(This is an expanded version of material that originally appeared in the Oct. 17 print edition of The Washington Post.)

We heard some oldies but goodies in Tuesday night’s feisty debate between President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney. Here are some factual highlights — or lowlights:

“When Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go bankrupt, I said we’re going to bet on American workers.”

— Obama

“He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that’s right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy’s and Continental Airlines and come out stronger. And I know he keeps saying, you want to take Detroit bankrupt. Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did.”

— Romney

“What Governor Romney said just isn’t true. He wanted to take them into bankruptcy without providing them any way to stay open. And we would have lost a million jobs.”

— Obama

This interesting exchange is drawn from a headline — “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” — on an opinion article written by Romney for the New York Times. But he did not say that in the article. (He repeated the line, however, on television.)

Although “bankrupt” often conjures up images of liquidation, Romney is correct in that he called for a “managed bankruptcy.” This is a process in which the company uses the bankruptcy code to discharge its debts, but emerges from the process a leaner, less leveraged company.

Ultimately, along with getting nearly $80 billion in loans and other assistance from the Bush and Obama administrations, GM and Chrysler did go through a managed bankruptcy.

But many independent analysts have concluded that taking the approach recommended by Romney would not have worked in 2008, simply because the credit markets were so frozen that a bankruptcy was not a viable option at the time.

Here’s how the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel, in a unanimous finding, framed the issue in a January 2011 report: “The circumstances in the global credit markets in November and December 2008 were unlike any the financial markets had seen in decades. U.S. domestic credit markets were frozen in the wake of the Lehman bankruptcy, and international sources of funding were extremely limited.”

Obama’s claim of 1 million jobs being saved is based on a Bush administration estimate when it extended loans to the automakers. The Bush administration’s Council of Economic Advisers said that “the direct costs of American automakers failing and laying off their workers in the near term would result in a more than 1 percent reduction in real GDP [gross domestic product] growth and about 1.1 million workers losing their jobs, including workers for automotive suppliers and dealers.”

“That’s why I put out a five-point plan that gets America 12 million new jobs in four years.”

— Romney

This number is less impressive than it sounds. This pledge amounts to an average of 250,000 jobs a month; in recent months, the economy has averaged about 150,000 jobs a month.

Moody’s Analytics, in an August forecast, predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president. And Macroeconomic Advisors in April also predicted a gain of 12.3 million jobs.

In other words, this is a fairly safe bet by Romney, even if he has a somewhat fuzzy plan for action. We have often noted that presidents are often at the mercy — or are the beneficiary — of broad economic trends, and Romney’s pledge appears to be an effort to take advantage of that.

“We’ve built enough pipeline to wrap around the entire Earth once.”

— Obama

This “fact” is kind of meaningless — and it’s missing some important context.

The circumference of the Earth at the equator is just over 24,091 miles.

The president is making this claim based on two years of data posted on the Web site of the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration. The data show that from 2008 to 2010, total oil and gas pipelines have increased by 27,899 miles. So that’s certainly circling the globe.

But the total number of pipelines in 2008 was about 2.38 million miles. So that means that Obama’s gain over two years amounts to a little over 1 percent of that total. That sounds much less impressive than “wrap around the entire Earth.”

Indeed, the bulk of Obama’s gain — 19,500 miles — came from gas transmission lines, essentially natural gas piped into homes and buildings. By and large, these pipelines require approvals from states and municipalities, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent agency.

“A recent study has shown the people in the middle-class will see $4,000 per year in higher taxes as a result of the spending and borrowing of this administration.”

— Romney

Romney’s claim that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000 has earned him three Pinocchios in the past.

The figure is drawn from a dry report from the American Enterprise Institute, titled “A Simple Measure of the Distributional Burden of Debt Accumulation.” The study tries to calculate the burden of servicing the national debt by various income groups, examining what would happen under current law, current policies and Obama’s budget.

(Current law refers to policies that are supposed to happen, such as expiring tax cuts; current policy reflects the fact that Congress has said it will not let certain tax cuts expire.)

Among the three scenarios, there’s actually not much difference, and the Obama administration’s budget falls right in the middle. In other words, the study shows how much lower taxes could be if the nation did not keep adding to the debt load; it does not show, as Romney suggests, that Obama has some sort of secret plan to raise taxes.

Presumably, a Romney budget would fall in the same range, but he has not provided detailed plans.

“I said I would cut taxes for middle- class families, and that’s what I’ve done, by $3,600.”

— Obama

Obama makes it sound like this is one big tax cut, every year.

The $3,600 figure is actually over four years — $800 in each of 2009 and 2010 due to the Making Work Pay tax credit and $1,000 in each of 2011 and 2012 due to a Social Security payroll tax cut.

But the Making Work Pay tax credit has expired, and Obama has not promised to extend the payroll tax cut, meaning that people’s taxes will go up next year.

