Some statements merit second look

— -- The Republican presidential candidates made many claims at their debate Wednesday in Iowa. A look at some:

Claim by Rudy Giuliani: "I would immediately begin to reduce the size of the federal government the way I did when I was mayor of New York."

Reality: Giuliani cut the number of city employees after he was elected in 1993 as a recession affected the city's economy. In 1996, the city had 235,000 employees, 12,000 fewer than in 1994, according to the city's Independent Budget Office. By the time Giuliani left office in 2001, the number of city employees had grown again to virtually the same level as when he took office.

Claim by Giuliani: "I would make sure that government was transparent. My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did."

Reality:Giuliani held town hall meetings and frequent press briefings and conducted a weekly radio call-in show during his tenure. But The New York Times and other news organizations and watchdogs such as the New York Public Interest Research Group were unable to get information from the city without filing Freedom of Information Act requests.

In 1998, the city's Independent Budget Office sued Giuliani to get data from city agencies it had previously had unrestricted access to. When he left office, Giuliani was the first mayor to take his archives with him, to a private foundation he controlled. His mayoral papers were microfilmed and returned to the city archives but not without raising fears that they had been sanitized.

Claim by Mike Huckabee: A single-rate "fair" tax would mean "rich people aren't going to be made poor, but maybe the poor people could be made rich."

Reality:Huckabee's proposed "fair tax" is a consumption tax with a monthly rebate for taxes on some purchases. He has compared it to sales taxes in 45 states. Some economists oppose the idea because it would unfairly affect the poor.

In 2005, the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform reported that a national retail sales tax "would require a tax rate of at least 34% and likely higher," to replace the income tax, meaning it would be a tax hike for most Americans because the current top income tax rate is 35%.