Rick Perry falsely claimed the Obama administration wants farmers to obtain a commercial driver's license to ride tractors across public roads.
As first reported by the Des Moines Register, the Texas governor told his tall Texas tale at the Iowa State Farm on Monday — two days after announcing he would run for the Republican presidential nomination. He offered it as an example of "regulations that are stifling jobs."
Perry, Aug. 15: This is just such an obscene,
Rick Santorum puffs up his credentials a bit in saying he "defeated three Democratic incumbents." He defeated two incumbents; in two other congressional elections, he was the incumbent.
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and representative, has touted his Democrat-defeating skills a few times recently. In the GOP presidential debate on Aug. 11, he said he was a candidate "who can beat incumbent Democrats, three of them, three incumbent Democrats." And at the Iowa straw poll on Aug.
Rick Perry has made false or exaggerated claims on U.S. oil imports, the federal debt, Social Security and the federal health care law.
The Texas governor gave a speech Aug. 13 in South Carolina to announce he will run for the Republican presidential nomination. As we have for other declared candidates, we offer here a summary of his past statements that we have found to be false or misleading. We also reviewed his weekend speech and found other questionable claims.
Mitt Romney gave a misleading answer to a question about Social Security during a feisty exchange with a heckler in Iowa. He said payroll taxes take 15.3 percent "out of your earnings," but only the self-employed pay that rate. All other workers pay half of that, with the other half being paid for by the employer.
The Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor also said that the payroll tax rate would have to go up to 44 percent to pay for Social Security,
Howard Dean falsely claimed that "60 percent of the deficit is due to the Bush tax cuts." Last year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that allowing the tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010 would decrease the deficit from $1.3 trillion in 2010 to $1.07 trillion in 2011. That's a 17.7 percent drop. It's sizable. But it's not 60 percent.
Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chairman, made his claim on CBS'
Newspaper ads from a conservative group make the disputed claim that "Obama's Medicare Plan Will Increase Medicare Premiums." The "plan" it refers to is actually designed to produce lower prices for low-income Medicare Part D beneficiaries and taxpayers. And whether drug companies would increase prices to others in response is a matter of conjecture, not fact. Experts have differing views. And the sponsor of the ad — whose sister organization produced a study supporting the claim —
A Mitt Romney online video overstates the growth of Chicago's unemployment rate under President Obama. The ad says that Chicago's unemployment is up 48 percent, which is true since November 2008. But Obama didn't take office until Jan. 20, 2009, and the city's unemployment rate has increased 26.7 percent since then. That's still a large jump, to be sure, but not nearly as high as the video claims.
The Web video — titled "Obama Isn't Working: Chicago"
Sen. Harry Reid falsely claimed that 8 million jobs were lost during the Bush administration. To the contrary, there was a net gain of 1 million jobs under President George W. Bush. It's true that more than 8 million jobs were lost as a result of the recent recession — from the job peak to trough — but only about half of those were lost under Bush.
The Nevada Democrat also falsely claimed that Bush turned a projected surplus of $7 trillion over 10 years into a $14 trillion debt.
Michele Bachmann incorrectly claimed the new health care law is "the largest spending and entitlement program ever passed in our nation's history." The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the health care provisions of the law will cost roughly $169 billion in fiscal year 2016, the first year of full implementation. But that's far less than what Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid each will cost that same year.
The Minnesota Republican and presidential candidate made her claim during a July 28 speech at the National Press Club.
The transportation secretary overstated the number of construction jobs lost because Congress has failed to pass a federal aviation bill. Ray LaHood claimed that "as many as 70,000 construction workers across America are out of work," because of the congressional stalemate. That's the number of jobs a construction industry analysis said would be "affected" in some way. The industry study puts the number of construction workers who are actually "out of work" at 24,000.
LaHood, a former Illinois congressman,