[graphicgr8s]

And this is from the washington post.

Previewing the ‘facts’ in Obama’s acceptance speech


“Four years ago, I promised that I would cut middle-class taxes. And the average middle-class family, their taxes are about $3,600 lower than when I came into office. Now I want to keep taxes exactly where they are on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income. So if you’re a family making under $250,000 — which is 98 percent of American families — you won’t see your income taxes go up by one single dime.”
Obama mixes up some apples and oranges here. The $3,600 figure is over four years — $800 in each of 2009 and 2010 due to the Making Work Pay tax credit and $1,000 in each of 2011 and 2012 due to a Social Security payroll tax cut. Obama makes it sounds as though workers got a $3,600 cut every year.
But the Making Work Pay tax credit has expired and Obama has not promised to extend the payroll tax cut, meaning that people’s taxes will go up next year even if he succeeds in his effort to extend Bush-era tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 a year.

“I’m also going to ask anybody making over $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rates they were paying under Bill Clinton.”
Here, Obama is defending his proposal to boost taxes on the wealthy by noting that the tax rate would be the same as under Clinton. The Bush tax cut set the top income-tax rate at 35 percent, and Obama would restore it to the 39.6 percent rate set during Clinton’s presidency.
But while Social Security taxes are capped, there is no cap on Medicare payroll taxes — also a legacy of Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction deal. And Obama does not mention that the health care law included a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples filing joint returns. When the full payroll tax is included, the marginal tax rate would be nearly 45 percent.
He’s earned Two Pinocchios in the past for his slippery language on this issue.

“Governor Romney brags about his private sector experience, but it was mostly investing in companies, some of which were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to be a pioneer of outsourcing. I want to insource.”
Here, Obama is referencing an article in The Washington Post that has been frequently exploited by his campaign. The article used the word “pioneers” but it does not say that transfers of U.S. jobs took place while Romney ran the private equity firm Bain Capital.
Instead, the article says that Bain was prescient in identifying an emerging business trend — the movement of back-office, customer service and other functions out of companies that were willing to let third parties handle that business. Several of the companies mentioned in the article grew into major international players in the outsourcing offshoring field.
One of the president's campaign ads attacking Romney on outsourcing earned Four Pinocchios.
Obama never mentions another Washington Post article, one that detailed how he has not been able to fulfill many of his campaign promises in 2008 to stem the outflow of American jobs to other countries.

“Nearly 7 million young people have health insurance because they’re able to stay on their parents’ plans.”
Obama has framed this assertion different ways, sometimes more accurately than the quotation above.
The Department of Health and Human Services in June reported that more than 3 million young adults would not have health insurance without the health-care law.
So how does Obama get to say that nearly 7 million “have health insurance” because of the law?
That’s because he is relying on a private survey, published by the Commonwealth Fund, that showed that 6.6 million young adults “stayed on or joined their parents’ health plans” in 2011.
Not all of those people were uninsured; some simply joined their parents’ plans for other reasons. The HHS report notes this fact in a footnote: “This number exceeds our calculation because it includes some individuals who were already insured, often through their own private coverage.”
Obama is more accurate when he frames his quotation this way: “Nearly 7 million young people can stay on their parents’ plan because of the health-care law I passed.”

“Over the last three and a half years, we have focused on righting the ship, making sure that we didn’t slip into a depression, saving an auto industry, creating 4.5 million new jobs, getting health care done, helping young people go to college.”
The president loves this jobs figure — and it is has already been cited many times at the Democratic National Convention. But it is quite misleading, because it refers to private sector jobs, not all jobs, and because it is based on a date (February 2010) that puts the president’s jobs record in the best possible light.
The total number of jobs--private and government-- created in the United States from February 2010 is 4 million.
The job growth number is still negative if you start counting frm the beginning of Obama’s presidency.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job creation in Obama’s entire presidency is plus or minus a few hundred thousand jobs, depending on whether you date his presidency from January or February of 2009. At this point, Obama is on track to have the worst jobs record of any president since World War II.

More class warfare. He wants to "invest" in green. Like Solyndra? Fiskar?

By the way W set the date for Iraqi pullout. And we still have troops in Iraq. He can claim it but he can't talk the talk because he can't walk the walk.

All US Forces were mandated to withdraw from Iraqi territory by 31 December 2011 under the terms of a bilateral agreement signed in 2008 by President Bush. The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq was completed on 18 December 2011 early Sunday morning

[jeffkrol]

Fact-checking Obama’s speech
FUNNY:

President Obama’s big moment came tonight as he accepted the Democratic nomination for reelection in Charlotte. But did his assertions check out? The Wonkteam looked into it.

