Elections from The Center for Public Integrity

Romney campaign directs more than $1.7 million to state officials

South Carolina,United States — 2012-03-06T17:12:14-05:00

Political committees controlled by Mitt Romney’s campaign have made generous donations to prominent Republicans in early primary states, but records show contributions have tailed off as the GOP nominees head in to Super Tuesday.

The former Massachusetts governor has used a network of state and federal political action committees and personal donations to hand out at least $1.78 million to hundreds of local and national Republican candidates and organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia since his unsuccessful 2008 bid for the White House.

More than $500,000 was spent on Republican candidates in the first 13 state contests, which accounted for 371 delegates. Republicans in the 10 Super Tuesday states, where 437 delegates are up for grabs, received less than $328,000 from the Romney team.

The dwindling donations suggest the campaign, like the political prognosticators, did not expect the nomination battle to continue as long as it has.

In South Carolina, which hosted the third GOP contest, the Romney-affiliated committees gave more than $100,000 in contributions to state politicians, including more than $62,000 to Gov. Nikki Haley, who endorsed the front-runner. In New Hampshire, which hosted the second primary, $105,000 went to local politicians, the most of any state.

But in Ohio, an important bellwether with 66 delegates at stake, the Romney committees have donated a paltry $37,500. The spending has helped garner the endorsements of Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman and three of Ohio’s 18 representatives in the House, but Romney has been unable to win the support of Republican Gov. John Kasich, who got at least $6,000 from Romney and his leadership PACs.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is currently polling neck and neck with Romney in the critical battleground state.

Funds came from Romney’s federal Free and Strong America PAC, which amounted to a little more than $1.5 million, as of the most recent filings. Another $300,000 has been donated to state candidates via 11 state PACs registered under some variation of the name “Free and Strong” or “Commonwealth.” The numbers are current through the end of January.

Six states show one or both of those names as registrants: Alabama, South Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Iowa, and New Hampshire. The Center analyzed state and federal campaign finance records and data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

These so-called leadership PACs are used by politicians donate money to other influential or like-minded candidates. By making strategically timed donations to candidates in need of cash, a politician can gain clout within the party and build allegiances that may come in handy during a tough electoral battle.

“These contributions may help secure endorsements or support from powerful [Republicans] that can be crucial in winning a state's primary or caucus,” explained Kevin McNellis, a researcher at the Institute.

The donations are “not only remarkable in the amount that he’s given,” McNellis added, but also for the “sheer number” of candidates that have benefited and how far back the contributions go. Some of the state PACs were created as early as 2004.

Years of careful contributions to Republicans in need have helped Romney rack up more major political endorsements than his GOP rivals this election season. Romney got a boost on Sunday when prominent Republicans House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma endorsed the candidate.

Three of the eight Super Tuesday states with Republican governors have lined also up behind Romney, who once led the Republican Governors Association. But endorsements don’t always lead to victory.

In South Carolina, conservative voters backed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich by a thumping 12-point margin over Romney.

Among the Super Tuesday contests, Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, which has 41 delegates, received the most from pro-Romney PACs. Republicans officials have received at least $80,000, many of whom failed to win election to higher office.

Another Super Tuesday state where the Romney team has focused many of its donations is Gingrich’s home state of Georgia. It has the most 76 delegates up for grabs, the most of any state at play tomorrow.

Romney and his PACs have given more than $65,000 to nearly 100 Georgia politicians and Republican groups. That largesse didn’t dissuade Gov. Nathan Deal and five of the state’s 11 GOP representatives from endorsing the former House speaker.

The four former GOP presidential candidates who have received donations from Romney’s team have also been largely un-swayed. Only former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who got a total of $5,000 from Mitt and Ann Romney after he dropped out, has endorsed him.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann got $2,500 from Romney’s federal leadership PAC during her 2010 reelection campaign. And as the Center previously reported, Romney donated $10,000 to Santorum in the run up to the Massachusetts governor’s last presidential run.

The beneficiary-turned-opponent of Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, got $10,000 from Romney’s federal PAC in May 2010 when he was in the midst of a hard-fought re-election battle.

Despite the record of support from Romney, Perry chose to endorse Gingrich when he dropped out of the race on the eve of the South Carolina primary.

Romney’s federal PAC even gave $7,500 to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, son of former and current GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul.

Michael Beckel contributed to this report.

Six things you didn’t know about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Wisconsin,United States — 2013-01-23T13:01:04-05:00

Scott Walker has been a polarizing figure since becoming Wisconsin's governor one year ago. Only months after moving into the Madison governors' mansion, the 44-year-old Republican sought to fix the state’s budget gap by pushing a bill that cut pay and benefits for public sector workers and strictly curtailed their rights to collective bargaining.

Walker's surprising move was controversial – and ultimately successful. National labor activists fought and lost while he became a Fox News regular.

But now, largely as a result of his brazenness, the first-term governor is facing a potential recall election. State Democrats and local union organizers have until Jan. 17 to gather the 540,208 signatures needed to force an early vote sometime this year.

Walker defended his actions and attempted to explain the flood of cash he's received from outside the state since his standoff with organized labor in a three-part profile by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, the final installment of which was published Tuesday.

Out-of-state donors have given the embattled governor $3.2 million as of Dec. 10, the final campaign contributions disclosure deadline in 2011. That sum accounts for an unusually high 42 percent of his total war chest.

