Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman said presidential candidate Al Gore is offering a "$500 tax credit for stay-at-home moms." That's true but hardly the whole story: The tax credit would only be available for a parent staying home during a baby's first year.

His Republican rival, Dick Cheney, said that under presidential candidate George W. Bush's plan, "Everybody who pays taxes will, in fact, get tax relief."

Most would, because Bush wants to cut all tax rates. But a bipartisan congressional panel has found that nearly 27 million Americans might not get the full benefit because they would have to pay another tax originally designed to prevent investors and the wealthy from sheltering too much of their income.

The panel sketched out a scenario under which some taxpayers would get no break at all from Bush's plan, because of the so-called alternative minimum tax.

On other matters:

-Cheney criticized the Democratic ticket for taking money from Hollywood after Lieberman had attacked the entertainment industry for years for marketing violence to children.

Cheney left out one fact -- Republicans have raised significant amounts from the industry they, too, have criticized.

TV, movie and music executives are the fourth largest source of cash for the Democratic Party, raising $5.9 million so far this campaign cycle for the party and $928,000 for Gore. The industry is 11th on the Republican list, donating $3.7 million to the party and $726,000 for Bush.

-When Cheney lamented the state of education in America and declared many children in poor schools "are permanently sentenced to a lifetime of failure," Lieberman objected.

"I disagree with what my opponent has said. A lot of progress has been made in recent years," Lieberman interjected, though conceding more work needed to be done.

But about a month before his selection as vice presidential nominee, Lieberman used language similarly grave to Cheney's to assess the state of public education.

"We are facing an educational crisis in our poorest urban and rural communities, where learning is too often is languishing, where dysfunction is too often the norm," Lieberman said on the Senate floor.

Not much has changed since that June 28 speech.

Test scores released last month showed that over the last decade reading and science scores have mostly declined. Math scores -- measured over a longer period dating to 1982 -- were up.

On taxes, both candidates cited figures that don't tell the whole story.

Lieberman repeatedly stated that the Bush-Cheney tax cut would cost $1.6 trillion -- but he gets that figure by adding the extra interest payments the government would have to pay as a result of not using that money to pay down the debt. Bush's plan cut taxes by about $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Cheney also claimed Americans pay the highest taxes since World War II. The Clinton administration projects revenue from personal and corporate taxes will account for 20.4 percent of the gross domestic product this year, the highest since 1945.

But that figure is a function of the booming economy, and most Americans pay lower taxes because of cuts enacted in the Reagan and Clinton years. Most of the tax burden -- 80 percent -- is shouldered by the wealthiest fifth of Americans.

The Treasury Department says about third of eligible taxpayers don't pay any federal income taxes. And it says a family of four with median income of $54,900 pays less than 10 percent of its income in federal taxes, the lowest rate in 35 years.