Q.1 Obama: “Over the last 30 months, we’ve seen 5 million jobs in the private sector created.”
Answer: True
Private-sector jobs are up by at least 4.6 million since the labor market bottomed in February 2010, and up by 5.1 million if you look at preliminary revisions released last week.
Q.2 Obama: “Gov. Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut”
Answer: It’s complicated
Romney has proposed a 20-percent reduction in all federal income tax rates, which the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates would cost $480 billion a year, or $4.8 trillion over 10 years — nearly the round $5 trillion that Obama cited repeatedly during the debate.
Romney claims that he’d offset that lost revenue by closing loopholes and deductions. But while he’s proposed very specific tax cuts (which mostly favor the wealthy) he has yet to specify what loopholes and deductions he’d eliminate. The Tax Policy Center concluded that it’s mathematically impossible to offset the proposed cuts without a tax increase on the middle class.
Q.3 Romney: “There are six other studies that looked at the study [of my tax plan] you describe and say it’s completely wrong.”
Answer: It’s complicated
In the past, Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan have referred to “five different studies” refuting the conclusions of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center study. Factcheck.org found that two of the five “studies” were blog posts, two were written by Romney campaign advisers, and another by a former economic adviser to George W. Bush. We’re not sure what the new sixth study was that Romney referred to last night.
Q.4 Romney: “Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300.”
Answer: True
Median household income has dropped from $55,198 when Obama took office in 2009 to $50,678 today. However, the downward trend began at least a decade before Obama took office and was exacerbated by the economic collapse that occurred on Bush’s watch.
Q.5 Obama: “Under Gov. Romney’s definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business.”
Answer: It’s complicated
The federal government defines a small business as one that employs fewer than 500 people. According to CNN, The Trump Organization employs 22,000 people, but Donald Trump runs a number of other companies with fewer than 500 employees.
Q.6 Romney: “You raise taxes and you kill jobs. That’s why the National Federation of Independent Businesses said your plan will kill 700,000 jobs. I don’t want to kill jobs in this environment.”
Answer: It’s complicated
A study funded by pro-business groups including the National Federation of Independent Business showed that Obama’s proposal to end the Bush-era tax cuts for households with income over $250,000 could cost more than 700,000 jobs. But the National Federation of Independent Business, which got two shout-outs from Romney last night, is a partisan organization which received $3.7 million from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS in 2010 and has given 98 percent of its political donations to Republican politicians.
Q.7 Romney: Obamacare “puts in place an unelected [Medicare] board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.”
Answer: False
The Affordable Care Act stipulates that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) can not make spending cut recommendations that “ration health care” or increase costs to beneficiaries.
Q.8 Romney: “If the president were to be re-elected you’re going to see a $716 billion cut to Medicare. […] I’ll restore that $716 billion to Medicare.”
Answer: It’s complicated
Although it’s true that the Affordable Care Act removes a projected $716 billion from the Medicare budget, the cuts won’t affect current recipients’ benefits — the savings comes from reduced reimbursements to health care providers, mostly insurance and drug companies — and they will occur over the next decade. What’s complicated is that Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget included the same cuts in his plan that was approved by most House Republicans two years ago. Nonpartisan analysts say that it’s actually Romney’s plan that will increase Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket expenses.
Q.9 Romney: “The CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year.”
Answer: False
The Affordable Care Act will actually expand healthcare coverage to 30 million Americans. In a section exploring unlikely alternative scenarios at the end of its report, the Congressional Budget Office suggests that up to 20 million people could lose their employment-based insurance. But, as is stated clearly on page one of the same report, the CBO projects that 3 million to 5 million fewer people will obtain coverage through their employer.
Q.10 Obama: “It was estimated [that Romney’s Medicare-reform plan] would cost the average senior $6,000 a year.”
Answer: False
This statement is based on an outdated study of a budget Paul Ryan wrote in 2011 that would overhaul Medicare. The study, by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and based on an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, projected that seniors would see an increase of $6,150 to $12,500 per year. Since then, Ryan has revised that budget — and Ryan’s more recent plan is the one Mitt Romney has said he would draw on as president.