“Not a penny of that would be here if it weren’t for the recalls,” Walker said.

Here are six facts about Walker from the series for Wisconsin voters -- and the rest of us -- to consider:

Walker is the first governor in Wisconsin history to face a recall attempt. If he loses a potential recall election, he would be only the third governor in U.S. history to be thrown out of the statehouse mid-term.
PolitiFact Wisconsin has deemed 27 statements the governor has made about the state finances, the public sector protestors, and school staffing numbers “Mostly False,” “False” or, worse, “Pants on Fire.” The fact-checking group has reviewed 39 statements from Walker.
In a taped phone call with a blogger posing to be conservative mega-donor David Koch in February, Scott Walker admitted that he had “thought about” planting troublemakers among the labor protestors in an effort to discredit the movement.
As Milwaukee County executive in 2009, Walker sent layoff notices to public sector employees in an effort “to get their attention,” as he put it in an interview with a Madison radio host.
As a sophomore at Wisconsin’s Marquette University, which Walker attended but did not graduate from, he ran for student body president. The future governor lost the election after he was sanctioned for illegal campaigning and called “unfit” by the student paper for his “blatant mudslinging.”
Walker’s first experience in fundraising was for an Iowa flag. As an 8-year-old living in Plainfield, Iowa, he collected money in a mayonnaise jar to help buy a state flag to fly in front of the building where city meetings were held, according to his mother, Patricia Walker, a retired bookkeeper. His father was a Baptist minister.

For more on the controversial Republican, check out all three stories in the series and the full interview with Walker.

Priorities USA Action Ad: Mitt Romney's America

2012-02-29T12:05:52-05:00

One ad in a new campaign from Priorities USA Action

FACT CHECK: Romney’s ‘magnet’ charge attracts scrutiny

Texas,United States — 2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

Mitt Romney claims that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s support for an in-state tuition program has acted as a “magnet” to draw illegal immigrants to Texas. But there is strong evidence to the contrary.

Romney, GOP debate, Oct. 18: "You put in place a magnet to draw illegals into the state, which was giving $100,000 of tuition credit to illegals that come into this country, and then you have states — the big states of illegal immigrants are California and Florida. Over the last 10 years, they’ve had no increase in illegal immigration. Texas has had 60 percent increase in illegal immigrants in Texas."

Romney’s claim rests on shaky ground, and is based on selecting only the evidence that supports his thesis, while ignoring anything that would contradict it. A very different picture emerges when other states — and other sources of data — are considered.

California’s Weak ‘Magnet’

To start, California has had an in-state tuition program for illegal immigrants identical to the one Texas has. In 2001, not long after Texas passed its in-state tuition law, California passed a law that enables illegal immigrants to pay the same lower college fees as California residents if they attend high school in California for at least three years and graduate.

If such programs really operated as a “magnet,” then both Texas and California would be attracting illegal immigrants. But according to the data Romney cites, California has not.

Romney’s “magnet” theory also runs into trouble when the evidence from Arizona is considered. Romney didn’t mention that state, but data from the same source he relies on show that Arizona saw a 42 percent rise in its illegal immigrant population over the last decade. And yet, that state prohibits in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. So something other than in-state tuition must be the draw.

We, of course, don’t argue for or against granting tuition benefits to illegal immigrants, or to legal immigrants or to descendants of those who came over on the Mayflower, for that matter. But the facts don’t support Romney’s claim that Perry’s tuition program caused an influx of illegal immigration into Texas.

Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center offers an alternative explanation for the state-by-state differences in illegal immigration. “I don’t think anybody comes to the U.S. because they think if their kids go to high school here they can get in-state tuition,” he said. “They come for work, and Texas has had a relatively strong economy for the last four or five years. Florida has not.”

Murky Numbers

Furthermore, the numbers Romney cited are not as cut and dried as he made them seem.

The Romney campaign said the figures came from a February 2011 report by the Department of Homeland Security, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. And it’s true that the report estimated (in Table 4) that the population of illegal immigrants in Texas increased from 1,090,000 in 2000 to 1,770,000 in 2010 — a 62 percent jump. Meanwhile, California’s illegal immigrant population increased 2 percent, going from 2,510,000 to 2,570,000; and Florida’s dropped 5 percent, going from 800,000 to 760,000.

But another survey shows a much different picture. The Pew Hispanic Center put out its own report estimating the population of illegal immigrants around the same time as DHS. Pew estimates are based on current population surveys. They’re a smaller sample than the American Community Survey, but they’re the same surveys used by the government to estimate unemployment and poverty rates.

According to Pew’s estimates, the difference in illegal immigrant populations in the three states was much less disparate. According to Pew’s figures, Texas’ illegal population went up 50 percent over the last decade, while the population went up 11 percent in California and up 43 percent in Florida.

The truth is, trying to count people who don’t want to be counted is a tricky and uncertain proposition.

The DHS report carries this warning:

DHS report: Caution is recommended in interpreting changes in the size of the unauthorized population presented in this report. Annual estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population are subject to sampling error in the ACS [American Community Survey] and considerable nonsampling error because of uncertainty in some of the assumptions required for estimation.

Said Passel: “None of these estimates [from Pew or DHS] are that good.”

Both estimates carry a high margin for error, and therefore make a shaky foundation for Romney’s case that Texas’ in-state tuition program has acted as a magnet for illegal immigration.

