Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Oops, Romeny's people catch Ryan not showing about $5 million?

"(CBS News) Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's new running mate, amended two years' worth of congressional financial disclosure reports in June to include an income-producing trust worth between $1 million and $5 million, USA Today reports.

The trust, which Ryan's wife Janna Ryan inherited in 2010 after her mother's death, was previously left off Ryan's financial disclosure reports. In documents filed with the Clerk of the House, Ryan said they were left off his 2010 and 2011 reports as an "inadvertent omission," according to USA Today. He reported that the trust produced at least $15,000 in income in 2010 and between $100,001 and $1 million in 2011."

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Romney Tax Plan on Table. Debt Collapses Table.

By Ezra Klein Aug 2, 2012

"I can describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises in two words: mathematically impossible.

"Those aren’t my words. They’re the words of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which has conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date of Romney’s tax plan and which bent over backward to make his promises add up. They’re perhaps the two most important words that have been written during this U.S. presidential election."

...The truth is that Romney is afraid to put his plan on the table. He has promised to reduce the deficit, but refused to identify the spending he would cut. He has promised to reform the tax code, but refused to identify the deductions and loopholes he would eliminate. The only thing he has put on the table is dessert: a promise to cut marginal tax rates by 20 percent across the board and to do so without raising the deficit or reducing the taxes paid by the top 1 percent.
The Tax Policy Center took Romney at his word. They also did what he hasn’t done: They put his plan on the table.

Favorable Conditions

To help Romney, the center did so under the most favorable conditions, which also happen to be wildly unrealistic. The analysts assumed that any cuts to deductions or loopholes would begin with top earners, and that no one earning less than $200,000 would have their deductions reduced until all those earning more than $200,000 had lost all of their deductions and tax preferences first. They assumed, as Romney has promised, that the reforms would spare the portions of the tax code that privilege saving and investment. They even ran a simulation in which they used a model developed, in part, by Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s economic advisers, that posits “implausibly large growth effects” from tax cuts.

The numbers never worked out. No matter how hard the Tax Policy Center labored to make Romney’s promises add up, every simulation ended the same way: with a tax increase on the middle class. The tax cuts Romney is offering to the rich are simply larger than the size of the (non-investment) deductions and loopholes that exist for the rich. That’s why it’s “mathematically impossible” for Romney’s plan to produce anything but a tax increase on the middle class.

The Romney campaign offered two responses to the Tax Policy Center’s analysis, one more misleading than the other.
First, the campaign called the analysis “just another biased study from a former Obama staffer.” That jab refers to Adam Looney, one of the study’s three co-authors, who served in a staff role on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. But the Tax Policy Center is directed by Donald Marron, who was one of the principals on George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Calling the Tax Policy Center biased simply isn’t credible -- a point underscored by the fact that the Romney campaign referred to the group’s work as “objective, third-party analysis” during the primary campaign.

Then the Romney campaign said, “The study ignores the positive benefits to economic growth from both the corporate tax plan and the deficit reduction called for in the Romney plan.” There’s a reason the study ignores those “positive benefits”: Romney has called for a revenue-neutral corporate tax plan that brings the rate down from 35 percent to 25 percent while also promising to balance the budget. He has not said how he will achieve either goal. Until he does, those positive benefits -- if they exist -- are impossible to calculate."

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Salon says they have the definitive fact-check on Ryan's whopper filled speech. Okay:

THURSDAY, AUG 30, 2012
Paul Ryan: The definitive fact-check

Paul Ryan delivered a blistering assessment of President Obama aided by a casual disregard for facts. Many, including Salon’s Joan Walsh and Steve Kornacki, have already pointed out the speech’s mendacity, but here is a comprehensive guide of every single lie, misrepresentation or omission from the speech, in the order they were delivered:

GM plant — Ryan: blamed Obama for the closing of GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.

Truth: One of the biggest whoppers of the night; the plant closed before Obama was even sworn into office. His position also contradicts the Republicans’ position of opposing President Obama’s auto rescue.

Stimulus — Ryan: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.”

Truth: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the stimulus created 3.3 million jobs. Four out of five economists agree. Ryan himself wrote letters requesting stimulus money, then lied about it.

Medicare — Ryan: “Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”

Truth: As we’ve pointed out many times, Obamacare doesn’t raid Medicare and Ryan’s plan would do a lot more to ruin Medicare. One of the biggest lies of the campaign.

Obamacare — Ryan: “You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover…”

Truth: Politifact called the “government takeover” of healthcare meme their “lie of the year” in 2010.

Jobs — Ryan: “We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years.”

Truth: An almost impossible goal.

Debt — Ryan: “The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.”

