The candidates made false and misleading claims in the Manchester meeting.
FactChecking the Eighth GOP Debate
Issues: welfare
FactChecking the GOP Debate, Early Edition
The Republican presidential candidates who failed to make the cut for the Aug. 6 prime-time debate repeated a number of past false and misleading claims, while adding some new ones that we hadn’t heard before.
FlackCheck Video: Pataki on Welfare Changes
In this video, FlackCheck.org reviews George Pataki’s claim that his “conservative policies” as governor “reduced the number of New Yorkers on welfare by 1 million.”
Pataki’s Welfare Whopper
Former Gov. George Pataki gives too much credit to his “conservative policies” for reducing the number of New Yorkers on welfare by 1 million.
The Santorum File
Rick Santorum has announced he will run again for president in 2016. This is our report on some of the false or misleading remarks he has made over the years.
Playing the Race Card in Louisiana
A radio ad attacks Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy for endorsing “a documentary which claims slavery was better for black folks than welfare.” But the film didn’t make such a claim.
‘Death Spiral’ States?
Q: Do 11 states now have more people on welfare than they have employed?
A: A viral email making this claim is off base. It distorts a Forbes article that compares private-sector workers with those “dependent on the government,” including government workers and pensioners, and Medicaid recipients — not just “people on welfare.”
Romney’s Big Night
TAMPA, Fla. — In a speech heavy on anecdotal history but short on policy details, Mitt Romney avoided major falsehoods in making his case to the American public while accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention.
Even a key Democratic strategist, Bill Burton, a former press secretary for President Obama, tweeted shortly after the speech ended: “Romney actually avoided almost all of the lies from Ryan’s speech.” That was a reference to Rep. Paul Ryan’s address the night before,
Santorum’s Distorted ‘Dependency’ Claims
Rick Santorum blames President Barack Obama for “a nightmare of dependency with almost half of America receiving some sort of government assistance.” But the same could have been said of George W. Bush. In fact, the Census Bureau reported that in the third quarter of 2008, under Bush, “nearly half of U.S. residents live in households receiving government benefits.”
Back then, Census reported that 44.4 percent of Americans received some sort of government benefits. That has risen to 49 percent under Obama as of the most recent figures available,
Gutting Welfare-to-Work?
The Romney campaign says the Obama administration has adopted “a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.” But FactCheck.org Deputy Director Eugene Kiely tells WCBS radio that the administration’s plan does no such thing.
Read more about the president’s welfare changes in our Aug. 9 article, “Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform?‘”