– Robert Farley

FACT CHECK: GOP tackles the 9-9-9 tax plan, immigration in Las Vegas debate

Massachusetts,United States — 2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

Republican candidates hammered each other for 2 hours in a lively Nevada confrontation — and often strayed from the facts.

Cain denied that his tax plan would boost taxes for 84 percent of Americans, or fall heavily on those with lower incomes. A new study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says just that.
Santorum and Bachmann denounced Cain’s 9 percent “business flat tax” as a European-style “value-added” tax, which Cain also denied. The TPC study agrees with Santorum and Bachmann.
Romney claimed his Massachusetts health care plan “[doesn't] have a government insurance plan” and relies on private insurance. Actually, his plan expanded Medicaid, and relies on that state-federal government program to cover many of the state’s previously uninsured.
Perry and Romney clashed on job creation. Perry was mostly right in claiming Texas saw a greater number of jobs created than Massachusetts. But he was wrong that his state created more jobs in the last two months than Massachusetts did in four years under Romney.
Romney relied on a disputed study from an anti-immigration group when he said “almost half” the jobs created under Perry were for illegal immigrants. Perry called that “an absolute falsehood.” But more neutral estimates support the idea that some portion of the Texas job gains were due to illegal immigration.
Perry accused Romney of hiring illegal immigrants, to which Romney said, “I don’t think I’ve ever hired an illegal in my life.” In fact, there’s no evidence that Romney knowingly hired illegal immigrants — but he hired a lawn service that did, and was slow to fire the contractor.
Santorum and Perry were both off base in claiming that Romney once touted his Massachusetts plan as a model for the nation. He didn’t. He said it wasn’t necessarily right for all states.

The Oct. 18 debate was held at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. Seven presidential contenders participated: Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. (Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was invited but boycotted the event. He explained that he did so to “to show my solidarity with the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary status.” New Hampshire political leaders are irked because Nevada moved its presidential caucus date to Jan. 14.)

The debate was carried live on CNN. It was cosponsored by the Western Republican Leadership Conference.

Cain’s Tax Plan

Santorum said a new analysis shows Cain’s plan would increase taxes for a large majority of Americans, which Cain denied.

Santorum: "Herman’s well-meaning, and I love his boldness, and it’s great. But the fact of the matter is, I mean, reports are now out that 84 percent of Americans would pay more taxes under his plan. That’s the analysis. …"

Cain said that “simply is not true.” He also said his plan “does not raise taxes on those that are making the least.”

But Santorum is correct. An analysis posted a few hours before the debate by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded that Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (for 9 percent flat taxes on personal incomes, business transactions and retail sales of goods and services) would result in tax increases for 83.8 percent of all individuals and families, compared with what they would pay under current tax policy. Taxes would decrease for those making over $200,000 a year, with those making over $1 million a year paying 15 percent less in taxes than under current policy (which assumes the Bush tax cuts are extended). As for those “making the least,” the TPC analysis — which is based on a computer model of the tax system similar to the models used by the Treasury Department and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation — concludes that those making less than $10,000 a year would see an average tax increase of $1,122, and those making between $10,000 and $20,000 would see taxes go up an average of $2,705.

The Tax Policy Center analysis is the most extensive and sophisticated yet attempted by any independent group. It concludes that “the three taxes combined are equivalent to a 25.38 percent national sales tax,” which is a conclusion very close to one reached earlier by a former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, Edward Kleinbard, who found Cain’s three taxes would have the same effect as a 27 percent tax on wage income, and would “raise the tax burden on many low- and middle-income taxpayers.”

Cain invited viewers to “read our analysis” on hermancain.com, but that was easier said than done. We found no analysis on his website at first, only the sketchy and incomplete description that had been there for weeks. A link to a “scoring report” appeared later, midway through the debate. But when we attempted to access it, we were greeted with a message saying “service temporarily unavailable … please try again later.”

Value Added?

Santorum and Bachmann both contended — and Cain denied — that his proposed 9 percent tax on business transactions amounted to a “value-added” tax. A VAT is used in European countries and is ultimately borne by consumers in the form of higher prices, like a hidden sales tax.

Bachmann: "[A]t every level of production you have a profit, and that profit gets taxed. … And ultimately, that becomes a value-added tax. It’s a hidden tax. …"
Santorum: "[Y]ou have a sales tax and an income tax and, as Michele said, a value-added tax, which is really what his corporate tax is. …"
Cain: "[Y]ou’re absolutely wrong. It’s not a value-added tax."

Actually, Cain’s own website says he would replace the corporate income tax with a “9% Business Flat Tax” that would fall on “Gross income less all purchases from other U.S. located businesses, all capital investment, and net exports.” The Tax Policy Center concluded that this describes “a subtraction method value-added tax, sometimes called a business transfer tax (BTT).” So we score this one for Bachmann and Santorum. Whatever Cain wants to call it, his tax looks like a VAT and functions like a VAT.

For the record, the earlier analysis by Kleinbard, now a professor of law at the University of Southern California, takes a different view. He says the 9 percent business flat tax “operates in economic substance as just another wage tax,” like the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. But whether the tax pushes down wages (as payroll taxes do) or pushes up prices (like a VAT), the effect is pretty much the same — a regressive levy that burdens low- and middle-income wage earners relatively more than affluent investors.

Romney Wrong On Massachusetts Health Care

Romney went too far in claiming that government insurance didn’t play a role in the health care overhaul he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. The plan expanded Medicaid.

