Posted on 10/04/2012 12:58:40 PM PDT by Incorrigible
By Tim Dickinson October 4, 2012 9:32 AM ET
Mitt Romney turned in a polished performance in last night's presidential debate – and revealed himself to be an accomplished and unapologetic liar. In an evening where he sought to slice and dice the president with statistics, Romney baldly misrepresented his own policy prescriptions, made up numbers to fit his attacks and buried clear contrasts with the president under a heaping pile of horseshit.
Here are mendacious Mitt's five most outrageous statements:
1. "I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut." Romney flatly lied about the cost of his proposal to cut income-tax rates across the board by another 20 percent (undercutting even the low rates of the Bush tax cuts). Independent economists at the Tax Policy Center have shown that the price tag for those cuts is $360 billion in the first year, a cost that extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.
2. "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table (like the carried interest loophole or the 15 percent capital gains rate.) The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers and a net tax increase for lower- and or middle-income taxpayers." Moreover, some of Romney's tax cuts are micro-targeted at American dynasties, particularly his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which would reduce his own sons' tax burden by tens of millions of dollars.
3. "We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."
4. Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.
5. "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
The 23 mil unemployed comes from the CBO.
#4 is correct, does the Rolling Stone not read the NYT.
I will pay attention to Rolling Stone the minute they update us on Obama’s 5 biggest lies.
This is Mitt’s most glaring failure in the debate. He MUST point out the difference in a tax RATE and a tax REVENUE. Cutting the Rate has always increased the REVENUE.
Harding, JFK, Reagan showed that tax cuts can be a BIPARTISAN policy. Their RATE cuts greatly increased REVENUE.
AND the hated RICH pay MORE after tax cuts.
What Democrat voter would oppose this?
I seem to remember Romney stating there were several evaluations that showed this TPC evaluation to be junk. But, even if it is not junk, somebody needs to state the terms before declaring someone a liar. If Romney wants to cut taxes by $1 in the first year, it will amount to $5 trillion after 5 trillion years. What time period was Obama referring to? Romney? I don't remember it being mentioned.
2. "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers
This is an odd argument as the first part has nothing to do with the second. It doesn't matter whether closing loopholes will offset 1% or 100% of the rate cuts, the percentage of offset has nothing to do with whether the cost to the rich will go up or down. Now, since Romney hasn't named the loopholes he intends to close, how can the TPC have determined that the closed loopholes will reduce the tax burden on the rich?
3. "We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."
This one is likely accurate. Romney was apparently talking about unemployed or underemployed. He should have been more careful.
4. Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.
Romney is most likely correct on this one. The role of the IPAB is to keep costs down. Eventually, telling people they have to accept less in payment for services will stop working. After that point, the IPAB will have to ration care. I don't care if the law makes this illegal - that part will be struck down when necessary.
Additionally, Obama has made it clear that he hopes Obamacare will eventually put private insurance companies out of business. What to guess what happens then?
5. "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.
I have no knowledge of this one. Someone else will have to take it.
I have to admit I have recently used Rolling Stone...but only because there was no Charmin and it was handy.
Obama is a dope and Rolling Stone is dopier.
aka "Stoners"
LOL! It's been nice getting reacquainted with old high school friends. Since several of my debaters work for local governments in various capacities, my favorite word for them is apparatchiks!
Well, there goes the Rolling Stone mag reader vote, LOL!
IF these are lies maybe Myth is a conservative after all....
But they are not lies making him a liberal..
The author of this piece is a drooler.. worse than a St. Bernard dog..
He can’t tell a liberal form a conservative..
What you talkin’ bout, Willis?
Calling these statements lies is a bigger stretch than Rosie O’donnell’s spandex.
Problem for this spin is the fact checkers have been caught using fraudulent sources to validate this spin. Since they have been caught lying to us, one has to wonder what else they are lying about.
For example, the Tax Policy Center. This is a combination of the Leftist Brooking Institute, and the farther Left Urban League.
The “study” they are using to “Fact check” with was authored by a formed Obama Administration official. No credible academic would use such a tainted source to “Fact check”
Another source they are using here. The National Journal. Well what is the National Journal? Why a collection of current and former Democrat political operatives, mostly from the Clinton administration.
Again, No credible academic would use such a tainted source to “Fact check”. Their sources for this “Fact check” are Democrat party propaganda fronts
Good God - I wonder what sort of person subscribes to Rolling Stone Magazine in 2012?
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