The vice presidential debate Thursday night in St. Louis had the two candidates – Senator Joe Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin – making their respective claims about a number of important issues – like tax votes, tax rate changes, health care, energy, mortgage crisis, and troop funding.

Palin claimed that Barack Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes, but a non-partisan Factcheck.org said the count was “inflated and misleading.” It clarified that there were up to four votes on the same measures; and moreover, 23 measures were against proposed tax cuts, and 7 favored lowered taxes.

Another claim by Palin was that Obama’s plan to raise the top income tax rate would affect “millions of small businesses”, to which Biden responded that the reported income of most of the small businesses was less than $250,000. Facts by an analysis by Tax Policy Center conclude that “roughly 97% of small businesses would not be affected at all by increases in the top two tax rates.”

Palin’s claim related to health care was that Obama favors a “universal, government-run program” and “health care being taken over by the feds.” The fact is that Obama’s health-care plan is neither universal, nor does it call for a government takeover. It would give Americans the option of government health insurance or a private plan.

Meanwhile, on the ‘energy’ front, Biden claimed his comment that he has ‘always’ supported clean coal, was “a comment made at a rope line was taken out of context” by McCain’s campaign. The fact is that a video recording has him saying: “We’re not supporting clean coal. …No coal plants in America…”

Biden also claimed that McCain said he was “surprised” by the subprime mortgage crisis, but the fact is that McCain’s use of the word “surprised” came in response to a comparison to the dot-com collapse of the late 1990s, when he had said: “I was surprised at other times in our history. When I say ‘surprised,’ I’m not surprised when in capitalist systems that there’s greed and excess.”

Both Palin and Biden claimed that their opposing presidential candidate voted against funding U.S. troops in Iraq. Though the charges are true, Obama had said that he wanted to fund the troops, but the bill in question did not include a requirement that President Bush begin bringing troops home; McCain voted against funding because the bill in question included a timeline for withdrawing troops, and McCain opposes timelines.