Romney: "[W]e don’t have a government insurance plan. What we do is rely on private insurers, and people — 93 percent of our people who are already insured, nothing changed. For the people who didn’t have insurance, they get private insurance, not government insurance."

But some of the previously uninsured were indeed covered by “a government insurance plan” as a result of the law Romney signed. Of the 411,722 Massachusetts residents who have gained insurance since the law was enacted, 193,393 joined MassHealth, which is the state’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, as of Dec. 31, 2010. That figure is from the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Not all of the expansion is specifically due to the law, however. The health care overhaul expanded Medicaid to children in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, but the struggling economy also pushed others into Medicaid eligibility. The Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute says that 76 percent of the growth would have occurred without the health care law. The institute says 61,000 persons joined MassHealth programs because of the law.

The rest of the expansion in insured residents came from 77,330 buying their own private coverage, and 158,973 getting private insurance with the help of subsidies through the state insurance exchange.

Romney vs. Perry on Jobs

Perry was largely correct in comparing Texas and Massachusetts job figures during the four years, from January 2003 to January 2007, when Perry and Romney both served as governors. Perry was wrong, however, when he claimed that Texas created more jobs in the “last two months” than Massachusetts did in four years under Romney. However, exactly how wrong Perry is on that point depends on the data used to measure Texas job growth.

Perry: "Mitt, while you were the governor of Massachusetts in that period of time, you were 47th in the nation in job creation. During that same period of time, we created 20 times more jobs. As a matter of fact, you’d created 40,000 jobs total in your four years. Last two months, we created more jobs than that in Texas."

Perry is correct, as we wrote before, that Massachusetts was 47th in the nation in job creation under Romney. During that time, from January 2003 to January 2007, Texas created nearly 835,000 jobs compared with about 46,000 jobs in Massachusetts — which is not quite 20 times more, but close. It’s a little more than 18 times. However, as we have pointed out before, Texas is a much larger state with a growing population, and it has other natural advantages that Massachusetts does not have.

As for the claim that Texas created more jobs in the last two months than Massachusetts did in Romney’s entire four years, the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that total non-farm jobs in Texas increased by about 24,500 in July and August, which is a little more than half the number of jobs that Massachusetts created in Romney’s four years. By that standard, Perry would be wrong. However, the Federal Reserve of Dallas calculates that Texas created 43,000 in July and August, which puts Perry closer to the truth — but still 3,000 short.

In response, Romney correctly said Massachusetts’ unemployment rate “got down to 4.7 percent” while he was governor. It went from 5.6 percent in January 2003 to 4.6 percent in January 2007, although at the same time the nation’s unemployment rate fell at a slightly faster rate (from 5.8 percent to 4.6 percent).

Perry vs. Romney: Jobs for Texas Illegals

Romney said “almost half” the jobs created under Perry were for illegal immigrants, which Perry said was “an absolute falsehood.” In fact, Romney based his claim on a disputed study by an anti-immigration group.

Romney: "[O]ver the last several years, 40 percent, almost half the jobs created in Texas were created for illegal aliens, illegal immigrants."
Perry: "That is an absolute falsehood on its face, Mitt."
Romney: "It’s actually…"
Perry: "That is — that is absolutely incorrect, sir."
Romney: "Well, take a look at the study."
Perry: "There’s a third — there’s been a third party take a look at that study, and it is absolutely incorrect."

Romney’s claim is based on a September report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for lower immigration. According to the report, “Of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal).” And, the report states: “Of newly arrived immigrants who took jobs in Texas since 2007, we estimate that 50 percent (113,000) were illegal immigrants. Thus, about 40 percent of all the job growth in Texas since 2007 went to newly arrived illegal immigrants and 40 percent went to newly arrived legal immigrants.”

But just as Perry said, the study has come under fire from some who claim it is based on flawed methodology.

Pia Orrenius, an economist and immigration expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, told the Dallas Morning News the methodology is “misleading” because, “[y]ou’re comparing gross inflows to net job creation. You have to compare net to net.”

Chuck DeVore, a visiting senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, also wrote an analysis critical of the CIS study:

DeVore: Put simply, CIS compared a net increase in jobs in Texas over a four year period with agross increase in employed newly arrived immigrants in Texas. This is truly an apples to oranges comparison that should be thought of in the same way as if a report claimed that Google is a larger company that Apple because its market capitalization of $162 billion exceeded Apple’s annual revenues of $100 billion.

CIS stands by its study, but one of the study’s authors, Steven Camarota, told us if people prefer the “net to net” figures, those are included in the CIS study as well. And those figures are much more modest than the numbers given by Romney in the debate. Since the second quarter of 2007, the employment of foreign-born immigrants in Texas increased by 150,000 compared with an increase in employment for native-born workers of 130,000. By that calculation, immigrants counted for 54 percent of the net increase — not 81 percent.

DeVore called that “a more supportable contention” and an “apples to apples comparison.”

But not all of those immigrants were illegal immigrants. Camarota said he did not have figures on how many of that 54 percent were illegal immigrants, but he said, “I would guess it’s less than half.” That puts the percentage of job growth taken by illegal immigrants somewhere closer to 20 percent, he said. That’s still a “very big number,” Camarota said. But it’s a far cry from the “nearly half” cited by Romney.

