Romney forgets the facts in campaign speeches - Updated

The Associated Press fact checks the GOP’s apparent candidate and finds Mitt Romney is lying in his campaign speeches. Romney often repeats the Republican trope alleging President Obama has increased our debt more than all the previous presidents combined. Not true, in fact, “the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled.”

Romney claims he has a miracle cure for our debt and prosperity. But independent economists say it’s pure fiction. Romney’s tax and spending plans will not cut the deficit; in fact it would make it much worse. The only way he could keep his promises would be to slash all non-military domestic spending by 20%, which would decimate “basic federal functions such as food inspection, air traffic control, the Border Patrol, FBI, grants to local governments, health research, housing and heating aid for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, national parks and much more.”

And while we’re talking about Republican lies, President Obama has most definitely NOT presided over an expansion of government spending. In fact,
federal spending, taxes and the budget deficit have all been reduced under Obama’s watch.

The fact is that Obama inherited a disaster of a federal budget. Eight years prior, when President George W. Bush took the oath of office, there was a $281 billion surplus. By the time Obama was sworn in, he was facing a $1.2 trillion deficit. Inconvenient though it may be for conservatives (especially those who are running for president), the truth is that spending, taxes and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office.

In only three years President Obama has made great strides in repairing the damage done to our country by GOP policies. He’s done this despite relentless attempts to sabotage his plans by the Republicans. If we had a minority party that cared more about doing what’s best for all of us instead of their own re-election prospects, we would be in much better shape right now. Since that appears to be impossible, clearly the only sensible course of action is to reduce the Republican’s ability to obstruct good governance.

Update: Greg Sargent has much more on Romney’s disastrous economic policy proposals. Further he wisely notes the majority of the reporting on Romney’s speeches merely repeat his lies without providing the important context of the truth. More importantly, the reason Romney apparently feels so confident in relentlessly repeating his false talking points is he believes the majority of the media will never call him out for boldly lying. I’m afraid he’s most probably right about that.