“Every middle-income taxpayer no longer will pay any tax on interest, dividends or capital gains.”

— Romney

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that such a tax cut will not greatly benefit middle-income Americans, who typically do not have large stock investments.

For an income range of 50,000 to $75,000 — roughly equivalent to the median income figure in Census Bureau data — the result would be an average tax cut of $167. The people who really make money on capital gains earn far more than $200,000, but Romney’s proposal would only be for people earning less than that.

Still, the Tax Policy Center study does show that Romney’s proposal would not be a bad deal for the elderly who get most of their income from capital appreciation. Their average tax cut would be three times greater than it would for the rest of the tax-paying population.

“There were many days that passed before we knew whether this was a spontaneous demonstration, or actually whether it was a terrorist attack [in Libya].”

— Romney

“The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror, and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.”

— Obama

“I think it’s interesting the president just said something, which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an attack of terror.... I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.”

— Romney

What did Obama say in the Rose Garden a day after the attack in Libya? We covered this previously in our extensive timeline of administration statements on Libya.

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for,” Obama said.

But the president did not say “terrorism”— and Romney got tripped up when he repeated the “act of terror” phrasing.

Otherwise, Romney’s broader point is accurate — that it took the administration days to concede that the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was an “act of terrorism” that appears unrelated to initial reports of anger at a video that defamed the prophet Muhammad. (The reporting is contradictory on whether there was indeed a demonstration outside the mission.) By our count, it took eight days for an administration official to concede that the deaths in Libya were the result of a “terrorist attack.”

More to Romney’s point, Obama continued to resist saying the “T” word, instead repeatedly bringing up the video, even in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 25. On Sept. 26 — 15 days after the attack — the White House spokesman felt compelled to assert “it is certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, the president’s view, that it was a terrorist attack.”

“The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he took office, it’s 7.8 percent now. But if you calculated that unemployment rate, taking back the people who dropped out of the workforce, it would be 10.7 percent.”

— Romney

On the surface, Romney’s point seems reasonable, but ultimately this is a misleading metric.

The labor force participation rate in January 2009 was 65.7, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Had the rate remained the same, the labor force would be about 160,158,000. At the current employment level, the unemployment rate would be 10.7 percent.

But this assumes all things are equal in the labor force, when in fact it is constantly churning and evolving. In particular, besides the aftermath of the Great Recession, the composition of the labor force has been affected by the retirement of the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation.

Our colleagues at WonkBlog explored this issue earlier this year, showing that the peak of the labor force participation rate, or LFPR, was reached during the end of President Bill Clinton’s term and that since then it has been on a downward track. “If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce today as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent,” the column noted. “If the percentage was where it was when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 13.1 percent.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in March estimated that just over half of the post-1999 decline in the labor force participation rate was explained by long-running demographic patterns, such as the retirement of the baby boomers. “These patterns are expected to continue, offsetting LFPR improvements due to economic recovery,” the study said.

In other words, all things did not remain equal.

“He said when he was running for office, he would cut the deficit in half. Instead he’s doubled it.”

— Romney

Obama did say he would cut the deficit in half but Romney’s math is wrong. The federal budget deficit in 2009 — which started four months before Obama became president — was $1.4 trillion, when it was about 10 percent of the gross domestic product. For the fiscal year just ended, the deficit was $1.1 trillion, or about 7 percent of GDP.

The budget deficit in 2008 was $438 billion, but it hardly seems fair to compare Obama’s record to that fiscal year, which ended just as the economic crisis erupted.

“The president’s policies throughout the Middle East began with an apology tour.”

— Romney

This Four-Pinocchio claim rears its head again. Readers can refer back to our lengthy look at this issue back in early 2011. The apology tour never happened.

“He called the Arizona law a model for the nation.”

— Obama

The president loves this line, but it simply is not correct. As Romney later pointed out out, he was speaking of “E-Verify,” which is a federal electronic verification system that checks the immigration status of new hires — not the controversial immigration enforcement law known as Senate Bill 1070

This is Romney’s full quote, which came during GOP debate held in Arizona in February:

“You know, I think you see a model here in Arizona. They passed a law here that says, that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up on E-Verify. This E-Verify system allows employers in Arizona to know who’s here legally and who’s not here legally. And as a result of E-Verify being put in place, the number of people in Arizona that are here illegally has dropped by some 14 percent, where the national average has only gone down 7 percent.”

Regarding SB1070, Romney position has been vague; he has not even said whether he agreed with the Supreme Court ruling striking down key parts of the legislation.

“He said that by now we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work. I wasn’t the one that said 5.4 percent. This was the president’s plan. Didn’t get there.”

— Romney

Republicans like to cite this “promise” by Obama but it is not as simple as that.

Before Obama took the oath of office, two aides, Christina Romer, the nominee to head the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, an incoming economic adviser to Vice President-elect Biden, wrote a 14-page report that attempted to assess the impact of a possible $775 billion stimulus package and how much of a difference it would make compared to doing nothing.

