Obama did not promise to stop the GM plant from closing. Rather he promised to help the auto industry and manufacturing workers in general by first, improving the economy, and second, assisting struggling industrial companies (“I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this (General Motors) plant will be here for another hundred years”).

The whole thrust of Obama’s 2008 Janesville speech was a promise to help the workers he was addressing. And his promise was, in fact, broken.

The decision to stop production at the plant was made in June 2008, the actual lay-off of 2000 workers occurred in December 2008. The plant didn’t “close down” at that time, it simply stopped producing vehicles. Nothing prevented restarting the plant and rehiring the workers when Obama came into office one month later. In fact, the plant was in the running for new production until six months later (from the Janesville Gazette, Friday, June 26, 2009: “Gov. Jim Doyle says Wisconsin offered a “very strong” incentive package to get General Motors to locate subcompact production in Janesville, and says he’s deeply disappointed the automaker picked its Orion, Mich. plant for the work.”)

But Obama did nothing to assist the Janesville plant or any other. Under Obama, the government picks winners and losers. Obama promised Janesville and manufacturing in general would be a winner even as his economic policies guaranteed it would always be a loser. (“When I talk about real change that will make a real difference in the lives of working families, it’s not just the poll-tested rhetoric of a political campaign. It’s the cause of my life. And you can be sure that it will be the cause of my presidency from the very first day I take office.”)

So the claim that Ryan lied is false.

The statement in the Fox News article, “While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush” falsely implies that the plant permanently shut down when in fact it stopped production in the last month of Bush’s term, still capable of being restarted if Obama had actually kept his promise. It also falsely implies that the promise Obama made became inactive on the day the plant stopped production. How absurd is that? He promised to help the GM workers and all workers for the four years of his term. Which he plainly failed to do.

The Ryan statement is pure fact: “When he [Obama] talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day.”