Romney: Obama Dropping Work Requirements
The Romney campaign made false claims about an Obama administration move to give states flexibility regarding welfare work requirements.
Romney TV ad, Aug.: President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements. Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.
There’s no such plan, and work requirements aren’t being “dropped.” The Obama administration announced in July that states may apply for a waiver to revise or eliminate certain requirements in order to increase job placement. As of Sept. 6, only eight states had expressed interest in such waivers, and none had applied.
The claim that “you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job” is also misleading. There was never a requirement for all welfare recipients to work. In fact, only 29 percent met the work requirement when Obama took office.
Romney’s claim that the plan would “gut welfare reform” is “very misleading,” said Ron Haskins, a former Republican House committee aide who was instrumental in the 1996 welfare law. “I do not think it ends welfare reform or strongly undermines welfare reform,” he told FactCheck.org.
The Romney campaign continued to run this ad, despite several fact-checking organizations, including ours, finding it to be false. The dust-up over the ad led to Romney pollster Neil Newhouse saying: “We’re not going let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”
In an interview with CNN, Romney also made a misleading claim that Obama had caused a doubling of able-bodied persons on food stamps by taking “work out of the food stamps requirement.” Obama’s 2009 stimulus law did grant a temporary suspension of a work requirement for single, working-age adults without dependents, but the Bush administration had already granted such waivers covering all or some residents of 46 states and the District of Columbia. More waiver requests were pending, too, as the economy faltered. These working-age adults without kids still make up less than one in 10 on food stamps.
Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform’? Aug. 9
Romney’s Food Stamp Stretch, Sept. 27
Romney: Obama Robbed Medicare
We’ve seen our share of “senior scare” in political campaigns, and this one has been chock full of it. The truth is that both campaigns want to cut Medicare spending — a necessary step to prolong the life of the program — and neither proposes major changes that would impact current seniors.
The Romney campaign claimed that Obama was “robbing” the Medicare “piggy bank,” and that the “money you paid” for Medicare was being used for the Affordable Care Act. But the law doesn’t take money out of the existing trust fund — and it can’t take Medicare’s trust fund money in the future, either.
Romney, Aug. “60 Minutes” interview: There’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare.
Romney TV ad, Aug.: Now, when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare. … So now the money that you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.
Paul Ryan, Aug. 21: What they will not tell you is that they turned Medicare into a piggy bank to fund Obamacare. They took $716 billion from Medicare to pay for their Obamacare program.
Obama’s Affordable Care Act cuts an estimated $716 billion over 10 years in the future growth in spending, primarily by reducing the future growth of payments to hospitals. Spending less money than was otherwise expected is a good thing for Medicare’s finances — as it is for most people on a budget. By reducing the growth of spending, the health care law stretches out the budget for Medicare Part A, which pays hospitals and is funded by payroll taxes.
Romney’s claim about Obama taking “money you paid” is wrong because taxes paid in the past don’t come close to paying for projected costs in the future. “It’s misleading to tell Medicare beneficiaries that they’ve already paid for Medicare, because in the future, that’s going to be less and less true,” says Alice Rivlin, founding director of the Congressional Budget Office and now an economist with the Brookings Institution. Seniors “will be getting more benefits than they paid for.”
And Medicare doesn’t have a “piggy bank” that can be robbed or raided. Payroll money that goes into the trust fund is Medicare’s money. The program gets a trust fund bond for whatever money it doesn’t need right away, and Treasury has to honor that bond, whenever Medicare needs to cash it in.
Medicare’s ‘Piggy Bank,’ Aug. 24
A Campaign Full of Mediscare, Aug. 22
Obama: Ryan Plan Would Raise Seniors’ Costs $6,400
But the Obama campaign was in on “Mediscare,” too, misleading seniors into thinking they’d pay $6,400 more under Romney and Ryan’s plan to have private insurers compete for seniors’ business. That figure came from an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of an old plan from Ryan that has now been discarded. His latest plan, which Romney has adopted, is more generous in how subsidies, or “premium-support payments,” for seniors grow.