Thus, it was not an official government assessment or even an analysis of an actual plan that had passed Congress.

Page 4 of the report included a chart that showed that unemployment would peak at 8 percent in 2009, compared to 9 percent in 2010 if nothing was done. For 2012, the report suggested the unemployment rate would be 5.4 percent after stimulus. But the report also contained numerous caveats and warnings because, after all, it was merely a projection.

Still, the administration later cited the report in congressional testimony, giving it an official imprimatur. So, while Obama officials may not have “pledged” such a goal, it was certainly part of the administration’s talking points.

“One of his big ideas when it comes to corporate tax reform would be to say, if you invest overseas, you make profits overseas, you don’t have to pay U.S. taxes.... And it’s estimated that that will create 800,000 new jobs. The problem is they’ll be in China. Or India. Or Germany.”

— Obama

Obama is quoting from one disputed study.

At issue is a Romney proposal, as part of a corporate tax reform, to allow foreign profits by corporations to be exempt from domestic tax. The Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission, frequently cited by Democrats and Republicans, recommended such a system in its report. “A territorial tax system should be adopted to help put the U.S. system in line with other countries, leveling the playing field,” the report said.

The study cited by Obama, which appeared in Tax Notes, did not actually study Romney’s plan. Moreover, it said that such a system would create 800,000 jobs overseas, but not necessarily at the expense of U.S. jobs if unemployment rates are low.

“He was asked this on Univision the other day. Why, when you said you’d filed legislation in your first year didn’t you do it? And he didn’t answer.”

— Romney

Romney suggested that the president couldn’t answer during a Univision interview for a failed 2008 campaign promise to overhaul the immigration system during his first year in office. We covered this issue in a previous column.

Obama said on Univision that his administration was preoccupied with resuscitating the economy during his first year in office. We noted that the president was indeed busy with various stimulus and bailout programs, but that most of the heavy legislative lifting was done by the summer of 2009.

The president has blamed Republicans for not working with him to enact immigration reform, but his party held the majority in both chambers of Congress during his first two years, and some Democrats showed a reluctance to work on a bill.

News accounts at the time noted that the Obama administration showed little will to push through a deal. Here’s what the New York Times wrote about the matter:

“Aides to Mr. Obama say he does not intend to get out in front of any [immigration] proposal until there is a strong bipartisan commitment to pass it. That stance has the potential to paralyze the process, since lawmakers are looking to him to use his bully pulpit, and high approval ratings, to help them fend off any political backlash among their constituents.” — Josh Hicks

“Any investments I have over the last eight years have been managed by a blind trust. And I understand they do include investments outside the United States, including in Chinese companies. Mr. President, have you looked at your pension? Have you looked at your pension?”

— Romney

“I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours so it doesn’t take as long.”

— Obama

“Let me give you some advice. Look at your pension. You also have investments in Chinese companies. You also have investments outside the United States.”

— Romney

We have certainly been skeptical of the Obama campaign’s claims about Romney-related investments in Chinese companies, but this was bit of curve ball by GOP candidate.

Generally, the payout from a pension — in this case, from Obama’s years in the state legislature — is based on years of service and other factors, not necessarily how well the pension does in the stock market. (It certainly is an unusually lucrative pension system, as a Chicago Tribune investigation found.) Obama’s defined-benefit pension is valued at between $50,000 and $100,000 on his financial disclosure form.

To our mind, there’s a qualitative difference between a pension-plan investment portfolio and earning returns from contemporary stock investments.

The Romney campaign explains that his point was that international investments are a crucial part of investing today — and that just as Obama has no control over the investments made by his pension fund, Romney has no control over investments made by funds that are part of his blind trust. The Romney campaign says that 19 percent of the Illinois pension fund’s investments are in foreign companies, including dozens of Chinese companies.

“Obama has a pension, managed by the IL Pension fund. He has no control over how they invest it, and they invest some of it in Chinese companies,” a Romney spokesman said. “Romney has a blind trust. He has no control over how the trustee invests it, and the trustee invests some of it in funds that invest in Chinese companies.”

(As has often been noted, as a Senate candidate in 1994, Romney dismissed a blind trust as an “age-old ruse.” In a blast at Sen. Ted Kennedy’s blind trust, Romney said: “The blind trust is an age-old ruse, if you will. Which is to say you can always tell a blind trust what it can and cannot do. You give a blind trust rules.”)

(As is our practice, we generally do not award Pinocchio ratings in these instant round-ups.)

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Pity the poor voter in a swing state in the final weeks of this campaign. Whenever you turn on the television, there is yet another campaign ad from either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney — and most of the time they are bashing the other guy.

We have reviewed and rated many of these ads over the past months, but as the ad spending reaches a crescendo, we thought it would be useful to once again examine some of the most frequently aired ads. With the help of Kantar Media, we identified the 10 ads from each campaign with the greatest spending on them. We then selected five from each side, with a bias toward picking ads that were released recently. (There is one additional Romney ad that we note — but do not rate.) Where appropriate, we also include links to our original column on the ad.

