Rick Perry pitch touches on fact-checked claims

Texas Gov. Rick Perry popped fresh advertising spots this week pitching for businesses to move to Texas.

We watched them–see one posted to the right and the other one here–and noticed claims similar to statements already subjected to the Truth-O-Meter.

In “Texas Is Calling,” a woman says: “And 1,400 people move here every day.” In 2010, we rated as Mostly True a statement by Perry that 1,000 people moved here every day.

In the ad, a physician says: “Texas has the largest medical center in the world.” We took that as a reference to the Texas Medical Center in Houston which, we noted in a 2013 fact-check, says on its “Facts and Figures” web page that the center is “the largest medical complex in the world” employing 92,500 people in 54 entities including government agencies and non-profit health-related institutions on an annual total budget of $14 billion.

In “Texas Testimonials,” the other ad pitching for businesses to consider Texas, Houston businessman and 2010 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami says: “I brought 1,200 jobs from China to Texas…”

In 2010, we rated a similar Shami claim as Half True. At the time, it appeared that the jobs were coming from South Korea.

In 2011, a similar Perry claim proved to be Mostly False. We concluded that the manufacturer of the CHI hair iron moved some jobs from China to Texas, but there was no indication that qualities specific to the Texas economy or actions by state government merited credit for the shift. It remained possible, too, that most of the moved jobs came from South Korea.

Shami’s company also still had products made in China.

See the past fact checks to the right.

What else?