Tea Party Debate Fact Fail

Politifact has rated a few of the comments on the CNN / Tea Party Express GOP debate from 9-12-11:

Mitt Romney led the attacks on the Republican frontrunner, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, by saying that Perry didn't support the retirement program. "In writing his book, Gov. Perry pointed out that … by any measure Social Security has been a failure," Romney said. We checked Perry's book and found Romney was right. We rated the claim True.

Romney found much of his ammunition from Fed Up!, the book Perry published last year. Romney said that Perry said in the book that Social Security "is unconstitutional." We found that while Perry never exactly used those words, he came pretty close. We rated Romney's claim Mostly True.

Perry, asked about his comment likening Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, replied, "It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people before me."

But when we asked experts about the structure of a Ponzi scheme and the funding of Social Security, the analogy does not hold up. So we rated Perry's claim False.

... 

When the conversation turned to jobs, Perry repeated a claim of many critics that the economic stimulus has created "zero jobs." We rated that Pants on Fire. The stimulus may not have created enough jobs to offset other losses, but most economists say it did add some jobs. (We even interviewed a man who attributed his new job to the stimulus.)
...

Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann took aim at the health care law passed last year, claiming it took $500 billion out of Medicare. Bachmann said that President Barack Obama "stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it to Obamacare." She has a point that cost-savings from Medicare were used to offset the cost of the rest of the law, but she misleads when she says the money was stolen. We rated her statement Mostly False.

Notice the return of a few doozies from their success in 2010:
They are still trying to pin Obama as a man who wants to rob Medicare of its funding. Of course nobody doubts this is a winning strategy. No truth needed.
Update 9-14-11: The Washington Post Fact Cheker pointed out something else about this claim:

In fact, in the House Republican budget this year, lawmakers repealed the Obama health-care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers. (emphasis mine)

Republicans have decided to skip any conversation about the details of the stimulus and its effects on the economy. Instead they just repeat the demonstrably false claim that it didn't create a single job. Republicans have gone beyond the point of just calling it a failure. Now they feel they must continue to lie. Only problem, these lies are gunna take the market down with them.
Update 9-14-11: In the Fact Checker article mentioned above, Glen Kessler noted "A recent review of nine different studies on the stimulus bill found that six studies concluded the stimulus had “a significant, positive effect on employment and growth,” and three said the effect was “either quite small or impossible to detect.” "(emphasis mine)

One great point of the night was that Mitt Romney seemed to be constructing Obama's campaign for him. When you attack a program loved by 75% of the population, you may just as well plan on keeping your job in Texas.


Update 9-14-11: Fackcheck also checked the debate:

• "Bachmann said an executive order signed by Perry would have "forced" young girls to take a "potentially dangerous drug." But federal government regulators declared the drug a "safe and effective vaccine" to prevent a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. Also, the order allowed parents to opt-out.
• Romney falsely accused Perry of misquoting him on Social Security. Perry correctly characterized a section of Romney's book in which Romney compared the federal government's management of Social Security to a banker who steals from his client's trust fund.
• Huntsman falsely claimed that Romney's book labeled Social Security "a fraud." Romney wrote that Americans have been "defrauded" because of the way the program has been managed, but he did not call it a "fraud."
• Santorum claimed Pennsylvania voters in 1994 rewarded his "courage to tell them the truth" about Social Security. But, as Santorum himself acknowledged at the time, he nearly lost that election after his opponent unearthed a video tape of the Republican discussing the need to raise the eligibility age for Social Security.
• Cain claimed county government retirees in Galveston, Texas, make "at least 50 percent more than they would ever get out of Social Security" because the county opted out of Social Security. But that's only for initial benefits, and those retirees do not get annual cost-of-living adjustments. Also, not all retirees get such a high initial benefit. 
• Perry cherry-picked job creation numbers when he boasted of creating 1 million jobs as governor "while the current resident of the White House is overseeing the loss of 2.5 million jobs." Texas has increased jobs by 1 million during Perry's tenure, but only 95,600 have come since Obama has been president."

Update 9-14-11: The GOP is becoming the party of the anti-corporate anti-vaxers.