Let's cut to the chase: The GOP presidential field is a pack of liars.
That sounds like a rather intemperate assessment, the sort of statement that is motivated by bitter partisanship or blinding ideology. But taking a clear-eyed look at both the false statements hurled at Monday's Republican debate (brought to you by the odd merger of CNN and the Tea Party Express) and those deployed at other times in this still burgeoning primary race, it's difficult to reach any other conclusion. Most of these presidential wannabes are shoveling lies—and forcing fact-checkers to work overtime.
- Texas Gov. Rick Perry repeated the conservative trope that Obama's stimulus package "created zero jobs." Zero? The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the bill lifted employment levels—by creating or saving jobs—by up to 3 million jobs. Politifact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning site, previously awarded Perry a "pants on fire" verdict for making this untrue claim in September.
- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney claimed that President Barack Obama "cut Medicare by $500 billion," and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), more provocatively (of course) contended that the president "stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it to Obamacare." Not so. Obama's health care plan calls for saving $500 billion over 10 years, to be squeezed from payments to health care providers. The amount of Medicare spending will continue to rise. Moreover, the House GOP budget this year calls for the same level of cuts (even though Republican candidates ran against Democrats in the last election, accusing Obama and the Dems of slashing Medicare).
- Newt Gingrich boasted that he "helped balance the budget for four straight years" when he was the House Speaker. Actually, the budget was only balanced for two of the years covered by his speakership. And it was balanced partly because revenues were increased by President Bill Clinton; Gingrich opposed Clinton's tax hikes.
- Bachmann threw out another one of her favorite fake charges: By trying to raise the debt ceiling, Obama was seeking a "$2.4 trillion blank check." There's nothing true about this charge. Raising the debt ceiling only permitted the federal government to pay its bills for spending already approved; it did not provide the president with any ability to spend. (Note to Bachmann: Per the Constitution, Congress controls spending.)
Politifact.com found other big lies hiding in plain sight:
- Under attack from Romney, Perry defended his claim that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme," noting, "It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people before me." Politifact.com declares, "the analogy does not hold up."
- Perry was bashed by Bachmann for issuing a 2007 executive order requiring all Texas girls to receive a vaccine against the human papillomavirus (a vaccine produced by Merck, which had retained Perry's former chief of staff as a lobbyist and donated to his campaign). Perry, admitting he had erred in how he had imposed this requirement, repeatedly asserted that he had allowed an opt-out for parents who didn't want their daughters to receive this vaccine. According to Politifact Texas, this claim is "mostly false."
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/hey-gop-2012ers-you-lie
