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After Mitt Romney returned from his truly horrid overseas trip this week, one of his campaign aides tried to put a positive spin on the candidate's inexplicable gaffes. The problem, the staffer said, is that Romney "has a tendency to speak his mind and to say what he believes."
The idea is, the Republican presidential hopeful is bound to get in trouble once in a while because he's just such an honest, candid guy. To borrow an '08 frame, Romney's a "straight talker."
The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus could hardly believe the argument, calling it "about as knee-slapping a spin effort as I've ever seen." She added, " Mitt Romney has many strengths and many flaws. Being an unvarnished truth-teller does not fall in either category."
To consider this problem in more detail, consider the 28th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.
1. Romney told reporters this afternoon, "The president has also raised taxes on the middle class, so said the Supreme Court."
He's referring to an individual mandate that would apply to 1% of the population. And if President Obama's health care policy "raised taxes on the middle class," then Mitt Romney raised taxes on the middle class.
2. In a statement responding to the July jobs report, Romney argued, "President Obama doesn't have a plan" to create jobs.
Romney doesn't have to like the American Jobs Act, but he shouldn't get away with brazenly lying about its existence.
3. At a campaign event in Golden, Colorado, yesterday, Romney said "we have fewer jobs that have been created" under Obama.
He didn't specific -- "fewer" than what? - but by Romney's own stated standard, nearly 4.5 million private-sector jobs have been created under Obama.
4. In the same speech, Romney said in reference to the president, "He said he'd hold unemployment below 8 percent."
As Romney surely knows by now, that's simply not true.
5. Romney went on to complain, "[W]e've seen record numbers of foreclosures."
Putting aside how dishonest it is for Romney to blame the housing crash on the president, let's also not forget that Romney intends to deliberately avoid any efforts to curtail foreclosures.
6. Romney also argued, "We are at a 30 year low in the number of business start-ups that have occurred. A 30 year low."
He's still telling this whopper?
7. Reflecting on his one term as governor, Romney said, "I added jobs. We've added more jobs than the president has in the entire country."
Romney had one of the worst jobs records of any governor in the country, and so long as we're playing by Romney's rules, his job-creation totals don't come close to Obama's.
8. Complaining about Democrats, Romney said, "[O]ur friends across the aisle and the president, they have a different view. They think, well we should just raise taxes, that's the primary way they think we should cut the deficit."
Actually, in 2011, when Democrats offered Republicans a massive debt-reduction deal, the "primary way" they closed the budget gap was through spending cuts.
9. He also argued, "When you raise taxes, you lower growth."
That may be Romney's opinion, but there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Both Reagan and Clinton raised taxes, and economic growth soared soon after. (This is not to say there's a causal relationship, only that categorical statements like these about what happens when taxes go up aren't true.)
10. On health care, Romney said, "We also have to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions don't have to be denied care."
At a minimum, that's wildly misleading. Under Romney's approach, millions of people with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage -- and occasionally his campaign even admits it.
11. Condemning the Affordable Care Act, Romney said, "Obamacare, we simply can't afford trillions of dollars in more federal spending. It gets more and more expensive as time goes on."
That's the exact opposite of reality. "Obamacare" cuts the deficit, and the saving increase as time goes on.
12. On the same point, Romney argued, "We simply can't afford to have federal bureaucrats telling us what kind of health care we can have."
There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that empowers bureaucrats to tell Americans what kind of health care they can have.
13. Romney soon added, "And we sure as heck can't have Obamacare cut Medicare by over $500 billion."
Romney says this a lot. He's not telling the truth.
14. Pointing to his five-part agenda, Romney said, "We got our economists. We go through and say, OK how many jobs will be creating -- created just by doing those things? And I got more coming down the road, but just those things alone create 12 million new American jobs."
If we do nothing, we're on track to create 12 million new American jobs over the next four years anyway.
15. In an interview with Fox's Sean Hannity, Romney claimed, "That's one of the first principles of my plan, which is, high-income people will continue to pay the same share of taxes they pay today."
That's not true. The wealthy would receive a massive, disproportionate tax break under the Romney plan.
16. In the same interview, Romney said, "[I]f anyone's going to get a break, a tax break, it's going to be middle Americans. They're the people who deserve it."
The middle class may deserve it, but independent analysis shows that the middle class would see their federal tax burden go up, not down, under Romney's plan.