Perry vs. Romney: ‘You Hired Illegals’

Perry recycled an old chestnut, accusing Romney of hiring illegal immigrants to do landscaping work, and saying that Romney “knew about it for a year.” Romney said, “I don’t think I’ve ever hired an illegal in my life.”

The truth is that there’s no evidence that Romney knowingly hired illegal immigrants. But he hired a lawn service that did. And Romney kept the company on for a year after the issue was highlighted in a 2006 Boston Globe story — only to find out the company was still employing illegal workers.

During a 2007 presidential debate, then candidate Rudy Giuliani chastised Romney for having “illegal immigrants working at your mansion.” We wrote about the issue then, and highlighted theBoston Globe story a year prior that documented that several illegals worked at Romney’s home off and on over an eight-year period. The workers were employed by a contractor, Community Lawn Service with a Heart.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

After the debate, the Globe wrote a follow-up story, noting that the company was still employing illegal immigrants, and that the company was still being used by Romney.

Boston Globe, Dec. 4, 2007: Standing on stage at a Republican debate on the Gulf Coast of Florida last week, Mitt Romney repeatedly lashed out at rival Rudy Giuliani for providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants in New York City.
Yet, the very next morning, on Thursday, at least two illegal immigrants stepped out of a hulking maroon pickup truck in the driveway of Romney’s Belmont house, then proceeded to spend several hours raking leaves, clearing debris from Romney’s tennis court, and loading the refuse back on to the truck.

After being questioned by Globe reporters, Romney issued a statement saying that he had just learned that the company was still hiring illegal immigrants and that he had fired the company.

The statement said: “After this same issue arose last year, I gave the company a second chance with very specific conditions. They were instructed to make sure people working for the company were of legal status. We personally met with the company in order to inform them about the importance of this matter. The owner of the company guaranteed us, in very certain terms, that the company would be in total compliance with the law going forward.

“The company’s failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable, and I believe it is important I take this action,” Romney said.

Santorum & Perry Misrepresent Romney

Santorum and Perry were both wrong in claiming that Romney said in his book that he wanted to impose his state’s health care plan on the rest of the country.

The three-way exchange started when Santorum said the former Massachusetts governor didn’t “have credibility” when promising to repeal the federal health care law, because Romney signed a bill requiring his state’s residents to buy health insurance.

Romney: "I was asked, is this something that you would have the whole nation do? And I said, no, this is something that was crafted for Massachusetts. It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation."
Santorum: "That’s not what you said."
Romney: "You’re — you’re shaking — you’re shaking your head."
Santorum: "Governor, no, that’s not what you said."
Romney: "That happens — to happens to be …"
Santorum: "It was in your book that it should be for everybody."
Romney: "Guys …"
Perry: "You took it out of your book."
Santorum: "You took it out of your book."

Like Romney, we have been over this, too. We wrote about it after the Fox News debate. It is true that Romney revised his book No Apology when it was re-released as a softcover. As he acknowledged in a Sept. 15 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Romney removed a sentence in the hardcover version that said: “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.” But in the context of the book the phrase “the same thing” was a reference to the goals addressed by the state law: “portable, affordable health insurance.” Romney made it clear in interviews after he signed the legislation that he didn’t think his state’s health care law was necessarily right for all states or the nation.

Asked if his state’s health care law will “work for the country,” Romney told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on April 12, 2006: “There are certain aspects of it that I think would work across the country, perhaps better in some states than others. Of course the great thing about federalism is you let a state try it and see how it works before you spread it out.”

– Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley and Lori Robertson

FACT CHECK: Perry misses the facts on fracking

2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

Rick Perry said he would “create another 250,000 jobs by getting the EPA out of the way” of natural gas drilling. But the EPA isn’t currently in the way: The very study on which Perry relies assumes that all of those jobs will result if current regulations are not changed.

In a speech at a steel plant in Pittsburgh on Oct. 14, the Texas governor outlined a sweeping plan to create over a million jobs by increasing American energy production. The plan involves opening up numerous areas currently off-limits to oil and gas exploration, and repealing regulations he said are hampering domestic production of fossil fuels.

The full potential for American energy production can only be realized, he said, “if environmental bureaucrats are told to stand down.”

Calling natural gas a “game-changer” in U.S. energy production, Perry cited regulation of hydraulic fracturing as an example of government overreach. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the process of extracting natural gas from underground shale formations. Spurred by technological advancements, the Department of Energy projects shale gas will comprise over 20 percent of the total U.S. gas supply by 2020.

With the Marcellus Shale deposits in the northeast U.S. poised to be the largest producing gas field in the U.S., they have come under intense national focus. Gas companies see huge potential for production and profits and environmentalists worry about damage to drinking water and other environmental impacts. Perry, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, said development of the Marcellus Shale would be a presidential priority for him.

Perry, Oct. 14: "And right here in Pennsylvania, and across the state line in West Virginia and Ohio, we will tap the full potential of the Marcellus Shale and create another 250, 000 jobs by getting the EPA out of the way."

According to a footnote in the full energy plan published on Perry’s campaign website, the 250,000 jobs projection comes a study released in July, “The Pennsylvania Marcellus Natural Gas Industry: Status, Economic Impacts, and Future Potential.” The study was funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade association that represents gas companies, and performed by three energy professors at the University of Wyoming and Penn State University.

According to the report, if natural gas prices don’t fall significantly, “Marcellus economic activity could support over 250,000 jobs” by 2020.

