Year: 2012
Distorting Obama’s Economic Plan, Ryan’s Medicare Plan
Both sides are playing loose with the facts in a couple of new TV ads. As FactCheck.org Deputy Director Eugene Kiely explains on WCBS radio, a pro-Romney super PAC takes President Obama’s comment about his second-term economic plan out of context, and an Obama TV ad provides false information about Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan.
Read more about both ads in our Aug. 13 item “Pro-Romney Super PAC Twists Obama’s Words” and our Aug. 14 item,
Ryan’s Medicare Plan
Now that Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney’s running mate, the claims about Ryan’s Medicare plan are flying. We give the details on what the plan will do, and debunk Democratic claims that it would raise seniors’ costs by $6,000. That pertains to an outdated plan.
See “Outdated Attacks on Ryan” (Aug. 14) for more on misleading claims about his past proposals.
American Bridge 21st Century
A liberal super PAC that conducts opposition research for Democratic candidates and organizations.
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Aug. 7-13
This week, readers sent us comments both criticizing and praising our reporting.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the email we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Outdated Attacks on Ryan
The Obama campaign points to old proposals by Rep. Paul Ryan in saying that Mitt Romney would pay “less than 1 percent in taxes” under Ryan’s plan and that seniors would pay $6,000 more for Medicare. Ryan’s 2010 budget proposal would have eliminated capital gains and dividend taxes — which were indeed the bulk of Romney’s tax burden for 2010 — but Ryan dropped that specific measure from subsequent budgets. The Medicare claim, too, pertains to a less generous plan Ryan released last year,
Crossroads Changes Plane False Attack
After yanking an ad with a false claim off the air in North Dakota, Crossroads GPS is back with an amended version that is technically accurate, but still grossly misleading.
The original ad claimed that Democratic Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp “spent taxpayer dollars on private planes” while she was the state’s attorney general. That wasn’t true. The planes were donated by the federal government.
The amended version, which started running Aug. 10, says she “allowed staff to fly a taxpayer-funded plane.”
Pro-Romney Super PAC Twists Obama’s Words
A pro-Romney TV ad shows President Obama saying, “we tried our plan and it worked.” That twists his words way out of context. He was referring to his proposal to cut the deficit using both tax increases and spending cuts, like President Clinton. Obama wasn’t talking about past job creation efforts, as the ad would have viewers believe.
Restore Our Future, a super PAC founded by former Mitt Romney campaign staffers, went up with its new ad on Aug.
Romney Hijacks Credibility
A new Mitt Romney campaign ad passes off opinions of a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush as though they were from a newspaper’s reporters or editors. It’s a political trick used by both sides: hijacking a news organization’s credibility.
In this example, the Romney ad attacks President Obama’s mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance that includes free contraception. It attributes to the San Antonio Express-News the words: “Obama’s Insurance Decision Declares War on Religion.”
But the newspaper didn’t say that in any editorial or news article.
Obama’s ‘Boss’ Baloney
The Obama campaign strikes another low blow with a TV spot accusing Mitt Romney of “personally” approving a notoriously abusive tax-avoidance scheme and suggesting he may have paid “zero” tax. That’s badly misleading.
It wasn’t Romney who was avoiding taxes, it was Marriott Corp. And there’s no evidence to support the ad’s speculation that Romney himself paid no income tax, or that he did something illegal.
The ad opens with an unsupported insinuation that Romney isn’t releasing more federal income tax returns because some would show he didn’t pay any income tax in those years.