TRUE – By 2008, we had seen nearly a decade in which families struggled with costs that kept rising but paychecks that didn’t; racking up more and more debt just to make the mortgage or pay tuition; to put gas in the car or food on the table.

TRUE – Now, I’ve cut taxes for those who need it – middle-class families and small businesses.
Obama has indeed cut taxes on 95 percent of Americans, and, among many other initiatives, passed the HIRE Act which cut taxes on small businesses who hire and retain workers.

DEBATABLE – But I don’t believe that another round of tax breaks for millionaires will bring good jobs to our shores, or pay down our deficit.

TRUE – I don’t believe that firing teachers or kicking students off financial aid will grow the economy, or help us compete with the scientists and engineers coming out of China

TRUE – After a decade of decline, this country created over half a million manufacturing jobs in the last two and a half years.

True when Bill Clinton said it last night, true now.

TRUE – After thirty years of inaction, we raised fuel standards so that by the middle of the next decade, cars and trucks will go twice as far on a gallon of gas.

Again, stated by Clinton, and correct: the Obama administration has doubled fuel efficiency standards.

TRUE WITH A (GOOD) BUT – We’ve doubled our use of renewable energy, and thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines and long-lasting batteries.

As Michael Grunwald pointed out on Twitter, this way undersells what happened to green energy under Obama. Wind energy doubled, but solar grew over 600 percent. 85,000 Americans work in wind energy, and in 2010, 5,918 people worked on battery production for electric cars and other renewable energy projects.

TRUE WITH A (GOOD) BUT – In the last year alone, we cut oil imports by one million barrels a day – more than any administration in recent history.

ect........

[kswier]

Pants on fire?

From the descriptions, it looks like a lot of them could be classified as half truths instead of pants on fire. I hate to say it, but politicians often use statistics incorrectly. If they could only find five instances where Obama stretched the truth and used incorrect statistics, that is not too bad (for a politician). I like the last one, because I thought Republicans did not count government jobs as real jobs .

I am glad there are people calling out President Obama and Romney when they stretch the truth. Hopefully it will result in a more honest political system.

[GeneV]

Glenn Kessler has also lost all credibility as a "fact-checker" for comments pertaining to either party's speakers. Other than the Bain statements, where Kessler has been previously shown to be completely off the fact-checking farm (taking one version of Gov. Romney's over another), he is basically saying these statements are true, but arguing the other side. this is not the function of "fact checking." The WP needs to take away the silly Pinocchios and stop calling him a fact checker.

In response to Ryan's speech at the GOP convention, Kessler first made a statement to the effect that the speeches were full of untruths, but "so what" that is what conventions are all about. "By its very nature, that means downplaying unpleasant facts, highlighting the positive and knocking down the opposing team.” Nevertheless, over the course of the two conventions, he selectively goes back into awarding his "Pinocchios."

Perhaps the elite journalistic disease of “on-the-one-hand-ism” has eaten away at Kessler’s brain to the point where he no longer understands the meaning of the word “fact.” Much like the financial rating agencies that signed off on Ponzi schemes and criminal accounting practices during the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the Washington Post’s “fact-checker” is charged with ensuring the integrity of the system he judges but has chosen to enable its corruption instead.

The Washington Post's Feckless 'Fact-Check' | The Nation

When the Washington Post is publishing conflicting fact checks, there is something wrong with their concept.

---

Last edited by GeneV; 09-07-2012 at 06:04 AM.

[JohnInIndy]

Jeff, just taking the the first point. Struggling to put gas in the car. When Obama took office gas was $1.79 a gallon. Now it's either side of $4.00. That's better?
We still have a net LOSS of jobs. That's better?
We have bailed out GM and the only reason it had it's most profitable year was because the government bought a ton of vehicles. That's better?

[GeneV]

Jeff, just taking the the first point. Struggling to put gas in the car. When Obama took office gas was $1.79 a gallon. Now it's either side of $4.00. That's better?
We still have a net LOSS of jobs. That's better?
We have bailed out GM and the only reason it had it's most profitable year was because the government bought a ton of vehicles. That's better?

That would appear to be an inaccurate or misleading statement of gas prices, but when the economy tanks, gas prices temporarily dip, and when it recovers, they go back where they were. They are now back where they were trending before the crash. The loss of jobs is mainly in governments controlled by Republicans. http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/sites/all/files/GOPProjectSlashingPublicWorkforce.pdf Yes, it is a good thing if government buys American.