17. Romney unveiled a "report card" in Colorado this week that claims job creation has gone down during Obama's first term.
18. The same "report card" claims unemployment has gone up under Obama.
It's actually down from 10% in 2009, and is slightly lower than it was when Obama took office.
19. The "report card" says the budget deficit has gone up since Obama took office.
The deficit has gone down since Obama took office. It was $1.3 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009, and it's projected to be $1.1 trillion this year.
20. The "report card" also claims Massachusetts' budget deficit went down during Romney's only term in office.
Actually, it went up.
21. In a minute-long biographical ad unveiled this week, Romney claims he knows what it's like "to wonder whether you're going to be able to make ends meet."
That's plainly false.
22. In the same ad, Romney says he had the "best jobs record of any Massachusetts governor in the last decade," citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That's wildly misleading. He's comparing two records: his jobs record vs. his successor's, and Deval Patrick was governor when the economy crashed in 2008.
23. In the ad, he went on to boast that, after he oversaw the 2002 Olympics, he put $100 million "into an endowment there for the future of Olympic sport."
It wasn't $100 million and he's only really talking about part of the federal taxpayer bailout he didn't manage to spend.
24. Romney released a new ad this week, featuring an Obama quote: "We tried our plan -- and it worked."
The quote is wrenched from context in a rather ridiculous way.
25. In an interview with Fox News after his controversial remarks in Jerusalem, Romney said he "did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy."
26. On a related note, during the Jerusalem remarks, Romney said GDP per capita in Israel "is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita."
None of those figures are true.
27. Also in Israel, Romney claimed Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel "basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth."
None of this has any foundation in reality.
28. Romney told CBS this week that President Reagan, during his tenure, sent troops into harm's way "only in one circumstance, which was in Grenada.... We were in a peacekeeping setting in Lebanon."
Romney's version of history is sharply at odds with the actual version of history.
Previous editions of Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity: Vol. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII,XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII
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"19. The "report card" says the budget deficit has gone up since Obama took office.
The deficit has gone down since Obama took office. It was $1.3 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009, and it's projected to be $1.1 trillion this year."
Even Benen's OWN sources prove him wrong. How embarassing is that?
"CBO projects a $1.1 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 if current laws remain unchanged. Measured as a share of the nation’s output (gross domestic product, or GDP), that shortfall of 7.0 percent is nearly 2 percentage points below the deficit recorded in 2011, but still higher than any deficit between 1947 and 2008."
Bannedagain,
Again, a distortion. If you know how government works, Obama had absolutely NO control over the 2009 Budget deficit. That budget was in place before Obama got in office and was created by Bush's people. Obama's people had to submit the 2010 budget in February, 2009, just about a month after Obama took office, so you really can't credit that budget to him either because his people didn't create it.
So the only budgets, and hence the only deficits you can actually "blame" Obama for are those in 2011 and after.
I don't know what the deficit was "on inauguration day", but what I DO know was that for the 2009 Budget (NOT Obama's fault) the deficit was $1.4 T, the deficit in 2010 was $1.3 Trillion (again, NOT Obama's fault), the deficit was $1.3 Trillion in 2011 (Yep you can blame Obama) and projected to be $1.3 Trillion in 2012 if nothing changes.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
Look at Table 1.1
So, the deficit HAS gone down since Obama took office!! Although he may have used different numbers than I did (since CBO, OMB, and everybody else uses their own definitions, their own "dates", and their own set of "calculations"), HOW is Beren lying??
Because the report HE linked is very specific:
"but still higher than any deficit between 1947 and 2008."
Fault is a time waster. Obama inheirited a crappy hand, but saying it's not crappy today is self-delusion.
We have huge deficit. Obama could have brought it down in 2010 by not making the deal to extend the tax rates. He thought he was doing the right thing. We have to live with the consequences of our choices.
"Condemning the Affordable Care Act, Romney said, "Obamacare, we simply can't afford trillions of dollars in more federal spending. It gets more and more expensive as time goes on."
That's the exact opposite of reality. "Obamacare" cuts the deficit, and the saving increase as time goes on."
Why does the CBO esimate the ACA will still save money?