But current EPA regulations aren’t holding back that potential, as Perry contends.

“We made our projections under current policy in effect,” said one of the study authors, Timothy J. Considine, a former Penn State professor who is now director of the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy at the University of Wyoming.

The EPA is studying the issue of hydraulic fracturing, but no new regulations have yet been proposed. Due to the expanded use of fracking, Congress in 2010 directed the EPA to study the topic, “to better understand any potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water and groundwater.” The EPA’s initial research results aren’t expected until the end of 2012 and the final report is expected to be released in 2014.

“If there are real stringent regulations imposed, I think the governor has a point that it could significantly impact the industry,” Considine said. But it’s premature to speculate on what regulations might be proposed and how they might affect job projections, he said.

But based on some of the questions being raised during the EPA study process, there is at least reason for concern by the gas industry, said one of the study’s co-authors, Robert W. Watson, an emeritus professor at Penn State and chair of the technical advisory board to oil and gas management of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Of particular concern, Watson said, is the possibility of permit requirements regarding diesel equipment used to extract the natural gas. Those could potentially be costly and discourage production, he said.

But again, those are potential regulations that have not been proposed. We take no position on what the EPA should or shouldn’t do, or what the Obama administration will or won’t do on its own. It’s fair game for Perry to say he’d prevent future regulations from being imposed, but he misleads when he says he would clear away impediments that the industry’s own study says don’t currently exist.

– Robert Farley

FACT CHECK: Recycled spin at New Hampshire GOP debate

2012-01-06T16:46:04-05:00

At the latest debate, the Republican presidential candidates repeated several claims they’ve made before. The candidates participated in a roundtable-style discussion at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where they reiterated false and misleading lines about the federal health care law, the debt ceiling debate, job creation and more:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney repeated his talking point that the health care law in his state only affected 8 percent of the population — or just the uninsured — while the federal law “takes over health care for everyone.” But that’s wrong on several levels. Both laws affect everyone by requiring that all residents have insurance or pay a penalty; both also focus on helping the uninsured gain coverage. And, just like the federal plan, the Massachusetts law set up an exchange where individuals buying their own insurance can select from various private health plans. That affects more than just those who were uninsured when the law was passed.
Romney also made the misleading assertion that “raising taxes is one of the big problems, something we didn’t do in Massachusetts.” The state actually raised the cigarette tax by $1 per pack, but the tax was implemented by the current governor, Deval Patrick. Also, the original law instituted fines for residents who don’t have insurance and businesses that don’t provide coverage. Is such a “fine” a “tax”? Romney’s camp thought so of similar provisions in the federal law, when they sent us a list of “taxes” in that legislation.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry took his job-creation boasting too far again, claiming that “while this country was losing two-and-a-half million jobs, Texas was creating 1 million jobs.” That’s an apples-to-oranges comparison. Texas has created a little more than 1 million jobs during Perry’s time in office, but the nation lost 1.4 million in that same time frame — not 2.5 million. To make the national picture look even worse, Perry goes back to January 2009. The nation has lost 2.4 million jobs since then, but Texas created only 95,600 jobs in that time period.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann once again claimed that the resolution to the debt ceiling debate gave President Obama a “$2.4 trillion blank check.” But Obama can’t spend this any way he wants. The money is used to pay obligations Congress already has authorized or will authorize. And besides, a check for a set amount is not a “blank check.”
Bachmann falsely claimed that a Medicare advisory panel created by the federal health care law “will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans.” Hers is a new twist on a false Republican talking point that the Independent Payment Advisory Board will ration health care for seniors. The board is specifically barred from rationing care on page 490 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It’s true that the board will consist of 15 “political appointees,” as Bachmann said, and they will recommend ways to slow the growth of Medicare. But board members must be medical providers and other professionals with experience in health care finance, actuarial science, health care management and other related fields. And the board’s recommendations can be rejected by Congress, as we have explained before.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman dredged up an old partisan exaggeration in claiming that the IRS was planning on hiring “19,500 new employees to administer that mandate” in the health care law. We knocked down this inflated claim in March 2010, when it was about 16,500 IRS employees. The truth is that the claim comes from a report by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee who made several false assumptions to come up with that number. Plus, the IRS’ primary role isn’t to “administer that mandate,” as Huntsman claims. It will mainly administer subsidies and tax credits. And so far, the IRS has requested 1,269 full-time equivalent employees, according to its fiscal year 2012 budget request, to help implement the law.
Huntsman also repeated his claim that when he was governor, Utah was No. 1 in job creation, while Massachusetts ranked 47th under Romney. Huntsman’s statistic is true according to data based on household surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But according to the most commonly used yardstick for job growth, payroll data, Utah was actually No. 4. How common is the payroll data method? Huntsman cites a report that used the payroll data numbers to arrive at Massachusetts’ No. 47 ranking under Romney.
Bachmann reiterated a common Republican exaggeration, claiming that the deficit is larger than it really is. She said: “We are spending 40 percent more than what we take in.” That’s not true. The actual figure is 37 percent, according to the most recent monthly statement of the U.S. Treasury, covering the first 11 months of the fiscal year that just ended. (Final figures won’t be available for a few more days.) For the first 11 months, outlays were $3,296,399,000,000 and the deficit was $1,234,052,000,000 (rounded to the nearest million). So we spent 37.4 percent more than receipts. Furthermore, the deficit for the previous fiscal year was also 37.4 percent more than we took in.
Bachmann also said the deficit for the year was $1.5 trillion, which is untrue. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates (based on daily Treasury statements) that the deficit for fiscal 2011 was $1.294 trillion, just $3 billion less than the year before. The final, official Treasury figures may change those figures by a few billion, but not nearly enough to justify Bachmann’s inflated claims.

