Back in February, Paul Krugman argued that Mitt Romney is “running a campaign of almost pathological dishonesty.” Was this an intemperate analysis? Perhaps. Three months later, does it seem fair? Put it this way: take a look at the 18th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt’s mendacity.
1. Romney promised in a speech this week, “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”
Given that his stated agenda would add trillions to the debt, and Romney refuses to say how he’d pay for his tax cuts and increased Defense spending, the claim seems pretty misleading.
2. Romney claimed in the same speech that Obama has “bailed out the public-sector.”
I really wish that were true. It’s not.
3. Romney also argued that Obama has “added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined.”
That’s not even close to being true.
4. Romney insisted that the national debt is responsible for “the most tepid recovery in modern history.”
That’s ridiculously false. If the debt were holding back the economy, we’d have high interest rates and high inflation. We have the opposite.
5. Romney also said the national debt is the reason “half of the kids graduating from college can’t find a job that uses their skills.”
There is no universe in which this is true (or really, even coherent).
6. On the Recovery Act, Romney said, “President Obama started out with a near trillion-dollar stimulus package — the biggest, most careless one-time expenditure by the federal government in history. And remember this: the stimulus wasn’t just wasted — it was borrowed and wasted.”
The Recovery Act rescued the economy. Romney doesn’t have to like it, but he shouldn’t lie about it.
7. Romney added, equating the debt with a prairie fire, Obama “fed the fire. He has spent more and borrowed more.”
That’s false, too.
8. Referencing the Affordable Care Act, Romney argued, “Then there was Obamacare. Even now nobody knows what it will actually cost.”
“Nobody” except the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and every budget expert with access to a calculator.
9. Romney argued that the Affordable Care Act is a “massive, European-style entitlement.”
No, it’s not. Most of Europe has socialized or government-run health care systems. Obamacare doesn’t resemble France; it resembles Massachusetts’ Romneycare.
10. Romney also insisted Americans “can’t afford” the health-care reform law.
Actually, the ACA lowers the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.
11. Romney argued, “When you add up his policies, this president has increased the national debt by five trillion dollars.”
That’s an obvious lie. It’s not Obama’s policies that are driving the debt.
12. Romney claimed that more of the economy is being “absorbed … into government.”
That’s the opposite of the truth.