Because it will cover fewer people. From the report:
"In this update of figures published in March 2012, CBO and JCT now estimate that fewer people will be covered by the Medicaid program, more people will obtain health insurance through the newly established exchanges, and more people will be uninsured"
This isn't brain surgery. It costs more money to insure more people no matter how you try to jiggle the figures. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing. We SHOULD go to single payer. It seems unlikely however as long as we pretend that we can continue the current system using the same old magical accounting effects.
AGAIN bannedagain, warping the truth. More people will be uninsured because of what the STATES plan to do as a result of the Supreme Court decision:
The WHOLE story (which YOU conveniently "forgot" to include):
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43472
I didn't forget it, I used the most current information available from Benen's own source.
Oh, so its BENEN's fault you are a "distorter", not yours?
we aren't talking about the relative merits of the ACa which I actually favor over nothing. We are discussing Benen's attempt to prove Romney lies (which he does but not every time he opesn his mouth!)
Yes the ACA in the lates estimates saves money. Yes it's because it will cover less people, Yes that it is a decision that will be made by (mostly) Republican governors who have been enabled to do so by the Superme Court decision. Did I leave anything out?
(BTW this is actually healthy discussion between you and I as opposed to calling me a troll because you simply don't like what I wrote!)
Bannedagain,
I honestly don't know if you are a troll or not. I do tend to think you are because of your constant and often "off-key" attacks on Beren on his own blogs, and I am confused, because every time you attack Beren, it is because of something negative he has said about Romney. So are you here to support Romney or are you here to attack Beren? I really can't tell from your posts. How about some honesty from you?
I do know that it is very much a "right-wing" tactic to attack a popular blogger if he/she disagrees with "right-wing" ideology, while "pretending" to "befriend" the posters on the blog, in an attempt to turn the posters away from the blogger. Is that what you are doing?
Does Beren make mistakes? OF COURSE!! Don't we all? Beren, as a blogger who has to put out multiple blogs a day, relies on other sources and sometimes those sources are wrong. But does that make HIM a liar? Not HARDLY!
I tend to like Steve Beren because he brings up issues that I don't see anywhere else, including how many times Romney LIES!!!
Errrr - that is Steve Benen! I need new glasses!!!!! Sorry Steve!!!
As I wrote to another poster, I don't believe that we get solutions to our problems when each side has it's own separate set of facts as well as solutions. Some of these things like the Reagan military are clearly he said, she said stuff, but others Benen repeats week after week like Romney does, when he could easily change the wrong ones. Good guys fight with a handicap of being required to tell the truth or something very close. It goes with the white hat and getting the girl in end of the movie (maybe these days it's better to say the person in the end of the movie)
"Complaining about Democrats, Romney said, "[O]ur friends across the aisle and the president, they have a different view. They think, well we should just raise taxes, that's the primary way they think we should cut the deficit."
Actually, in 2011, when Democrats offered Republicans a massive debt-reduction deal, the "primary way" they closed the budget gap was through spending cuts."
I wasn't in the room, nor was Benen, but here's what the WAPO had to say:
"Senate Democrats have drafted a sweeping debt-reduction plan that would slice $4 trillion from projected borrowing over the next decade without touching the expensive health and retirement programs targeted by President Obama.
Instead, Senate Democrats are proposing to stabilize borrowing through sharp cuts at the Pentagon and other government agencies, as well as $2 trillion in new taxes, primarily on families earning more than $1 million year, according to a copy of the plan obtained by The Washington Post."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/senate-democrats-draft-debt-reduction-plan/2011/07/08/gIQAFQbS4H_story.html
Bannedagain,
ANOTHER WARPED post! Why don't you tell us EXACTLY WHAT changes to Medicare and Social Security Obama was actually proposing??
What are you "implying" here?????
Or do you want us to believe that Obama was cutting SS and Medicare to the poor???? You really have a thing about Obama, don't you???
Don't ask me, ask Benen. He's the one that said the primary way was through spending cuts, about which the Post author clearly disagrees.
I think you misfilled this reply and it was supposed to go to the post below it.
It's not that Romney isn't a liar, he quite clearly is!
It's just that while Benen can't take the gold medal from Romney, he can clearly find a place on the victory stand when the medals are awarded.
romney can always go into stand-up when he's done runnin, but he would have to take a pay cut so low he would never pay taxes again.
Steve,
Can you add a running total number of lies to your volumes?