 Looking at these ads, we are struck by the consistent themes, with Obama portraying Romney as a heartless corporate raider and Romney portraying Obama as a hapless president.

Obama campaign ads

Obama: ‘Firms’

 This sly, almost wicked ad features Mitt Romney signing “America the beautiful” while images flash of his alleged connections overseas — his Bain Capital firms shipping jobs to Mexico and China, outsourcing jobs to India as governor, and his use of a Swiss bank account and tax havens overseas.  We did not rate this specific ad, but have investigated most of these claims and they are exaggerated or lack evidence.

A similar ad earned Four Pinocchios, but this one, on a blended basis, gets Three.

 

  

Obama: ‘Believes’

This ad hits Romney as believing in  “outsourcing” while touting Obama as an advocate of “insourcing.” The charge against Romney is based on a Washington Post article that, as we have often noted, is not correctly quoted by the Obama campaign.

 

 

Obama: ‘Heard It All Before’

This ad trashes Romney’s economic record as Massachusetts governor, frequently stretching the truth. It claims Massachusetts was 47th in job creation in the nation, but that is a blended four-year rating, and thus ignores the fact that Romney boosted the Bay State’s standing — from 50th to 28th — in tough economic times. The Massachusetts state debt did increase by $2.6 billion, but as we have explained much of that was for capital investments such as public buildings and roads, not operating expenses. We had awarded Two Pinocchios to a similar Obama ad.

 

Obama: ‘My Job’

This highly effective ad uses Mitt Romney’s own words about the “47 percent of Americans” who do not pay federal income taxes — secretly video-taped at a Boca Raton fundraiser — against him. The ad simply plays Romney’s dismissive comments as photographs of ordinary, working Americans flash by. When the video was first revealed by Mother Jones magazine, we gave Three Pinocchios to Romney for failing recognize that many of these people do pay other taxes, especially payroll taxes. Romney has since said his remarks were “just completely wrong.” But the impact of this ad may be long felt. We cannot find anything misleading or false in it, so it earns a rare Geppetto Checkmark.

 

Obama: ‘Table’

This is an unusually long ad — two minutes — in which Obama talks directly to the camera and outlines his plans for the nation. We had previously given this ad Three Pinocchios for Obama’s claim that Romney would “double down” on the same tax-cut and regulatory policies that led the economic crisis. There is no evidence that the George W. Bush tax cuts led to the economic crisis. In this ad, Obama also repeats a claim we have frequently faulted — that the savings from ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be used for nation-building at home and to reduce the deficit. It is a budgetary gimmick that still puts the money on the credit card that Obama has long decried as bad policy under Bush.

 

Romney campaign ads

Romney: ‘Shame on You’

We were surprised to discover that two of Romney’s top 10 ads — this one and a similar one titled “No Evidence” — featured the conclusions of a Fact Checker column about an Obama Bain Capital ad, which we had given 4 Pinocchios. These ads also feature then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton complaining about misleading ads — what the Romney ad calls “vicious lies” — run by her then rival, Sen. Barack Obama. She of course now works for Obama as his secretary of State. We are uncomfortable rating something that quotes this column so we will simply note it for the record.

Romney: ‘Where Did the Money Go?’

This kitchen-soup ad throws out a lot of charges about Obama’s stimulus bill — claims about crony capitalism, and also money spent on supposed windmills in China and electric cars from Finland. It also features a quote by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), which in intended to validate the claims but turned out to be out-of-date and overtaken by events. On balance, when we previously rated the ad, it earned Two Pinocchios.

 

Romney: ‘These Hands’

This ad features a small businessman who denounces Obama for his comments — taken out of context — that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” From a reading of the full comment, made in a campaign speech, it is pretty clear that the “that” referred to roads and bridges, as part of a riff on how the wealthy should give something back to the government because they benefit from it in many ways. (Later it emerged that the business owner featured in the ad had benefited from millions of dollars in government contracts.) But that did not stop Republicans from making “build that” the theme of the first night of the GOP Convention. We awarded this quote-twisting Three Pinocchios when this ad first aired over the summer.

 

Romney: ‘Paid In’

This ad focuses on Medicare, in particular the claim that Obama took more than $700 billion from Medicare to fund the health care law. We have repeatedly noted the problems with the claim that he “cut” Medicare by that amount — and we have also highlighted the fact that the budget plan authored by Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, kept much of the same Medicare savings but dedicated it to other purposes. The most objectionable part about this ad is that it suggests that Obama is taking money that seniors had “paid in” to the system, when in fact the reductions are aimed mostly at hospitals and providers.