Truth: A false choice. There is no evidence suggesting that decreasing the size of government would grow the economy; in fact, it may hurt by killing government and contractor jobs. And much of the debt is due to Bush policies that Ryan voted for, like the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Simpson-Bowles commission — Ryan: “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.”

Truth: Ryan sat on that commission, and, as chairman of the Budget Committee was a leader on it. He voted against the commission’s recommendations, bringing all the other Republicans along with him.

Credit downgrade — Ryan: Obama “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.”

When Standard & Poors downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating in 2011, they said that it was because Republican lawmakers had taken the nation’s debt ceiling hostage (something Ryan supported doing) and because “the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues” (another position Ryan maintains).

Poor — Ryan: “We have responsibilities, one to another — we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.”

Truth: About two-thirds of the cuts in Ryan’s budget proposal come from programs the benefit poor people, such as food stamps. Meanwhile, he calls for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Salon
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Preceding post (Thu Aug 30, 2012 10:56 pm)

Post by David Franks »

.
The graphic in the preceding post (Thu Aug 30, 2012 10:56 pm) can be improved on a couple of points.

RE Point 3-- Further, from Page 4 of the S&P downgrade announcement:
"Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act."

RE Point 5-- While the FBI is investigating Solyndra for fraud, there is as yet no evidence that fraud was committed. As far as we know, Solyndra was not an example of fraud; it was an example of an investment that did not pay off.
"Debating with a conservative is like cleaning up your dog's vomit: It is an inevitable consequence of your association, he isn't much help, and it makes very clear the fact that he will swallow anything."
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Re: Preceding post (Thu Aug 30, 2012 10:56 pm)

Post by Dardedar »

David Franks wrote:.
RE Point 5-- While the FBI is investigating Solyndra for fraud, there is as yet no evidence that fraud was committed.
Exactly right. I almost didn't post it because of that stupid erroneous comment about fraud.
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

Post by Dardedar »

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Otherwise, Romney produces this...
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Romney's convention speech shredded, point by point. Thirty-five in all.

Think Progress

FACTS MATTER: The Ultimate Guide To Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech
By ThinkProgress on Aug 30, 2012

"Politicians from both parties twist facts or spin policy, but Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has had a particularly strained relationship with the truth, repeating false claims with impunity — even after fact checkers, mainstream media organizations, and blogs have all debunked their assertions.
From claiming that “Obama gutted the welfare work requirement” to insisting that his own policies won’t deregulate Wall Street, Romney has led a post-truth campaign. A top adviser even admitted earlier this week, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

ThinkProgress has compiled a Viewer’s Guide comparing what Romney says with the facts:

Romney On His Tax Plan || Romney On Wall Street || Romney On The Budget
Romney On Bain Capital || Romney On Obamacare || Romney On Medicare
Romney On Women’s Health || Romney On Energy || Romney On Global Warming
Romney On The Auto Bailout || Romney On Welfare Reform || Romney On Food Stamps
Romney On Security || Romney On LGBT rights

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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7 Facts About Mitt Romney’s Economic Plan He Doesn’t Want You To Know

"Mitt Romney will officially accept the Republican nomination for president at the party’s national convention tonight, and in his speech, he will undoubtedly talk about the economy and his supposed plan to spur growth and speed up the recovery. Romney’s plan is notorious for its lack of specifics, but through the few details he has provided, ThinkProgress compiled seven facts about his economic policies that he likely won’t mention in his speech tonight:

1) It gives the rich and corporations a massive tax cut.
Romney’s proposal to give every American a tax cut is a giveaway to the rich that is four-times larger than the Bush tax cuts. Half the benefit would go to the richest five percent of Americans, and each member of the top 0.1 percent would get at least a $264,000 cut. Romney says he will balance the cuts with the closure of tax loopholes, but he can’t name which ones he’d close and even if he did, the plan wouldn’t generate enough revenue to offset revenue lost to tax reductions. His corporate tax plan, meanwhile, results in more than $1 trillion in tax cuts.

2) It raises taxes on the middle class.
A Tax Policy Center analysis found that Romney’s plan would raise taxes on middle class families by up to $2,000 if he were to keep his promise to maintain the current level of revenue. A later analysis that added in the cost of Romney’s corporate tax cuts nearly doubled the size of the tax hike on the middle class to as much as $4,000 for a family of four.

3) It won’t balance the budget.
Romney’s tax plan would add more than $10 trillion to the national debt if he doesn’t balance it with tax increases on the middle class or with spending cuts that are too impossibly large to fathom. Even if Romney closed every loophole for the rich, as he has promised to do, he would need 6.5 percent economic growth for five years to avoid adding to the debt. The economy hasn’t grown that fast over a five-year period since the early 1960s.