– Lori Robertson, Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley

FACT CHECK: Gov. Christie leaves out the truth behind his tax cuts

New Jersey,United States — 2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

Chris Christie shaded the truth when he took credit for closing New Jersey’s budget gap “without raising taxes.” It’s true he didn’t raise state taxes, but the governor’s first budget extensively revised and reduced a program that once provided residents with local property tax rebate checks. As a result, nearly 1 million homeowners received an average $269 property tax credit in fiscal year 2011, down from an average rebate check of $1,035 the year before.

The New Jersey governor spoke Sept. 27 at the Reagan Library. His theme was “leadership and compromise,” and he cited his experience as a Republican working with a Democratic legislature.

Christie, Sept. 27: "Leadership and compromise is the only way you can balance two budgets with over $13 billion in deficits without raising taxes while protecting core services."

Christie — who after the speech once again rebuffed calls to run for president — did face significant budget problems when he took office in January 2010. He inherited a $2.2 billion shortfall in the fiscal year 2010 budget and declared a fiscal emergency to deal with it. In his first budget for fiscal year 2011, Christie faced a structural deficit of $10.7 billion.

To help close the budget gap, Christie overhauled the Homestead Rebate program. Christie cut the program from $1 billion to $268 million and renamed it the Homestead Benefit program. Instead of mailing out rebate checks, the program now provides quarterly tax credits against a homeowner’s property tax bills. Christie also deemed all tenants and homeowners who earn more than $75,000 ineligible for the program, and he sharply reduced the benefit for others. In its budget analysis, the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services said the average benefit declined from $1,035 in fiscal year 2010 to $269 in fiscal year 2011.

So, did Christie close the budget gap without increasing taxes? Homeowners who relied on those checks to help pay property taxes might disagree with him.

In fact, the governor refers to the program as “direct tax relief” in his latest budget.

Christie’s fiscal year 2012 budget — which he signed June 30 — increases the Homestead Benefit program from $268 million to $458 million. On page 20 of his budget summary, Christie touts the increase in a list of budget accomplishments: “Doubles the Homestead Benefit to provide direct property tax relief to New Jersey families.” The Office of Legislative Services says the average benefit will increase to $476 — which isn’t quite double last year’s average and is less than half what it was before Christie took office.

– Eugene Kiely

FACT CHECK: Did Romney’s health care law kill jobs?

Massachusetts,United States — 2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

The Perry campaign has been pushing a questionable claim that the Massachusetts health care law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006, “killed 18,000 jobs.” But that number was churned out by an economic model used by a conservative think tank, and it’s unknown whether the figure is accurate.

At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said: “If Romneycare cost Massachusetts 18,000 jobs, just think what it would do to this country.” Campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan also has referred to the study in criticizing Romney, saying the law “killed 18,000 jobs,” including in statements made prior to last week’s debate in Florida. What’s the truth behind this talking-point-in-the-making? We interviewed several experts to find out.

That 18,000 number isn’t a hard count of laid-off or fired workers, as Perry’s claim may lead some voters to believe. Instead, it’s an estimate from a conservative think tank – The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University — that ran health care cost variables through its economic model and determined that the state had “created 18,313 fewer jobs in 2010 than it would have had [the state health care law] not been in place.”

We can’t say whether or not Massachusetts businesses really chose to create 18,000 fewer jobs – or any other number – because of the law, but here’s what we can say:

Paul Bachman, one of the authors of the study and director of research at the Beacon Hill Institute, told us that 18,000 “is quite small.” How small? It’s less than 1 percent — 0.56 percent, to be exact — of the total number of jobs in the state.
Other experts disagree with the basic premise of the study – that the law led to higher costs, particularly for employer-based premiums. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who advised both the Romney administration and the Obama administration on health care, told us he doesn’t see evidence that the law caused premiums to rise. They did go up, but it’s not clear that the law was the cause. In fact, the percentage increase was higher in other nearby states that didn’t pass a health care overhaul (see pages 11-12 of this Gruber report).
Opinions of employer groups are mixed. Richard Lord, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the state’s largest employer group, said in an interview with FactCheck.org that AIM’s members “tell us they’re concerned about high health care costs, but it’s really due to health care inflation and not due to the law.” On the other hand, Bill Vernon, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said that small businesses that are just under the coverage requirements of the law — that’s employers with fewer than 11 employees — are reluctant to hire an additional person. They then would have to offer coverage or pay a $295 per-employee, per-year fine.
Massachusetts’ unemployment rate mirrored the nation’s back in April 2006, when the law was enacted — 4.8 percent for the state compared with 4.7 percent for the nation. But the state has fared better than the U.S. overall since. Its rate is now 7.4 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for the country. Of course, the Beacon Hill study claims the state would be doing even better.

We’ll try to give you the methodology of the study in a nutshell: The Beacon Hill Institute developed a trend line for employer-sponsored premium costs in the state (as well as trends for Medicaid spending) for about a decade before the law was passed in 2006, and then projected that trend for future years, Bachman explained. It then attributed to the law the increase in premiums after 2006 above that trend line. Costs attributed to the law were then plugged into a complicated economic model, which determined that the state would have about 18,000 more jobs today if the law hadn’t been passed.