Romney: ‘Stand Up to China’

Two of Romney’s top 10 ads feature China, and this one is particularly misleading. The ad claims that Obama’s policies toward China have “cost us 2 million jobs.” The claim was based on a 2011 report from the International Trade Commission concerning the impact of Chinese intellectual-property infringements. The report noted that improving protection of such rights could lead to an additional 2.1 million jobs — but that is not the result of Obama’s policies. The report framed it as an opportunity lost, not the disappearance of jobs. In fact, the report notes that the Obama administration had taken action on the issue. This ad earned Three Pinocchios.

 

Romney: ‘Too Many Americans’

This 60-second ad is Romney’s speak-to-the-camera moment; it was intended to help mitigate the fallout from his “47 percent” comments. He throws out a lot of statistics about economic woes in the United States, but his most misleading comment is about his own economic plan — that it would create 12 million jobs. As we have previously noted, that is in line with what economists think will happen — no matter who is president.

 

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VIDEO: Highlights from Thurday night's debate between Vice President Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan in Danville, Kentucky. 

(This is an expanded version of material that originally appeared in the Oct. 12 print edition of The Washington Post.)

There were lots of feisty words and fishy facts in Thursday’s debate between Vice President Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan. Here are some quick highlights.

“We weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security.”

— Biden, speaking of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya

Biden’s bold statement was directly contradicted by State Department officials just this week, in testimony before a congressional panel and in unclassified cables released by a congressional committee.

“All of us at post were in sync that we wanted these resources,” said Eric Nordstrom, the top regional security officer in Libya earlier this year. A Utah National Guardsman who led a security team, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, said: “We felt great frustration that those requests were ignored or just never met.”

Maybe Biden was too busy in debate prep to watch?

UPDATE: In a bit of post-debate clean-up of Biden’s remarks, the White House on Friday said Biden was speaking for himself and President Obama, not the administration.

“The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.”

— Biden

Ryan, as head of the House Budget Committee, set broad targets for spending in his budget blueprint that would have cut nondefense discretionary spending by 19 percent in 2014.

There were no specific cuts in embassy security, but Democrats have extrapolated the number, across the board, to come up with this statistic. But it is not a real number with true budget impact. Update: The Hill newspaper detailed some back-and-forth rhetoric concerning the negotiations over the funding, noting that the figure also includes money for construction and maintenance, not just security.

By the way, our definitive timeline on shifting administration statements on the Libya terrorist attack can be found here.

“Prior to the election, prior to him being sworn in, Governor Romney was asked the question about how he would proceed. He said, ‘I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get bin Laden.’”

— Biden

Romney made this statement in a 2007 interview with the Associated Press: “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

But Biden has ignored the rest of the interview, in which the AP quoted Romney as saying “he supports a broader strategy to defeat the Islamic jihad movement.” Just a few days later, Romney expanded on his remarks during a debate:

“We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — Osama bin Laden — because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another. This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.”

“When Barack Obama was elected, they [Iran] had enough fissile material — nuclear material to make one bomb. Now they have enough for five. They're racing toward a nuclear weapon. They're four years closer toward a nuclear weapons capability. We've had four different sanctions, the U.N. on Iran, three from the Bush administration, one here. And the only reason we got it is because Russia watered it down and prevented the sanctions from hitting the central bank.... In Congress, I've been fighting for these sanctions since 2009. The administration was blocking us every step of the way.”

— Ryan

Ryan greatly simplifies things here. Iran has built up its supply of nuclear material, but none of it is usable in a weapon yet. Most experts say the United States and its allies would have ample warning if Iran tried to enrich its nuclear material to weapons grade. (Biden confused matters by asserting that both the Israelis and the United States would know when Iran starts “building a weapon” — that is much more difficult to track.)

Meanwhile, the debate on Iran sanctions is rather familiar. If you go back four years, you will see that it was the Obama campaign that made claims of weakness and fecklessness on Iran. President George W. Bush had considered the building of a multinational coalition seeking to negotiate with Iran as one of his foreign-policy legacies, but Obama officials were critical, saying it offered “weak carrots and weak sticks.”

Now, Ryan’s critique of the sanctions and the U.N. diplomacy is also missing certain nuances.

1. The U.N. Security Council resolution is only the tip of the iceberg. Obama’s initial outreach to Iran, which was largely unreciprocated, and the discovery of another secret Iranian nuclear site near Qom, did help build a stronger international coalition against Iran. The U.N. Security Council resolution is always the lowest common denominator, but passage of Resolution 1929 in 2010 provided a diplomatic rationale for other key players, such as the European Union, Japan and Australia, to pass even tougher sanctions on their own. Indeed, the template for the E.U. sanctions was a set of ideas that could not pass muster with the Russians and Chinese at the United Nations.

2. Not all actions are spelled out. As part of the U.N. sanctions, Russia won an exemption that would have permitted an $800 million sale of S-300 air defense missiles to Iran. But then Russia canceled the sale anyway, in what can only be viewed as the outcome of successful, quiet diplomacy.

