including McCain, who casts a vote to pass spending bills, in effect, votes for far more than that.

But if McCain misspoke and meant to say that Obama requested nearly a billion in earmarks, he's not even close. According to the Citizens Against Government Waste's annual Pig Book for 2008 Appropriations, Obama requested 53 earmarks worth a total of $97.4 million.