FactCheck.org

Chrysler Paid in Full?

June 6, 2011

Taxpayer beware: You have to read the fine print to know what the president means when he says Chrysler has paid back "every dime" of loans it received "during my watch." The company got $12.5 billion in bailout funds under the Bush and Obama administrations, but — despite what the president said — isn't expected to pay about $1.3 billion of it.

President Barack Obama visited a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, on June 3 to discuss the recent announcement that the Chrysler Group LLC repaid $5.1 billion in outstanding loans.

Romney’s ‘Rhetorical’ Misery Index

June 3, 2011

The "Obama misery index" that Mitt Romney says is at a record doesn't really exist, except as political talk.
That's what we discovered, to our surprise, when we contacted his spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, to ask exactly how Romney calculates his index, and to find out what number Romney currently assigns to it. "It is a rhetorical reference," Fehrnstrom told us, and not an actual economic index.
It's rhetoric that the former Massachusetts governor has been using since at least March 8,

FactChecking Romney

June 2, 2011

We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates, and today it's Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is set to announce in New Hampshire that he'll seek the Republican nomination for the second time. Here's a recap of some of our fact-checking of Romney during the last campaign and since:

Most recently, we found Romney misrepresenting the federal health care law and the overhaul he signed into law in Massachusetts.

Palin Whoppers on Debt, Oil Imports

June 1, 2011

Sarah Palin made two wildly inaccurate claims on the debt accumulated under President Obama and oil imports. She wrongly said that the debt had grown more under Obama than "all those other presidents combined." She also was way off when she claimed that the U.S. is going to spend "$8 billion a day" on oil imports this year and next year to make up for declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. The actual amount is less than $20 million a day.

DNC Chair Throws Truth to ‘Wolves’

May 31, 2011

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz falsely claimed that seniors with preexisting medical conditions would be denied Medicare coverage under the GOP's plan. The House GOP plan specifically says insurance companies “must agree to offer insurance to all Medicare beneficiaries.”
She also repeated a false Democratic talking point that future beneficiaries — those who are now younger than 55 — would be left on their own to buy insurance in the private market. The GOP plan, as we have written before,

Ryan Revises History on Medicare Reform

May 23, 2011

Rep. Paul Ryan revises history when he says his Medicare plan is "in keeping with the Bill Clinton bipartisan committee" proposal in 1999. Contrary to the impression left by Ryan, the commission's final report failed largely along partisan lines. Clinton opposed it, and all four of his appointees voted against it.
It's true, though, that both proposals recommended providing a government subsidy for seniors to buy insurance — that's one of the issues that caused the plan to fail to win final approval.

DNC Misquotes Pawlenty

May 23, 2011

The Democratic National Committee takes Tim Pawlenty's comments on his presidential campaign out of context. In a web video posted May 22, the DNC claimed that Pawlenty said, "I don't know," in response to a question about why he was running. But the reporter had asked when the former Minnesota governor knew that he wanted to be president — not why.

The DNC was quick to criticize Pawlenty, posting the video the same day he announced that he would run in another web video.

FactChecking Pawlenty

May 23, 2011

We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty released a web video, announcing that he was running for president, and he'll kick off his campaign in Iowa. In recent months, we have found him straying from the facts.

In a January interview on "Fox News Sunday," Pawlenty said that he "never did sign a bill relating to cap and trade" while governor of Minnesota. But that's false.

FactChecking Paul

May 20, 2011

Up next in our look at past claims made by the 2012 presidential candidates: Rep. Ron Paul. No stranger to presidential campaigns, the Texas Republican has made his share of factual flubs. Paul declared his 2012 candidacy May 13.

He falsely claimed last December that the estate tax "especially harms small and family-owned businesses." But if the estate tax was returned to 2009 levels, less than 8 percent of estates taxed in 2011 would be family farms and businesses,

Newt vs. Newt

May 19, 2011

Newt Gingrich is engaging in some revisionist history by claiming he was not referring to Rep. Paul Ryan during his now infamous “Meet the Press” interview. That’s absurd.