WASHINGTON (AP) — Laying out
the first plans for his party's presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential
nominee Paul Ryan
took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack
Obama's policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the
budget deficit.
Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade
representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama's trade dealings
with China. A day
earlier, the convention's keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,
bucked reality in promising that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will lay
out for the American people the painful budget cuts it will take to wrestle the
government's debt and deficit woes under control.
And former senator and presidential
candidate Rick Santorum stretched the truth in taking Obama to task over his administration
supposedly waiving work requirements in the nation's landmark welfare-to-work
law.
A closer look at some of the words spoken
at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:
___
RYAN: "And the biggest, coldest power play
of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... So they just took it
all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen
billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama."
THE FACTS: Ryan's claim ignores the fact
that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the
House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money
for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly,
but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other
service providers.
In addition, Ryan's own plan to remake
Medicare would
squeeze the program's spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting
future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop
for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the
elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.
___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."
THE FACTS: Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan's pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies.
One of them, the nonprofit Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp., received $20.3 million from the Energy Department to help homes and businesses improve energy efficiency, according to federal records. That company, he said in his letter, would build "sustainable demand for green jobs." Another eventual recipient, the Energy Center of Wisconsin, received about $365,000.
___
RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. "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 FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants — though not the Janesville facility — to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.
___
RYAN: Obama "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."
THE FACTS: It's true that Obama hasn't heeded his commission's recommendations, but Ryan's not the best one to complain. He was a member of the commission and voted against its final report.
___
CHRISTIE: "Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we
need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and
burying our economy. ... Tonight, our duty is to tell the American people the
truth. Our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. We all must
share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not
telling the truth."
THE FACTS: Romney has made a core promise to cut $500 billion per year from
the federal budget by 2016 to bring spending below 20 percent of the U.S.
economy, and to balance it entirely by 2020.
His campaign manifesto, however, is almost
completely devoid of the "hard truths" Christie promises. In fact, Romney is
promising to reverse $716 billion in Medicare savings achieved by Obama over
the coming decade and promises big increases in military spending as well, along
with extending tax cuts for everyone, including the wealthiest.
The few specifics Romney offers include
repealing Obama's health care law, cutting federal payrolls, weaning Amtrak from
subsidies, cutting foreign aid and curbing the Medicaid health care program for
the poor and disabled.
But it'll take a lot more than those steps
for Romney to keep his vague promises, which are unrealistic if he's unwilling
to touch Medicare and Social Security in the coming decade. Even the
controversial budget plan of his vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.,
largely endorsed by Romney, leaves Medicare virtually untouched over the next
10 years.
What's left for Romney to cut is benefit
programs other than Medicare and Social Security, which include food stamps,
welfare, farm subsidies and retirement benefits for federal workers. The
remaining pot of money includes the day-to-day budgets of domestic agencies,
which have already borne cuts under last year's budget deal. There's also
widespread congressional aversion to cutting most of what remains on the
chopping block, which includes health research, NASA, transportation, air
traffic control, homeland security, education, food inspection, housing and
heating subsidies for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, the FBI, grants to
local governments, national parks and veterans' health care.
___
PORTMAN: "Take trade with China. China
manipulates its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage. So why doesn't
the president do something about it? I'll tell you one reason. President Obama could
not run up his record trillion-dollar deficits if the Chinese didn't buy our
bonds to finance them. Folks, we are as beholden to China for bonds as we are to
the Middle East for oil. This will end under Mitt Romney."
THE FACTS: Portman is an expert on commerce, having served as President
George W. Bush's trade representative from May 2005 to May 2006. But he didn't
fare particularly well in stemming China's trade advantage, either.Under Portman's watch, the U.S. trade deficit with China soared by 25 percent in 2005, and the next year it climbed more than 15 percent. By contrast, the deficit rose 10 percent over the first three years of Obama's presidency, according to U.S. government figures.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have launched unfair trade cases against China at the World Trade Organization, but neither has been able to rebalance the relationship.
___
SANTORUM: "This summer (Obama) showed us
once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work
requirement for welfare. Now, I helped write the welfare reform bill. We made a
lot crystal clear. No president can waive the work requirement, but as with his
refusal to enforce our immigration laws, President Obama rules like he is above the
law."
THE FACTS: The administration did not waive
the work requirement. Instead, it invited governors to apply on behalf of their
states for waivers of administrative requirements in the 1996 law. Some states
have complained those rules tie up caseworkers who could be helping clients
directly.
In a July 18 letter to congressional
leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that to be
eligible for a waiver, governors must commit that their plans will move at least
20 percent more people from welfare to work. Moreover, states must show clear
progress toward the goal within a year, or lose the waiver.
"We will not accept any changes that
undercut employment-focused welfare reforms that were signed into law fifteen
years ago," Sebelius wrote.
Ron Haskins, a former senior Republican
House aide who helped write the welfare-to-work law, has said "there is merit"
to the administration's proposal and "I don't see how you can get to the
conclusion that the waiver provision undermines welfare reform and it eliminates
the work requirement."
Haskins, now co-director of the Brookings
Center on Children and Families, says the administration was wrong to roll out
its proposal without first getting Republicans to sign off on it. But he said
the idea itself is one both parties should be able to agree on, were it not for
the bitter political divisions that rule Washington.
___
Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Andrew
Taylor, Henry C. Jackson and Bradley Klapper contributed to this report.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at
claims made in political campaigns and how they adhere to the
facts.
No comments:
Post a Comment