3. Consequences are sometimes difficult to predict. The Obama administration’s willingness to pursue a deal to supply fuel to an Iranian research reactor helped convince Russia and China it was serious about a negotiated end to the standoff. But bungled diplomacy and miscommunication on this issue with Brazil and Turkey led to the loss of a unanimous vote at the Security Council.

4. Congressional action can sometimes be a useful tool for diplomacy, but it can also be an irritant. All administrations try to preserve as much flexibility as possible; no one likes to have their hands tied. George W. Bush was especially aggressive about adding signing statements saying he would not be bound by some of the terms of legislation passed by Congress.

We can’t really speak to Biden’s claim that “these are the most crippling sanctions in the history of sanctions, period.” That certainly might be a subjective assessment, but the effectiveness of sanctions is measured by results. The Iranian economy appears to be suffering, but the Islamic Republic thus far has shown little sign that it plans to slow down its nuclear program in response to these sanctions.

“Look at all the string of broken promises. If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it. Try telling that to the 20 million people who are projected to lose their health insurance if Obamacare goes through.”

— Ryan

Ryan is referring to a recent Congressional Budget Office study that gave several scenarios for what could happen to employer-based coverage once the law was implemented. The most positive scenario has 3 million people being added to employer coverage, while “on balance, the number of people obtaining coverage through their employer would be about 3 million lower in 2019 under the legislation than under prior law,” the CBO concludes.

The worst-case scenario was 20 million people, which is where Ryan got his number. It’s worth noting that the baseline scenario — 3 million fewer people — represents just 2 percent of the people who now get insurance through their employers.

Usually, when Republicans cite this figure, they say “up to 20 million,” but Ryan did not even bother with that modifier, making his claim especially alarmist.

The CBO cautions that there is a “tremendous amount of uncertainty” about how employers and employees will respond to the legislation. “One piece of evidence that may be relevant is the experience in Massachusetts, where employment-based health insurance coverage appeared to increase after that state’s reforms,” the CBO noted. Mitt Romney, as governor, ushered in health-care legislation that served as a model for Obama’s health plan

“Romney said, ‘No, let Detroit go bankrupt.’”

— Biden

This statement is drawn from a headline — “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” — on an opinion article written by Romney for The New York Times. But he did not say that in the article. (He repeated the line, however, on television.)

Although “bankrupt” often conjures up images of liquidation, Romney called for a “managed bankruptcy.” This is a process in which the company uses the bankruptcy code to discharge its debts, but emerges from the process a leaner, less leveraged company.

Ultimately, along with getting nearly $80 billion in loans and other assistance from the Bush and Obama administrations, GM and Chrysler did go through a managed bankruptcy. But many independent analysts have concluded that taking the approach recommended by Romney would not have worked in 2008, simply because the credit markets were so frozen that a bankruptcy was not a viable option at the time.

Biden also overstated the Obama administration’s role in saving the auto industry, glossing over the fact that the outgoing George W. Bush administration first bailed out General Motors and Chrysler.

“They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, turning Medicare into a piggybank for Obamacare.”

— Ryan

“What we did is, we saved $716 billion and put it back, applied it to Medicare.”

— Biden

Ryan accused the Obama administration of using Medicare as a “piggy bank” but this is a much more complicated story.

This $716 billion figure comes from the difference over 10 years (2013-2022) between anticipated Medicare spending (what is known as “the baseline”) and the changes that the law makes to reduce spending. The savings mostly are wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries — who, as a result of the health-care law, ended up with new benefits for preventive care and prescription drugs. (Some argue that those provider cuts will eventually result in poorer patient care — see next fact check.)

But Biden is completely wrong when he says the money was applied to Medicare. In fact, the anticipated savings from Medicare were used to help offset some of the anticipated costs of expanding health care for all Americans, as Ryan said.

But the transfer does not affect the Medicare trust fund. The Obama health-care law also raised Medicare payroll taxes by $318 billion over the new 10-year time frame, but only a third of that money is credited to the trust fund; the rest goes to general revenues.

Ryan, as House Budget Committee chairman, probably knows he’s playing a rhetorical game here. (We’re not sure what Biden was thinking.) Federal budget accounting is so complex that it is easy to mislead ordinary Americans — a tactic used by both parties.

Ryan is correct that in the health-care bill, the anticipated savings from Medicare were used to help offset some of the anticipated costs of expanding health care for all Americans. But all government money is fungible.

Under the concept of the unified budget, money that is collected by the federal government for whatever purpose (such as Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes) is spent on whatever bills are coming due at that time. Social Security and Medicare will get a credit for taxes collected that are not immediately spent on Social Security, but those taxes are quickly devoted to other federal spending.

The House Republican budget plan crafted by Ryan retains virtually all of the Medicare “cuts” contained in the health-care law, but diverts them instead to his Medicare overhaul. Republicans argue that that is a more effective use of the savings.

