http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/debates/presidential/2012-10-16?smid=tw-thecaucus#fact-check
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Fact-Check: Different From Bush?When Mr. Romney was asked how he and former President George W. Bush were different, he said they were different people and because the times were different, “my five-point plan is so different than what he would have done.”But Mr. Romney’s five-point plan, which is light on specifics, is an echo of the platform that Mr. Bush ran on in 2000 – energy independence, education, expanded free trade and a get-tough stance toward China, balanced budgets and small business. As Mr. Romney pointed out, Mr. Bush fell short in those areas, for instance by turning balanced budgets of the Clinton era into annual deficits. Still, their campaign platforms are remarkably similar.
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Fact-Check: Fast and FuriousAsked for his position on whether to restrict access to assault weapons, Governor Romney brought up Fast and Furious, the botched gun-trafficking case that led to a politically charged oversight investigation by Congress. But Mr. Romney’s description of Fast and Furious, and what is known about it, was misleading in certain significant respects. READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Romney Said Tax Rate Was 'Fair'?Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of saying in a ”60 Minutes” interview that he believed it was “fair” that he paid a lower tax rate than ordinary workers like bus drivers. Mr. Obama simplified the question Mr. Romney was asked by CBS’s Scott Pelley and Mr. Romney’s response.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Libya Attack Called Act of TerrorOnce Mr. Obama said “please proceed,” it was probably not a good idea for Mr. Romney to proceed.The issue was Libya, and Mr. Romney took Mr. Obama to task for saying that he had initially called the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi an “act of terror.”“Please proceed,” Mr. Obama said, smirking.Mr. Romney, apparently not aware that he was walking into a trap, plowed ahead.“Is that what you’re saying?” he asked, pressing his point.Mr. Obama smirked again. “Please proceed, Governor.”Mr. Romney kept on, until moderator Candy Crowley intervened. “He did, in fact, sir.”And so he did. The day after the attack in Libya, Mr. Obama, in the Rose Garden, said: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”He didn’t say it again in the weeks after, which is why Mr. Romney made his accusation. But it is incorrect to say that Mr. Obama did not initially call the attack an “act of terror.”
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Fact-Check: U.S. Military Spending at 4% of G.D.P.In a rapid-fire exchange on dueling tax rate plans, Mr. Obama said Mr. Romney wanted to give tax breaks to the wealthy – which he said would decreases government revenue, but then add large sums to the military budget, as well. Like all statistics, these on military spending can be viewed from different angles to offer different perspectives.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Broken Promise on Immigration Reform?“Now, when the president ran for office,” Mitt Romney said, “he said that he’d put in place, in his first year, a piece of legislation — he’d file a bill in his first year that would reform our — our immigration system, protect legal immigration, stop illegal immigration. He didn’t do it.” Mr. Romney is right about that, and some Latino voters have been disappointed.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Employing Women in MassachusettsMr. Romney said that as governor, he employed more women in senior state government positions than did any other state administration, but there have been conflicting reports as to whether that is the case.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Fewer Women Have Jobs?Governor Romney criticized President Obama’s economic performance by saying that fewer women have jobs than four years ago. But that is not correct, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Calling China a Currency ManipulatorMr. Romney said that China had been artificially holding down the value of its currency for years and that President Obama had passed up the opportunity to label China as a currency manipulator. Though the Obama administration has never named China as a currency manipulator, no other administration since 1994 has.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Romney on the Dream Act“Now, Governor Romney just said that, you know, he wants to help those young people, too,” President Obama said, referring to young undocumented immigrants. “But during the Republican primary, he said, I will veto the Dream Act that would allow these young people to have a chance.” Since the primaries, Mitt Romney has softened his position on the Dream Act, a bill that would give legal status to young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. But not by much.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Daylight on Israel?Mr. Romney said that “the president said that he was going to put daylight between us and Israel.” Is he correct?READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Romney on ImmigrationWhat is Mr. Romney’s strategy on illegal immigration? His positions have varied over the past year, but he says he opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants in most cases.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: 'Pioneers of Outsourcing?'Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of investing in companies that were pioneers in outsourcing to China. Is this true?READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Terrorism and Security in LibyaThe Obama administration has come under fire for shifting assessments of what really happened in Benghazi, Libya, and for questions of security at the diplomatic mission there.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Romney and Arizona Immigration LawMitt Romney’s statements about immigration measures in Arizona have been widely misquoted by Democrats — and were misquoted again Tuesday night by President Obama — to make it appear he embraced as his “model” a tough and polarizing police enforcement law in that state.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Contraceptive CoverageMr. Obama mentioned a provision of his signature health care law that requires most insurance plans offered by employers to provide free birth control. Mr. Romney, he said, opposes the requirement and believes that “employers should be able to make the decision” as to whether their female workers get contraceptive coverage.Mr. Obama was correct: Mr. Romney is against the requirement, which he has described as an attack on religious liberty Mr. Romney has said he would abolish the requirement.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Tariff on Chinese TiresPresident Obama said, “We had to make sure that China was not flooding our market with cheap tires” and therefore took action to save 1,000 jobs. It is true that in 2009, the Obama administration imposed a duty on Chinese tires, but last month the administration let the tariff expire.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Doubling the Deficit?Mr. Romney just repeated the false charge — which he also made during the first debate — that Mr. Obama has doubled the deficit.“He said when he was running for office, he would cut the deficit in half,” Mr. Romney said of Mr. Obama on Tuesday night. “Instead he’s doubled it.”The Congressional Budget Office just announced that the federal budget deficit was about $1.1 trillion in 2012, approximately $200 billion less than the shortfall recorded in 2011. Measured as a share of the economy, as economists prefer, the deficit has declined more significantly — to 7.0 percent of the economy’s total output in 2012 from 10.1 percent in 2009.
