Fact-Checking the Debate

From Politico:

The $5 Trillion Tax Cut

Romney: “I’m not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut…. I won’t put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit. That’s part one. So there’s no economist that can say Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan….I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.”

Obama: “Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut….For 18 months he’s been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he’s saying that his big, bold idea is, ‘Never mind.’”

Independent analysts say Romney’s numbers don’t add up. The rate cuts and other changes he’s proposing would indeed total almost $5 trillion over 10 years, and though he said Wednesday he’d pay for those cuts by reducing deductions and credits, a study by the Tax Policy Center found that it was “mathematically impossible” to cover the $5 trillion reduction by eliminating tax breaks solely on high-income taxpayers.

In an interview earlier this week, Romney said he might cap deductions at $17,000. During the debate, he suggested such a cap might kick in at $25,000 or $50,000. However, it’s not clear how those limits would get around the problem the Tax Policy Center study noted. The Romney camp contends that study is biased and points to others with different results.

Romney acknowledged Wednesday that the bare numbers of his tax plan might not be revenue-neutral, but he said growth and new jobs created by his policies would generate added revenue to cover the gap.

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Simpson-Bowles

Obama: “We’ve [taken the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan,] made some adjustments to it, and we’re putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan.”

Obama made the deficit-cutting plan he’s offered sound comparable to the plan from the chairmen of the Simpson-Bowles debt cutting commission. But it’s not: His proposal doesn’t save as much money as Simpson-Bowles and doesn’t offer the kinds of detailed entitlement cuts the panel’s leaders did.

The president’s $4 trillion plan, including $3 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in tax hikes from allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire, is spread over 10 years — a year longer than Simpson-Bowles. It sounds like a minor difference, but cuts and spending balloon in the so-called out years.

Also, Obama doesn’t touch Social Security in his plan. And the tax changes and war spending are accounted in ways that make Obama’s plan substantially less aggressive.

“The president’s budget falls well short of the savings claimed by the [Simpson-Bowles] commission,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The committee, the kind of wonky group Obama loves to cite, said Obama’s plan provided only about two-thirds of the savings Simpson-Bowles proposed over a comparable period with comparable assumptions.

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Gas prices

Romney: “Gasoline prices have doubled under the president”

There’s no doubt that a gallon of gas costs twice as much as when Obama took office in January 2009: $1.89 a gallon then to $3.87 a gallon now.

But context matters. Gas prices actually peaked at $4.11 a gallon — an all-time high — in July 2008 but had fallen in late 2008, due to the financial meltdown, before Obama took office.

Most energy experts agree that there’s not much any president has to do with gas prices, and Obama has tried to make that point himself while under fire for the rising prices.

During the debate, Romney said he’d get both energy projects moving, while Obama noted his own efforts to increase domestic energy supplies. “Oil and natural gas production are higher than they’ve been in years,” he said.

The article goes on to talk about where statements from both candidates don't exactly add up.