“Their own actuary from the administration came to Congress and said one out of six hospitals and nursing homes are going to go out of business as a result of this.”

— Ryan

“That’s not what they said.”

— Biden

Ryan is right on the figure, and Biden is wrong. But Ryan overstates the case.

“It is doubtful that many [hospitals and other health-care providers] will be able to improve their own productivity to the degree” necessary to accommodate the cuts, Medicare actuary Richard S. Foster has written. “Thus, providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantial portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable, and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing care for beneficiaries). [Our] simulations ... suggest that roughly 15 percent of [hospitalization] providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection as a result of the [spending cuts].”

Last time we checked, 15 percent is just shy of “one out six” (16.67 percent). Still, “unprofitable” is not the same as “going out of business.”

Frankly, if the cuts turn out to be too painful for providers, Congress will likely halt them. That’s what has happened in the past. Just about every year Congress passes the so-called “doc fix,” which defers cuts set in the 1996 balanced budget plan.

“By the way, that $6,400 number, it was misleading then, it’s totally inaccurate now.”

— Ryan

Ryan has changed his plan to overhaul Medicare to address some of the loudest complaints. The new version of the plan includes the option for traditional Medicare, as well as a commitment that at least one health-care option would be fully covered by the government.

Indeed, the new plan is much more generous than the original version. The old plan had capped growth at the rate of inflation. Many experts believed that was too low and pushed more costs on beneficiaries, which is where the estimate of an additional $6,400 in premiums came from.

In the updated Ryan plan, Medicare spending would be permitted to grow slightly faster than the nation’s economy — in fact, at the same growth rate as Obama’s budget for Medicare.

“It’s a plan I put together with a prominent Democrat senator from Oregon.”

— Ryan

“There’s not one Democrat who endorses it.”

— Biden

Here, Ryan goes too far. Biden is right — Ryan worked with former White House budget director Alice Rivlin and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on versions of his Medicare plan, but both since have distanced themselves from the final proposal, saying it did not reflect their discussions. BusinessWeek reported that Wyden said that Ryan is “talking nonsense” about their partnership.

After the debate, Wyden posted a note on his Facebook page complaining about Ryan’s reference:

The Vice President is right, Romney/Ryan moved the goal post on Medicare and I strongly oppose their plan because I believe it hurts seniors. The Romney/Ryan plan raises the age of eligibility and repeals the ACA leaving millions of seniors with no health coverage. The Romney/Ryan plan on Medicare pulls the safety net out from under the poorest and most vulnerable seniors, taking away the opportunity for nursing home care from seniors who need it and have no other options.

The Wyden-Ryan white paper strengthened the safety net for these dual eligibles. The Romney/Ryan version shreds it. The Republican ticket knows that neither I, nor any other Democrat, would support these policies.

The Romney/Ryan plan on Medicare is further proof that Mitt Romney is singularly unfit to end gridlock and bring bipartisan solutions to Washington.

“Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland, or on windmills in China?”

— Ryan

We’ve written repeatedly about such claims, which are exaggerated. There are foreign connections but the stimulus money was generally spent in the United States.

This “cars in Finland” concerns a loan guarantee to Fisker Automotive, which The Washington Post has identified as troubled. But the company disputes the RNC’s claim that $500 billion in U.S. money (via two loans) is being spent to produce cars overseas. Instead, the company says the money has been spent on design and engineering activities in the United States, and the expenditures have been reviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ultimately, the company plans to build a lower-priced version of its car in Delaware, using a $359 million loan, but less than $25 million that has been disbursed so far.

Follow the links for more details about that case and the “windmills in China.”

“The middle class will pay less, and people making a million dollars or more will begin to contribute slightly more.”

— Biden

In describing the administration’s tax plan, Biden appeared to have moved the goal posts. The president has consistently said he would roll back Bush-era tax cuts for couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000.

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear: No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise — including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy, any hospital — none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact.”

— Biden

Biden went a bit far saying it is “a fact” that religious groups will not pay for contraceptives under the health-care law.

Biden was referring to the so-called contraceptive mandate, which requires insurers to provide coverage for birth control without charging additional co-payments. (We have touched on this issue in two separate columns).

Biden was instrumental in brokering that accommodation in an effort to quell an outcry from Catholic leaders otherwise sympathetic to the Obama administration.

The Obama administration made a decision to fully exempt religious institutions such as churches from this rule. It also said it will exempt religiously affiliated organizations such as Catholic schools and hospitals, but their insurance providers must still cover birth control with no out-of-pocket costs for the insured.

But there are still unsettled issues in this matter.

Some church organizations still object to the mandate despite the exemption for religion-affiliated groups, arguing that they could end up paying for birth control indirectly if the mandate causes their health insurance costs to rise. Furthermore, the Obama administration said in March that it will come up with an accommodation for religiously affiliated employers that self-insure, but it has not yet decided how to handle that seven months later.

