Year: 2012
Gutting Welfare-to-Work?
The Romney campaign says the Obama administration has adopted “a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.” But FactCheck.org Deputy Director Eugene Kiely tells WCBS radio that the administration’s plan does no such thing.
Read more about the president’s welfare changes in our Aug. 9 article, “Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform?‘”
Spotlight On: Michael James
Michael James said he had to pull over his car when he heard Rush Limbaugh in a radio ad endorsing Missouri’s lieutenant governor.
Limbaugh claimed his old friend Peter Kinder “banned taxpayer-funded travel for politicians” when he led the state Senate.
“It sounded outrageous,” James said. “Obviously politicians have to travel. And they don’t do that with their own money if it’s official state business.”
James uploaded the ad to Spin Detectors. We found Limbaugh’s claim went too far.
Rush’s Ruse in Missouri
In a campaign-funded radio ad to Missouri voters, Rush Limbaugh claimed the state’s lieutenant governor “banned taxpayer-funded travel for politicians” when he led the state Senate. Not really.
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who is Limbaugh’s friend, spearheaded a moratorium on paying travel expenses for state senators, not all “politicians.” The ban affected only out-of-state travel and failed to affect taxpayer-funded travel within Missouri, which is a far greater cost.
Furthermore, the ban expired after one year.
Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform’?
A Mitt Romney TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted “a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.” The plan does neither of those things.
Work requirements are not simply being “dropped.” States may now change the requirements — revising, adding or eliminating them — as part of a federally approved state-specific plan to increase job placement.
And it won’t “gut” the 1996 law to ease the requirement. Benefits still won’t be paid beyond an allotted time,
Is Romney to Blame for Cancer Death?
A grieving widower in a new pro-Obama TV spot says his wife contracted cancer and died “a short time after” Mitt Romney closed the steel plant that employed him and left “my family” without health coverage. That’s not quite so.
We find this ad from Priorities USA Action to be misleading on several counts.
Steelworker Joe Soptic’s wife, Ranae, died in 2006 — five years after the plant closed.
She didn’t lose coverage when the plant closed.
Could Kansans ‘Opt-Out’ of ‘Obamacare’?
A conservative group wrongly claimed that a failed state proposal would have given Kansans the right to “opt-out” of the federal health care law’s mandate to have health insurance. But the measure would have been meaningless. Federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land,” according to the U.S. Constitution.
For more on the mailers, which attacked moderate Republican state lawmakers and praised conservative members of the party, see our Aug. 3 story “Mailers Mislead on ‘Obamacare’ Opt-Out Amendment.”
Obama Not Trying to Curb Military Early Voting
Mitt Romney wrongly suggests the Obama campaign is trying to “undermine” the voting rights of military members through a lawsuit filed in Ohio. The suit seeks to block state legislation that limited early voting times for nonmilitary members; it doesn’t seek to impose restrictions on service members.
In an Aug. 4 Facebook posting, Romney called the lawsuit an “outrage,” and said that “if I’m entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military,
Romney’s Impossible Tax Promise
Tax experts — including one who supports Romney’s plan — say the Republican presidential candidate’s promise to cut individual income tax rates without either favoring the wealthy or losing revenue isn’t mathematically possible. That’s the conclusion of the Tax Policy Center in a report the Romney campaign attacked …
Does Romney Pay a Lower Rate in Taxes Than You?
A new ad from the Obama campaign claims that Mitt Romney “paid only 14 percent in taxes—probably less than you.” That depends. Romney paid a federal income tax rate that is higher than the income tax rate paid by 97 percent of tax filers. But if you include a combination of income taxes and payroll taxes — which make up the bulk of federal taxes for most taxpayers — the ad is accurate.
The ad, called “Stretch,”