4) It won’t lead to economic growth.
The last Republican president promised that supply-side policies like tax cuts for the rich would boost the economy and lead to job growth. They didn’t. Romney is trying the same policies (Bush, “just updated,” as one RNC official put it), despite overwhelming evidence that they don’t work.

5) It will make it easier for corporations to dodge taxes and outsource jobs:
Romney’s plan to switch to a territorial tax system will make it easier for corporations to stash their profits in off-shore tax havens. It would also make it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs. In all, economists estimate the plan could cost America 800,000 jobs.

6) It would put bankers between you and your student loans.
Obamacare included a provision in the law that removed bankers from the federal student loan process, eliminating a middle-man and allowing borrowers to deal directly with the government. That reduced costs, saving students $100 billion. By repealing the healthcare law, Romney would put those bankers back in between students and government lenders, handing big banks billions of dollars in the process.

7) It won’t address the housing crisis.
Romney’s economic plan had 59 points, but it failed to detail a plan to help America’s struggling homeowners. Instead, Romney says we should let the housing market “run its course and hit the bottom,” and that America shouldn’t “try to stop the foreclosure process.” His plan wouldn’t help the millions of Americans who are facing foreclosure or are underwater on their mortgages. It also ignores simple steps the government could take to help housing, and it has been criticized by Republicans in high-foreclosure states. Romney has since tried to reverse course, but he still offers no specifics."

LINK]
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

Post by Dardedar »

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Two "must reads" on how Romney "built that."

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Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill

Rolling Stone

The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney
Government documents prove the candidate's mythology is just that

Rolling Stone
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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How a person reacts to being busted lying, is a good insight into their character...

***
"I like Paul Ryan, [and] have a lot of great respect for Paul Ryan," Dowd said. "But the elements that he said about closing the GM plant which closed before Barack Obama took [office], about the Simpson-Bowles bill which he opposed and then all of a sudden he faults Barack Obama for. At some point, the truth should matter. He was trying to convey that Barack Obama was responsible for the closing of that GM plant and that isn’t true." --Former George W. Bush strategist Matthew Dowd

The congressman defended his GM claim the following day in a CNN interview, arguing that his words painted a fair picture:

"It's still idle," Ryan said. "The point is, this is a story of the Obama economy. A man running for president in 2008 making all of these grand promises and then none of them occurring. He got elected, he put his policies in place, and the plant still shut down."
LINK

a) Here are 194 referenced examples of Obama's "grand promises occurring..." Link
b) He never promised to keep the plant open
c) the plant shut down before he became president

Update: 9/4/12 Ryan's lying may be approaching pathological... Fresh off the shovel:

"What they are trying to suggest is that I said Barack Obama was responsible for the plant shutdown in Janesville. That is not what I was saying, read the speech," he told NBC's "Today." "What I was saying is the president ought to be held to account for his broken promises. After the plant was shut down he said he would lead efforts to restore the plant. It’s still idle."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/0 ... 53759.html
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Want small government?

Paul Ryan should visit Congo

Wow.
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Source: From a letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_Jefferson

"There's a PDF file with scanned images of an edition of Jefferson's works at this address: http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054-12.php
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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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Re: Romney Watch: New Frontiers of Falsehood

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From Salon:

Mitt Romney will never be president
His disgraceful dishonesty in using the murder of a U.S. ambassador to attack Obama will haunt him

"Mitt Romney, flushed and shifty-eyed, stepped to a podium Wednesday morning with a chance to disavow the despicable late-night attack his campaign launched on President Obama. Instead he intensified it, and that’s why he’ll never be president.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the other State Department employees murdered in Benghazi last night. It’s tragic that those deaths have become occasion for cheap political grandstanding by Romney. As everyone now knows, the Romney campaign blasted President Obama for allegedly sympathizing with Stevens’ killers in a ridiculous statement late on the evening of Sept. 11:
I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.
That lie was apparently based on a message released by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo before the attack, which was designed to reduce tensions inflamed by the hate-speech of Terry Jones and his Muslim-hating supporters, who are promoting a despicably anti-Islam film via YouTube. The Cairo Embassy statement read: “The United States Embassy in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” It didn’t come from either President Obama or the State Department, and it was issued before the killings in Benghazi, not after them.

Romney had a chance to correct the record, and at least acknowledge that the Cairo Embassy statement didn’t come from Obama himself, and that it preceded the killings. But he didn’t. “When our grounds are being attacked and being breached, the first response should be outrage,” he told reporters. “Apology for America’s values will never be the right course. We express immediately when we feel that the President and his administration have done something which is inconsistent with the principles of America.” The incredulous traveling press corps pushed Romney on his dishonesty but he didn’t back down."

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