Laying out the first plans for his party’s presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama’s policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.
Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama‘s trade dealings with China. A day earlier, the convention’s keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, bucked reality in promising that GOPpresidential nominee Mitt Romney will lay out for the American people the painful budget cuts it will take to wrestle the government’s debt and deficit woes under control.
And former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum stretched the truth in taking Obama to task over his administration supposedly waiving work requirements in the nation’s landmark welfare-to-work law.
A closer look at some of the words spoken at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:
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RYAN: “And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. … So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”
THE FACTS: Ryan’s claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.
In addition, Ryan’s own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program’s spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.
MORE: FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech – Yahoo! News.