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Fact-Check: Obama Unemployment Promises?Mr. Romney charged that Mr. Obama promised the unemployment rate would be 5.4 percent by now. (It is currently 7.8 percent.) This is an old canard based on a report released before Mr. Obama even took the oath of office. READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Changes in Romney Tax Policy?Has Mr. Romney’s position on tax cuts for the wealthy changed? While he said here that “I’m not looking to cut taxes for wealthy people,” this is a shift from his statements during the Republican primary race.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Romney Investment in Chinese CompanyPresident Obama said Mr. Romney invested in a Chinese company that conducted video surveillance on citizens. Is that correct?READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Candidates on CoalPresident Obama said that coal jobs and coal production was up. True, but the increases are modest.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Spending, Borrowing and Higher Taxes?Mr. Romney just charged that “a recent study has shown that people in the middle class will see $4,000 a year higher taxes as a result of the spending and borrowing of this administration” — a claim that FactCheck.org recently examined and labeled “nonsense.”The figure is derived from a study by the American Enterprise Institute that attempts to calculate “the real annual cost of servicing the debt for households at various levels of income.” A blogger with the institute laterwrote that the results “could mean a $4,000 a year middle-class tax hike.”
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Fact-Check: Balancing the BudgetMr. Romney correctly stated that he produced a balanced budget during each of his four years in office. But that’s hardly unusual: every governor does it. The Massachusetts constitution requires that the budget be balanced.
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Fact-Check: No Tax Increases?Can Mr. Romney keep his promise not to increase taxes on working-class families? Studies show that is a promise that might be hard for him to keep.Read More
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Fact-Check: College Graduates Without Jobs?Mr. Romney said that “with half of college kids graduating this year without a college — or excuse me, without a job and without a college-level job, that’s just unacceptable.” Is it true that half the students graduating from college this year don’t have a “college-level job”?It’s not clear what numbers he is referring to, but Mr. Romney might be talking about numbers from last year. An analysis of 2011 Labor Department data by researchers at Northeastern University, Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, found that about 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of people with bachelor’s degrees under the age of 25 last year were jobless or employed in jobs that did not require a college degree. That was the highest share in at least 11 years.
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Fact-Check: Tax Increase on Small BusinessMr. Romney just warned that Mr. Obama’s plan to let the Bush-era income tax cuts for the highest-earning Americans expire would hurt small businesses. But 97 percent of small businesses do not earn enough to be hit by the higher rates.READ MORE
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Fact-Check: 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt'?Did Mitt Romney really say “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”? Yes. Though he did not write the headline that continues to haunt him — that task fell to an editor – he did argue in a New York Times op-ed article that General Motors and Chrysler should go through a managed bankruptcy. READ MORE
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Fact-Check: Pell Grants for CollegeMr. Romney said he wanted to keep the Pell Grant program growing. This a new position for him READ MOREThe governor and his campaign have repeatedly criticized President Obama’s expansion of the Pell Grant program, which they have said is unsustainable. Mr. Romney’s position paper on education says he would “refocus Pell Grants dollars on the students who need them most.” For months, this was widely interpreted as meaning that fewer people would qualify for Pell Grants — a question the Romney campaign declined to clarify.Mr. Romney would also restore banks to their role in making student loans. Mr. Obama eliminated that role and used some of the savings to pay for the Pell Grant expansion.
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Fact-Check: 12 Million JobsMr. Romney has promised to create 12 million jobs over the next four years if he is elected president. That is actually about as many jobs as the economy is already expected to create, according to some economic forecasters.READ MORE
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