Obama, Aug. 15: It was estimated that Governor Romney’s running mate, his original plan would force seniors to pay an extra $6,400 a year.
Obama campaign TV ad: Experts say Ryan’s voucher plan could raise future retirees’ costs more than $6,000.
The Romney/Ryan plan wouldn’t change anything for those age 55 and older. For future beneficiaries, they’d have their pick of private plans, or traditional Medicare. They’d buy them with the help of a subsidy that would be tied to the cost of the second-cheapest plan, and that plan can’t rise faster than GDP plus 0.5 percent. The CBO said that under the new plan, “beneficiaries might face higher costs,” but it didn’t analyze how much.
A Campaign Full of Mediscare, Aug. 22
‘Tragic’ Misquoting
The Obama campaign has claimed that Romney called ending the war in Iraq “tragic.” Not true. Romney called the pace of withdrawal “tragic,” not the ending of the war in general.
Obama, Sept. 6: My opponent said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq.
Obama campaign website: Mitt Romney criticized the end of the Iraq war as “tragic” …
The real quote from Romney, made during a veterans roundtable in South Carolina on Nov. 11, 2011, clearly shows that he was criticizing the pace at which Obama withdrew the troops. Here’s the full quote, as reported by the New York Times:
Romney, Nov. 11, 2011: It is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake, and failing by the Obama administration. The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate — it’s more than unfortunate, I think it’s tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard won by the men and women who served there.
Vice President Joe Biden also misrepresented Romney’s words at the convention — and at the vice presidential debate — when he claimed that Romney said of Osama bin Laden, “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just to catch one person.” That’s taking his words out of context.
Romney made the comment back in 2007, when bin Laden was alive, and he went on to say he favored a broader strategy against “global, violent Jihad.”
Here’s the transcript of Romney’s 2007 interview with the Associated Press. The conservative website Townhall obtained the transcript from the Romney campaign:
[AP reporter] Liz Sidoti: Why haven’t we caught bin Laden in your opinion?
Romney: I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort.
He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world.
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.
FactChecking Obama and Biden, Sept. 7
Obama’s Inflated Jobs Claim, Oct. 23
Veep Debate Violations, Oct. 12
Romney: Jeep Production to China
Romney falsely told voters in the key swing state of Ohio on Oct. 25 that Chrysler’s Jeep division “is thinking of moving all production to China.” Not true. Chrysler says it may add new production sites in China to meet rising demand in that market, and states: “U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation.”
But despite Chrysler’s admonition, Romney made a similar claim in a new TV ad that said, “Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.” That’s a lot of misinformation in a single sentence.
- The fact is, Romney himself proposed allowing GM to go through a managed bankruptcy, aided by federal loan guarantees but not the direct federal investment that Obama provided.
- Furthermore, Chrysler was merged in 1998 with the German firm Daimler Benz, which unloaded most of its shares in the money-losing Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007. Cerberus had already given 35 percent of Chrysler shares to Fiat on the very day Obama took office. The Germans got rid of their remaining shares in Chrysler a few months later. This year Chrysler announced its first annual profits since 2005.
- And as mentioned, Chrysler is expanding in China, not moving U.S. Jeep production.
Romney has struggled to undercut the success of Obama’s bailout of GM and Chrysler, especially in key auto-making states in the Midwest that account for crucial votes in the Electoral College.
Romney’s running mate, Ryan, made one such attempt in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Ryan cited the closing of a General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., as evidence of Obama failing to live up to his campaign promises. But the car plant closed before Obama became president.
Ryan, Aug. 29: A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.
The plant didn’t last. But it essentially closed on Dec. 23, 2008, according to the Business Journal in Milwaukee, a month before Obama was sworn in. The Associated Press reported that about 100 workers were kept on into 2009 to help shut down the plant and finish a truck order. GM’s website states that the main production line ceased operations in December 2008, and the last remaining line closed April 23, 2009, barely three months after Obama took office.
Romney Distorts Facts on Jeep, Auto Bailout, Oct. 29
Ryan’s VP Spin, Aug. 30
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