Ryan pointed out that the accommodations failed to satisfy many religious groups. “If they agree with you … why would they keep suing you?” he asked.

Here are more details on the lawsuits Ryan was referring to, and the legal arguments involved. — Josh Hicks and N.C. Aizenman

.

“We should not have called Bashar Assad a reformer.”

— Ryan

Ryan brings up some old history here about the hopes the administration originally had about the Syrian leader.

Most famously, as the uprising in Syria began in 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that “many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.” She quickly tried to take back her statement, saying two days later: “I referenced opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”

We actually looked into this question at the time and concluded that Clinton’s claim of a bipartisan support for the idea that Assad was a reformer was not credible. She earned Three Pinocchios.

But it is worth remembering this was never stated as an official U.S. policy position, as Ryan suggests.

“We are leaving [Afghanistan] in 2014. Period.”

— Biden

Actually, the administration has long discussed having an “enduring presence” of 10,000 to 15,000 troops, mainly as advisers who would reside on military bases. An agreement must still be reached with the government of Afghanistan.

“Now, we think that government taking 28 percent of a family and business’s income is enough. President Obama thinks that the government ought to be able to take as much as 44.8 percent of a small business’s income.”

— Ryan

Ryan is mixing up some apples and oranges here. The Romney plan would reduce income tax rates, but it does not affect payroll taxes. But to reach his 44.8 percent top rate, Ryan is including Medicare taxes, as we have previously documented.

“Two-thirds of our jobs come from small businesses. This one tax would actually tax about 53 percent of small-business income.”

— Ryan

“97 percent of the small businesses in America pay less — make less than $250,000”

— Biden

This is two sides of the same coin. Higher taxes on individuals would hit 53 percent of business income. But they aren’t necessarily “small” businesses.

There are advantages for companies to file corporate income taxes, but there is one big disadvantage — major shareholders are subject to being taxed twice, first on the corporation’s earnings and then on personal income taxes after dividends are distributed to the owners.

So smaller companies, as well as partnerships, sole proprietorships and some limited liability companies, organize themselves differently. The companies themselves do not pay taxes; instead, the earnings or losses are passed through to the shareholders, who then are taxed at the individual tax rate.

When Republicans often speak of “small businesses,” they are referring to the companies that file under the individual tax code. But not all of them are what most Americans would consider small businesses — and not all of them are that small, either. In fact, a report by the Joint Committee on Taxation — the nonpartisan congressional entity that “scores” tax legislation — found that the number of tax returns by so-called “flow-through entities” has soared in recent years.

As of 2005, the JCT says, retail trade (such as mom-and-pop shops) accounted for about 11 percent of so-called S corporations, holding 12 percent of total assets, and 5 percent of partnerships, with less than 1 percent of total assets. Another 14 percent of S corporations were in construction but the largest category, at 15 percent, were “professional, scientific and technical services.”

Some of these “pass-through” companies are rather large, with revenues of more than $50 million, but they represent just a small proportion of such companies. According to calculations by Donald Marron, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, in 2008 such companies accounted for less than one-tenth of one percent of all returns filed — but they had 40 percent of revenues and 30 percent of all profits.

The result, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, is that only 3 percent of all “small businesses” paying taxes would be affected by Obama’s plan to lift marginal tax rates on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. (See page 25 of the JCT report.) That group — about 750,000 taxpayers — accounts for 50 percent of the estimated $1 trillion in business income reported in 2011. The other 97 percent of “small businesses” shared the rest — and under Obama’s plan, they would get to keep their Bush-era tax cuts.

So Biden is correct that the tax hike proposed by President Obama would hit only 3 percent of business owners.

“He’ll keep saying this $5 trillion plan, I suppose. It’s been discredited by six other studies … Six studies have guaranteed — six studies have verified that this math adds up.”

— Ryan

Romney would cut tax rates by 20 percent and eliminate the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax and reduce the corporate tax, which analysts say will reduce revenue by $5 trillion over 10 years. But Romney also has said he will make his plan “revenue neutral” by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, much as Ronald Reagan did when he passed a tax reform in 1986.

Yet Romney has not provided many details about which deductions he would eliminate. He has suggested the home mortgage deduction, charitable contributions and employer-paid health insurance might be protected; he has also indicated he is thinking of some sort of cap on the amount of deductions a taxpayer could claim.

Moreover, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has analyzed the specifics of Romney’s plan thus far released and concluded that the numbers aren’t there to make it revenue neutral.

In the debate, Ryan twice countered that “six other studies” have found that not to be the case, but those studies actually do not provide much evidence that Romney’s proposal — as sketchy as it is — would be revenue neutral without making unrealistic assumptions or changing the parameters of Romney’s tax cut. (Some are not even studies but more like opinion articles.) So Ryan is wrong to assert the studies have “verified that this math adds up.”

(As is our practice, we generally do not award Pinocchio ratings in these instant round-ups.)

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