10 Most Shameless Romney Debate Lies — Debunked
10 Most Shameless Romney Debate Lies — Debunked
The verdict is in: Mitt Romney handily won last night’s debate, and did what he needed to do to have a fighting chance at winning the election. But what he didn’t do, predictably, was tell the truth.
Romney’s debate performance was chock full of lies, recalling his running mate’s address to the GOP convention, which was also chock full of lies. Hopefully, just as Ryan’s address was dissected and debunked by some media outlets, Romney’s claims are as well, so the debate can move to substantive issues instead of stylistic ones.
Here are ten of Romney’s fact-challenged claims from last night:
1. An ‘Unelected Board’ Controlling Your Health Care
Despite President Obama trying to push back on this lie, Romney made this claim a few times last night. Obamacare, according to Romney, ‘puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.’ In reality, as the Associated Press points out , the board that is tasked with bringing down Medicare costs is prohibited from ‘rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn’t have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.’ This Romney claim also hearkened back to Sarah Palin’s lie that Obamacare created ‘death panels,’ which was a straight up lie.
2. A Bipartisan Record
Romney referred to his alleged ‘bipartisan’ record in Massachusetts as governor during the debate. But what’s the real story on this? ABC News calls the claim ‘not quite factual.’ Indeed: Romney’s health care plan was enacted with the help of a Democratic legislature. But in general, the body was ‘frustrated’ with Romney ‘because he wanted to govern like a ‘CEO’ and ‘didn’t pay heed to the legislature and they resented that,” according to the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation’s Michael Widmer.
3. Dodd-Frank Labels Banks as ‘Too Big to Fail’
One contrast between the candidates that emerged during the debate was over Dodd-Frank, the weak Wall Street reforms and regulations passed after the 2008 financial collapse. Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank, and part of the reason why is his claim that the bill designates banks as ‘too big to fail’ and therefore gives them ‘a blank check.’ But as ThinkProgress notes, this is far from the truth: ‘the law merely says that the biggest, systemically risky banks need to abide by more stringent regulations . If those banks fail, they will be unwound by a new process in the Dodd-Frank law that protects taxpayers from having to pony up for a bailout.’