Barack Obama Archives - Page 38 of 81

Promises, Promises

January 4, 2012

President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign is circulating a video of promises the then-candidate made during an Iowa caucus victory speech in January 2008, claiming he kept the promises he made that night. Not quite.
To be sure, the president signed a major health care law, ended the long war in Iraq and signed multiple “middle-class” tax cuts, just as his campaign boasts.
But the health care law isn’t expected to make insurance “affordable and available to every single American,”

Paul, Santorum Stretch Truth on Iran

January 2, 2012

Iran is very much in the news, with President Obama signing legislation that imposes new sanctions against Iran, which has warned it may retaliate by closing a key oil route. But there was more heat than light on the critical issue of Iran from two GOP presidential candidates this weekend:

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rep. Ron Paul falsely claimed the International Atomic Energy Agency “did not find any evidence” that Iran is “on the verge of a [nuclear] weapon.”

The Whoppers of 2011

December 20, 2011

Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version …

Suspect Claims from Obama’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview

December 12, 2011

President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Obama said that “John McCain’s former economist” said that the stimulus “created or saved 3 millions jobs.” Mark Zandi did say that the stimulus created about that many jobs, but the registered Democrat was one of many advisers to McCain, not his chief economist.
Obama also said “the majority of Republicans” believe there should be “a balanced approach to deficit reduction,

GOP’s Phantom Job Losses

November 22, 2011

Ooops!
Republicans — eager to show that President Obama’s oil and gas drilling policies “cost jobs” — have been using a number they now admit was more than three times too high. Even after they corrected their error (after we pointed it out), they started using a figure that is based on industry-sponsored studies, uses dubious assumptions and doesn’t apply to any jobs that currently exist.
It’s just the latest example of how both sides tend to use grossly exaggerated claims about jobs when debating their pet policies.

Lazy Rhetoric

November 17, 2011

Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney both claim President Barack Obama said that “Americans are lazy.” He didn’t. To the contrary, Obama has consistently and repeatedly praised American workers as the “most productive in the world,” a bit of boosterism he has repeated dozens of times. His recent words — “we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades” — actually referred to collective efforts to promote foreign investment in the U.S.,

Super PAC Polishes Huntsman’s Resume

November 15, 2011

A super PAC backing Jon Huntsman for president makes three misleading or false claims in a TV ad now running in New Hampshire:

The group, which calls itself Our Destiny, suggests President Obama is to blame for a volatile stock market — saying “the stock market is a wreck,” even though the Dow Jones is up more than 50 percent since Obama took office in January 2009.
The ad boasts that Huntsman is “consistently conservative,” citing an op-ed in the Boston Globe.

We Repeat, Still a Christmas Tree

November 10, 2011

Q: Will the Obamas do away with the White House Christmas tree?
A: No. This zombie rumor first appeared in 2009 and was proved false. It is still false today.

Obama’s Spin on Jobs Bill

October 18, 2011

President Obama exaggerates when he claims “independent economists” say his jobs bill “would create nearly 2 million jobs.” The median estimate in a survey of 34 economists showed 288,000 jobs could be saved or created over two years under the president’s plan.
Obama also claimed one economist said the Republican jobs plan “could actually cost us jobs.” That economist said he did not have enough information to provide a jobs estimate, although he added that focusing on cutting spending “could be harmful in the short run.”

Obama’s Solyndra Problem

October 7, 2011

President Obama exaggerated when defending his administration’s approval of a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a now-defunct solar company.
Obama referred to Solyndra’s loan at an Oct. 6 press conference as “a loan guarantee program that predates me.” That’s not accurate. It’s true that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created a loan guarantee program for clean-energy companies developing “innovative technologies.” But Solyndra’s loan guarantee came under another program created by the president’s 2009 stimulus for companies developing “commercially available technologies.”