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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Romney and the Tax Return Precedent

Romney and the Tax Return Precedent

Mitt Romney says he is following the “precedent” set by John McCain in releasing just two years of tax returns. That’s accurate. But McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, bucked the trend of other recent presidential candidates.
In more than three decades, no other nominees for either party have released fewer than five years’ worth of returns. Romney’s own father released a dozen years’ worth when he ran for the GOP nomination in 1968.
Romney has been under mounting public pressure to release tax returns —

Romney’s Bain Years: New Evidence, Same Conclusion

Romney’s Bain Years: New Evidence, Same Conclusion

New reporting cites strong evidence that Mitt Romney wasn’t actively managing Bain Capital while he was running the Olympics, despite what the Obama campaign (and some news reports) would have voters believe.
Dan Primack, a senior editor at Fortune Magazine, reports on previously confidential “offering documents” that Bain circulated to potential investors in June 2000, September 2000 and again in January 2001. And he says that in each of those three documents Romney’s name is conspicuously absent from lists of senior investment managers at Bain.

Obama, Romney Surrogates Spin Jobs Data

Obama, Romney Surrogates Spin Jobs Data

A lackluster jobs report for June generated a flurry of false and misleading statements on the Sunday talk shows by surrogates for Obama and Romney:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, falsely claimed U.S. automakers “had a record June … 7,000 auto jobs created.” It’s true that 7,000 automotive jobs were created, but it’s not a record for June or any other month.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley challenged Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s statement that the U.S.

Twisting Romney’s Abortion Stance

Twisting Romney’s Abortion Stance

An Obama campaign ad twists Mitt Romney’s stance on abortion, claiming Romney “backed a law that outlaws all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.”
During a 2007 debate, Romney was asked if he would sign legislation to ban “all abortion” — assuming, hypothetically, that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. He said he’d be “delighted to sign it,” if there was a national consensus for it. But, he said, “that’s not where America is today.”

Post-Supreme Court Spin

Shortly after the Supreme Court upheld the federal health care law’s constitutionality on June 28, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney wrongly said the law “puts the federal government between you and your doctor.” The law doesn’t create a government-run medical system.
Read more about Romney’s and President Obama’s false and misleading claims made after the high court’s ruling in our June 28 article, “Romney, Obama Uphold Health Care Falsehoods.”

FactCheck to Obama Camp: Your Complaint is All Wet

FactCheck to Obama Camp: Your Complaint is All Wet

The Obama campaign complains that we got a key fact wrong in our June 29 article, “Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach.” We strongly disagree. We find the Obama campaign’s evidence to be weak or non-existent, and contrary to statements Romney has made on official disclosure forms under pain of federal prosecution.
The Obama complaint claims we erred in saying Mitt Romney gave up active management of Bain Capital in early 1999 to run the 2002 Winter Olympics,

Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach

Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach

Obama accuses Romney in a series of TV ads of being a “corporate raider” who “shipped jobs to China and Mexico,” asking if voters want to elect an “outsourcer in chief.” But some of the claims in the ads are untrue, and others are thinly supported.

Romney, Obama Uphold Health Care Falsehoods

Romney, Obama Uphold Health Care Falsehoods

With the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act on June 28, voters are guaranteed to continue hearing the same old false claims about the law from politicians. And President Barack Obama and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney wasted little time …

Stretching on Romney’s Fees

Stretching on Romney’s Fees

An ad from the Obama campaign exaggerates the truth about fees and tax hikes imposed by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts.
It lists numerous fees hiked by Romney, but we found that a number of them are misleading — seeming to be more far-reaching and broad than they really are.
The ad also repeats a misleading claim about Romney cutting taxes “on millionaires like himself,” and botches the figure for the revenue gained by Romney imposing higher fees and closing corporate tax loopholes.

Romney’s Immigration Exaggeration

Romney’s Immigration Exaggeration

Mitt Romney exaggerates when he says President Obama “did nothing on immigration” for three and a half years, even when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Obama supported and lobbied for the DREAM Act, which would have created a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The bill passed the House in December 2010, but failed in the Senate largely because of Republican opposition.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee,