Fact Checking Romney’s Answer to the First Question of the 2nd Presidential Debate

Posted by icarus on 17 Oct 2012 / 1 Comment

Romney can spread more lies in a debate than Dexter Morgan can kill people in an entire season of Dexter …. so I have to break down Romney’s untruths, frequent forays of fiction and shape-shifting spread out over multiple articles. Romney’s contribution to the economy can best be summed up by his increase in spending on political advertisements, his having to pay unknown amounts for tax lawyers to avoid taxes and the huge increase in fact checking required to rebut his statements. Those three things alone may contribute to 1% of GDP growth for the country. </sarcasm>

This entire article is in response to the FIRST question that Governor Romney responded to and then the follow up to the first question:

You can see the entire transcript of the 2nd Presidential debate HERE:

Question: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. Can — what can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?

Romney said:

When I was governor of Massachusetts, to get a high school degree, you had to pass an exam. If you graduated in the top quarter of your class, we gave you a John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, four years tuition-free to the college of your choice in Massachusetts. It’s a public institution. I want to make sure we keep our Pell — Pell Grant program growing. We’re also going to have our loan program so that people are able to afford school.

This is what Romney actually did with education in Massachusetts as Governor; the Boston Globe writes HERE:

In 2003, eight weeks into his term, he called it “my opportunity to be bold’’ and proposed to overhaul the public college system.

His plan, based on reports by old colleagues at Bain & Co., was filed amid a $1 billion-plus state deficit. It called for cutting $150 million from the public system and getting rid of not only the UMass president but his entire office. It proposed combining six state schools into three and consolidating 22 campuses’ back offices into seven.

Another of Romney’s 2003 proposals raised eyebrows statewide. Romney wanted to charge students 15 to 28 percent more to attend four-year public campuses. His corresponding plan to boost financial aid by $44 million got less attention.

But Romney supports the government paying banks for guaranteed loans to students which ultimately cost either the student more in student loans or the taxpayer more in taxes. Obama eliminated those giveaways to banks with Dodd-Frank; Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank.

Romney has said he would sign the Republican controlled House budget which would cut Pell Grants by $17 billion a year (source).

Romney’s top adviser – Ed Gillespie – saying emphatically that Romney would sign the Republican budget HERE.

Romney says “we’re on the same page” with the Ryan budget failing to say where he would differ from Paul Ryan according to the WSJ HERE.

Paul Ryan says that Romney would absolutely support and sign the Ryan plan HERE.

On March 5th, 2012 – Romney’s response to a question on education was that “Yeah – we’ll give you help” if you join the military:

“Recognize that college is expensive. You don’t want to have huge debts. I know that it would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to make sure you pay for your college. But I’m not going to promise that. What I’m going to tell you is shop around, get a good price. I FEEL THAT IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SERVE YOUR COUNTRY IN THE MILITARY FOR INSTANCE, THAT’S A PLACE WHERE WE’RE GOING TO SAY, ‘YEAH, WE’LL GIVE YOU HELP. Don’t expect the government to forget the debt that you take on. Recognize that you have to pay it back…. If you can’t afford it – shop around.”

On 6/27/2012 – Mitt Romney’s education plan was that Americans should “get as much education as they can afford”. Actual quote.

Follow up From the moderator:

MS. CROWLEY: Let me ask you for a more immediate answer, beginning with Mr. Romley (sic).

Just quickly, what can you do — we’re looking at a situation where 40 percent of the unemployed have been unemployed for six months or more. They don’t have the two years that Jeremy has. What about those long- term unemployed who need a job right now?

Romney said:

The president’s policies have been exercised over the last four years, and they haven’t put Americans back to work. We have fewer people working today than we had when the president took office. If the — the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he took office. It’s 7.8 percent now. But if you calculated that unemployment rate taking back the people who dropped out of the workforce, it would be 10.7 percent.

The month Obama took over – the country was losing 800k jobs a month; now – the country has created 5.2 million private sector jobs over 31 consecutive months (since January 2010). If you want to know Obama’s record on the economy – we’ve already shared that HERE:

Consumer confidence is at a 5 year high (source).
U.S. unemployment claims are at a 4.5 year low (source).
Unemployment is at its lowest rate in 4 years with 7.8% (source)
Home builder confidence in the last 12 months is the largest gain in history (source).
U.S. growth while slow is better than Canada, Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany and France (source).
Manufacturing in the U.S. is growing while China’s manufacturing industry has shrunk 11 months straight (source).
Under President Obama – the U.S. has experienced “the longest stretch of employment gains in manufacturing in almost two decades” (source).
Automobile sales are the best they’ve been in over 4 years (source).
Thirty one straight months of private sector job gains with over 5.2 million private sector jobs since January 2010 (source).
The S&P 500 is up 81% since Obama took office (source).
The U.S. ranks #1 in clean energy investments (source).
America’s dependence on foreign oil is at a 13 year low (source).
Corporate profits are at an all time high (source).
Core CPI inflation is below historical averages at around 2% (source).
The Congressional Budget Office projects 9.6 million jobs will be created in the next 4 years under the current path (source).

Or in chart form – the famous “bikini graph”:

Romney said:

That’s why I put out a five-point plan that gets America 12 million new jobs in four years and rising take-home pay.

As we shared HERE – the Wasington Post gave Romney’s claim 4 Pinocchios. Romney’s “math” is based on studies that do not say what he says they say. And further more – Romney’s plan was written by two of George W. Bush’s main economic advisers. The Wa Post Fact Checker writes:

This is a case of bait-and-switch. Romney, in his convention speech, spoke of his plan to create “12 million new jobs,” which the campaign’s white paper describes as a four-year goal.

But the candidate’s personal accounting for this figure in this campaign ad is based on different figures and long-range timelines stretching as long as a decade — which in two cases are based on studies that did not even evaluate Romney’s economic plan. The numbers may still add up to 12 million, but they aren’t the same thing — not by a long shot.

In many ways, this episode offers readers a peek behind a campaign wizard’s curtain — and a warning that job-creation claims by any campaign should not be accepted at face value. The white paper at least has the credibility of four well-known economists behind it, but the “new math” of this campaign ad does not add up.

Romney said:

And one thing that the — the president said which I want to make sure that we understand — he — he said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt, and — and that’s right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy’s and — and — and Continental Airlines and come out stronger. And — and I know he keeps saying, you wanted to take Detroit bankrupt. Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did. And — and I think it’s important to know that that was a process that was necessary to get those companies back on their feet, so they could start hiring more people. That was precisely what I recommend and ultimately what happened.

On November 19th, 2008 – Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in the NY Times titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”. In that op-ed – Romney wrote:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

If Obama gives the car companies money – the American automotive industry’s demise “will be virtually guaranteed”. In fact – Bain Capital was asked to help fund the car companies and it declined. After President Obama’s gutsy but successful bailout of the American auto industry … Mitt Romney had the courage to say “I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that industry’s come back.” (source). Yeah – he actually said that. Even the Republican Governor of Michigan has publicly acknowledged that Romney’s position on this is wrong; Obama’s plan worked (source).

My favorite tweet on Obama’s response to Romney: