On Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Managing Editor Lori Robertson talks about the off-base health care claims in President Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s stump speeches. Obama misleads on Romney’s Medicare plan, and Romney uses a false statistic about insurance premium increases.
For more on the candidates’ stump speeches, see “Romney’s Stump Speech” (Sept. 20) and “Obama’s Stump Speech” (Sept. 19).
Person: Barack Obama
Obama’s Numbers
For more than a year, we’ve been pointing out on a regular basis how President Obama, his allies and his critics all misuse or even fabricate statistics to give voters a skewed picture of reality. This time we’ll just offer the accurate numbers. Here — in a graphic …
Fact-Checking the Presidential Debate
FactCheck.org Director Brooks Jackson talks to WCBS radio about the false and misleading claims made by President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in their first presidential debate. The candidates got the facts wrong on taxes, deficits, jobs and more.
For our full article on the debate claims, see “Dubious Denver Debate Declarations.”
Dubious Denver Debate Declarations
We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts …
Mailer Misleads Ohioans on Job Losses
In a mailer to Ohioans, a conservative group distorts Ohio’s job figures under President Obama and misquotes his administration about the potential for mismanaged stimulus money.
Ironically, the mailing from Americans for Tax Reform, a nonprofit group led by Grover Norquist, proclaims that it’s “important for Ohio to get the whole picture.”
We couldn’t agree more.
The mailer displays a 2012 newspaper headline, “Ohio second-worst for job losses.” But the article was about job losses over the last 10 years —
Obama’s Deficit Dodge
President Obama is falsely claiming that his administration’s policies are responsible for “about 10 percent” of the deficits “over the last four years.” The cumulative deficit during that time is nearly $5.2 trillion. Obama signed two bills — the 2009 stimulus and the 2010 tax cut — that alone cost $1.6 trillion during that time, or nearly a third of the cumulative four-year deficit.
How could he have been so wrong? Although he said “the last four years,”
Obama’s Executive Orders
Q: Has President Barack Obama signed 900 executive orders, some of which create martial law?
A: No. Obama’s executive orders do not create martial law. And so far he has signed 139 executive orders — not 900.
Romney Ad on China Mangles Facts
A Romney ad strains the facts when it suggests the Obama administration’s refusal to “stand up to China” and label it a currency manipulator has cost the U.S. 2 million jobs. The jobs figure is unrelated to currency manipulation. It is an International Trade Commission estimate of jobs that could be created if China enforced U.S. intellectual property rights.
Actually, intellectual property rights are a high priority of the Obama administration, and in 2010 it won what it called “significant intellectual property rights enforcement initiatives”
Romney, Obama Court Moms, Distort Facts
Mitt Romney and President Obama each distort the facts in TV ads aimed at young mothers:
Romney’s ad falsely attributes the nation’s $16 trillion debt all to Obama when it says “your share of Obama’s debt is over $50,000.” The total public debt was $10.6 trillion when Obama took office, and he inherited a $1 trillion-plus deficit in his first year.
Obama’s ad claims Romney’s tax plan “could take away middle-class deductions for child care, home mortgages and college tuition,”
Obama’s Stump Speech
It’s the oldest form of political communication. Before there was Twitter or Facebook, before there were 30-second television ads, or super PACs, or even radio or newspapers — there was the stump speech. Ancient Greek politicians spoke directly to citizens …