[Nesster]

Jeff, just taking the the first point. Struggling to put gas in the car. When Obama took office gas was $1.79 a gallon. Now it's either side of $4.00. That's better?
We still have a net LOSS of jobs. That's better?
We have bailed out GM and the only reason it had it's most profitable year was because the government bought a ton of vehicles. That's better?

"better" is of course an entirely relational term. No, we are not back to 'where we should be' or 'where we were when things were good' -- but remember, the good times of the early 2000's turned out to be illusion; the gains largely a mirage. And in 2008 we really were looking into an abyss.

Compared to that, we are indeed 'better' off now - despite the continuing global economic crisis and struggle, the road looks to be bumpy but it is not a bridge over a canyon that's out, with us in a big semi truck without brakes, and to make it worse a giant ACME safe falling down on us...

[JohnInIndy]

"better" is of course an entirely relational term. No, we are not back to 'where we should be' or 'where we were when things were good' -- but remember, the good times of the early 2000's turned out to be illusion; the gains largely a mirage. And in 2008 we really were looking into an abyss.

Compared to that, we are indeed 'better' off now - despite the continuing global economic crisis and struggle, the road looks to be bumpy but it is not a bridge over a canyon that's out, with us in a big semi truck without brakes, and to make it worse a giant ACME safe falling down on us...

Ah yes. The good old Clinton days. Enron comes to mind. Dot Com bubble burst. MCI/WorldCom. Man things were so so good.



Still is true that when he took office in Jan of 09 gas was about $1.86. It's double that now.

[jogiba]

Jeff, just taking the the first point. Struggling to put gas in the car. When Obama took office gas was $1.79 a gallon. Now it's either side of $4.00. That's better?
We still have a net LOSS of jobs. That's better?
We have bailed out GM and the only reason it had it's most profitable year was because the government bought a ton of vehicles. That's better?

The brain dead Republicans don't have a clue how the price of oil is set. So the government purchased millions of vehicles ? Do you live in a group home ?

[jeffkrol]

Maybe a better question is why???

And the simplistic answer "gov. didn't create enough jobs.........

Think about it..

THE more correct answer is gov didn't provide enough capital (honestly as a mild example, would you really just want gov to say.. screw all regulatins, start digging for oil anywhere YOU want)
or programs of job creation..

To be non-partisa.. THIS is a failure of BOTH parties and will not stand and try to pin it on one or the other..

Obama for being a centrist and a bit to err practical to increase the debt.

congress, and particularly the crazy part (you pick) for not doing it's job either and doing NOTHING but spreading FUD and creating gridlock...........

I'm not better off because my wages (tied quite a bit to the economy HAVE BEEN stagnate for a decade.. not JUST 4 years...

THIS 4 year thingy and its truthyness is somewhat also NOT FOCUSING in on th issue.. only the results of the issue.which as far as I can tell is not addressed..

MAYBE one could make a case that it has TRUELY been left up to the "invisible hand of the market" and THIS is what you GET................


BLAME Obama for being an Austrian (w/ the minor "blip" of GM..thingk about it)..... why don't you..

[JohnInIndy]

That would appear to be an inaccurate or misleading statement of gas prices, but when the economy tanks, gas prices temporarily dip, and when it recovers, they go back where they were. They are now back where they were trending before the crash. The loss of jobs is mainly in governments controlled by Republicans. http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/sites/all/files/GOPProjectSlashingPublicWorkforce.pdf Yes, it is a good thing if government buys American.

[jeffkrol]

Ah yes. The good old Clinton days. Enron comes to mind. Dot Com bubble burst. MCI/WorldCom. Man things were so so good.



Still is true that when he took office in Jan of 09 gas was about $1.86. It's double that now.

JOHN HOW do we decrease gas prices.. steal it from the creating countries.. "subsidize " it from the fed???

FAct checkers seem to be proving we are consuming more domestic oil and what is happening??? Prices going up?? How about oil/gas/ company profits???

[Nesster]

Public-sector austerity in one graph - The Washington Post

America's Hidden Austerity Program - NYTimes.com

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/06/11/business/economy/11economix-p...-3-blog480.jpg

[GeneV]

Not sure what the Heritage foundation is doing with those numbers using % change, but this graph (from what appears to be another conservative) appears to show federal employment leveling or dropping after 2008, but the trend in growth goes back to 2000 and the steep, sustained growth is 2004-2008.



So federal employment was rising steeply before the President took office and Private employment was declining. After President Obama took office, private employment turned around and let's assume federal employment stayed the same. What's your point? State employment, especially in red states, plummeted.

[seacapt]

Yes, it is a good thing if government buys American.

+1 on that , IMO should be a requirement