1. Romney claimed this week that President Obama was saying success "is the result of government," not "hard-working people," when Obama said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." It's not even close to what the president said. Sure it is. As witnessed by his "I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." According to Obama the achievements are not because of their own efforts, and abilities. Being smart and hardworking didn't do it.
2. Romney told CNBC's Larry Kudlow, in reference to last week's massacre, "There were, of course, very stringent laws which existed in Aurora, Colorado." Actually, that's the opposite of the truth. It was a gun free zone (where almost all mass murders happen. Notice you don't see them at gun shows or at NRA conventions. And there are laws restricting guns in CO and every other state, while the states with stricter gun control laws are not immune to mass shootings, neither are other countries where guns are restricted more than they are in the US.
Mass shootings are in fact one of the best arguments against gun control. See youtube.com
6. In the same interview, Romney said Obama is responsible for a "takeover of the health care industry." There is no universe in which this makes sense -- "Obamacare" relies on private insurers, not a government takeover. Relies on private insurers under heavy government control. Its a fascist/corporatist takeover rather than a socialist/communist takeover.
7. Romney also told Kudlow the economic downturn has "gone on for three and a half years." In our reality, the Great Recession began in December 2007 (when George W. Bush was president) -- not January 2009 (when Barack Obama became president). And then had the weakest recovery from any post war recession.
9. He added, "When I say extend the current tax setting, what I'm saying is, don't raise taxes." Under Romney's proposed tax plan, those struggling most would see their tax burdens go up. Your own source says "Now, in fairness, Team Romney has said the TPC analysis is mistaken, because it doesn't include various incentives and deductions that the Republican administration would support." So there is no evidence of "lie", or even "mistake" by Romney here, at worst perhaps of "not presenting an extremely detailed plan yet".
but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller There is a chance it will do so. Politicians plans, such as Obamacare (see blog.heritage.org and csmonitor.com ) generally do make the deficit bigger. But "lie" is a bit extreme here, esp. when a full plan hasn't even been presented.
12. Romney described Obama's economic vision this way: "This is an ideology which says hey, we're all the same here, we ought to take from all and give to one another and that achievement, individual initiative and risk-taking and success are not to be rewarded as they have in the past." This isn't even close to being true Its exaggerated but Obama would move in that direction.
As for Bain capital it was very successful, even if the precise numbers possibly might be a bit different than what Romney presented. And even if it wasn't more successful than average (and it was), it would still be beneficial. Trying to present it as some huge negative is just silly.
These aren't President Obama's massive defense cuts. Romney's talking about defense cuts proposed by congressional Republicans as part of the congressional Republicans' debt-ceiling crisis. Accepted as part of a short term deal. That doesn't mean they really supported them, or expected to actually have them happen. Also it doesn't address the point Benen is trying to argue against. If we lived in an alternate universe where congressional Republicans loved the cuts, and where insisting they happen even over Democrat's objections, that wouldn't establish that they would not "saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and impair our ability to meet and deter threats." (Or that they would do such things, it doesn't address the question either way.)
18. He added that national security leaks are "contemptible," adding, "It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field." Given Romney's take on the Valerie Plame leak scandal, this is literally unbelievable.
Assuming the charges are correct, they are far more serious than the Valerie Plame situation. See here about Plame justoneminute.typepad.com . And even if you think she was a covert officer and solidly so, she wasn't put in dannger by the leak, she just would not have been able to operate covertly any more.
As opposed to leaking info about a double agent who had infiltrated Al Qaeda (putting him in danger if he couldn't be extracted, and yes he was extracted, but it eliminated a far more important intelligence source than Plame ever was); leaking information about potential Israeli military operations which could get people in their military killed, and could prevent WMD programs in hostile nations from being severely damaged; leaking information about the operation to kill bin Laden, which apparently resulted in the arrest of a Pakistani doctor working with us on the effort...
and didn't want U.S. officials to intervene. That's not "faltering"; that's sound judgment and a difference of opinion on that issue isn't a lie.
"Where did all the Obama stimulus money go? Friends, donors, campaign supporters, special interest groups." I'm not sure why Romney keeps repeating this one, but it's not true. A significant amount of money did go to companies with connections in the Obama administration. As for Fisker, the money might not have directly gone to the production facilities in Finland, but money is fungible. Government money supporting design efforts in the US frees up the money for the production in Finland. Of course the real problem is not so much an issue of what country the money is going to, but rather the idea that the administration thinks it can be a successful venture capital firm with tax payer money.
And your source (weakly) supports some of Romney's claims for example "A typical Chapter 11 allows corporations to default on pension obligations, so the union workers probably wouldn’t have made out so well without the federal government’s involvement in restructuring." In other words the unions, the unions did get more favorable treatment because of the bailout. |