Causal relationships are difficult to prove. Can the institute really say that any cost above a projected trend line is due to the health care law? Bachman says that economic theory “supports the thesis.” Demand for health care has gone up in the state, since more residents are insured, he says, “without a corresponding expansion of supply. … And in that scenario you would get price increases.”

When we told Bachman that the state’s largest business group wasn’t complaining about the law costing jobs, he said that these lost jobs are probably at small businesses, not larger employers. And more research would need to be done to reconcile AIM’s observation with the Beacon Hill economic model: “If you really wanted to reconcile them, you would do a survey” of businesses, particularly small businesses, he said. “You would probably get a better picture.”

Vernon, at NFIB, does believe that “insurance costs have cost jobs in Massachusetts,” but he also noted that insurance costs have long been a major concern for small businesses. Plus, changes have been made in the implementation of the law that weren’t Romney’s doing, he said. Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, told us that the short answer is: “Who knows?” Health insurance costs have disproportionately affected small businesses, and they’ve seen “the brunt of the increases since the law passed.” Those rising costs and the lack of new business have “held back hiring,” he said. But, he added, he can’t verify actual job losses.

Overall, health care costs aren’t driving employment numbers, Vernon said. “Most economists would tell you we don’t have job growth because we don’t have sales; we don’t have business to support the jobs,” he said. “If I need somebody to do the business, then I’m going to hire somebody,” regardless of whether health care costs are high or low.

The Massachusetts law has led to higher spending by employers – employer-based insurance went up after it was passed, at least partly because workers who had previously refused a company offer of coverage, started taking it. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimated that the additional cost to businesses was $750 million a year. But that’s 5 percent of total employer health spending, said Michael J. Widmer, the group’s president, who puts the total spending at about $15 billion in 2010. He told us employers largely absorbed that $750 million cost, and Lord agreed. “Most employers I talked to said, ‘Hey we offered this benefit to everybody, and if more people take it up … we’ll manage,’ ” Lord said. “We didn’t get much negative feedback about that.”

Widmer also doesn’t buy the Beacon Hill study. “There is no evidence to conclude that Massachusetts health reform has cost jobs,” he said.

– Lori Robertson

FACT CHECK: Perry slams Obama presidency with inaccurate ad

2012-01-06T15:52:09-05:00

Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes another wildly false claim in a new Web ad — saying that the U.S. poverty rate has hit an “all-time high.” In fact, the rate is the highest since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than it was in 1959, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent annual tally.

Perry’s false claim about the poverty rate follows his false claim during his second debate appearance, when he said Obama’s stimulus measure “created zero jobs” since it was signed in February 2009. That untrue statement was called out not only by us, but other fact-finders as well, including debate co-sponsor CNN.

Perry makes much use of the word “zero” in this Internet-only ad, which runs 1 minute 45 seconds. Regarding jobs, he chooses his words more carefully than he did in the debate, saying “zero jobs” materialized — in the single month of August. That’s true enough, according to the most recent official job statistics.

Perry’s ad goes on to say (over pictures of shuttered buildings and empty factories) that Obama’s tenure is marked by “ZERO CONFIDENCE … ZERO ‘HOPE’ … ZERO ‘CHANGE.’ “ We interpret all those as statements of Perry’s opinion, and thus fair game. Anyone is entitled to agree or disagree. And polls show that Americans who say the U.S. is on the “wrong track” outnumber those who think it’s on the “right track” by more than 4 to 1. Plus, consumer confidence — while far from “zero” as measured by the Conference Board — still took a steep plunge in August to the lowest point since 2009.

But Perry’s ad simply gets it wrong about the poverty rate. The Census Bureau said on Sept. 13, when it released the most recent annual figures on poverty and income:

U.S. Census Bureau: The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1993 but was 7.3 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available. Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points.

So the poverty rate is not even close to being the highest in the 51 years for which we have official figures, let alone at an “all-time” high — which would be higher than even during the Great Depression, or the era of slavery.

Perry’s ad may have confused the poverty rate — the percentage of the total population in poverty — with the number in poverty. It’s true that the Census figures show more people in poverty in 2010 than at any time in the previous five decades, and thus a record number. But it’s also true that there are a record number of Americans overall (the population keeps rising every year).

– Brooks Jackson

Update, Sept. 21: The Perry campaign also did some creative editing at the beginning of this ad, where Obama is heard saying: “I love these folks who say, well, this is Obama’s economy. That’s fine. Give it to me.” But that’s not exactly the way Obama really put it, though the editing is done so seamlessly that few if any listeners would suspect his remarks had been truncated.

What the president really said — in Michigan on July 14, 2009, after GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy — was this (with portions deleted by Perry campaign in bold):

Obama, July 14, 2009: "I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, well, this is Obama’s economy. That’s fine. Give it to me."

What the Perry campaign edited out was Obama’s reference to those in Perry’s party whom he accused of helping to create “this mess.”

At another point in the ad, the president is heard saying: “Despite all the naysayers who were predicting failure a year ago, our economy is growing again.” But what’s not apparent from the ad is that Obama said that in May 2010, a few days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy had added 290,000 new jobs the month before (later revised downward slightly to 277,000). But listeners might get the idea that the president said it recently.