M2RB: The Eurythmics
Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you honey?
Now would I say something that wasn't true?
I'm asking you sugar
Would I lie to you?
4 Pinocchios For White House adviser David Plouffe And His Claims On Romney’s Jobs Record And The GOP Strategy
“There was an amazing article the other day, I believe it was in The
Wall Street Journal, where Republicans in Congress are openly saying,
‘we’re not going to do anything until the election with the economy,
because we want to help Mitt Romney.’ With an economy that needs help
right now, with the middle class struggling, it’s an amazing thing.”
“For all of this talk about government, for every private-sector job
created in Massachusetts by Governor Romney, six public sector jobs.”
- White House Senior Adviser, David Plouffe on Fox News Sunday, 17 June 2012
White House senior adviser David Plouffe made the
rounds on the Sunday talk shows this week, making appearances on all the
major networks except one. He used the opportunity to defend and
clarify President Obama’s campaign message, but he also took swipes at
presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
Let’s examine the veracity of these claims.
The Facts
In terms of the “amazing article” Plouffe referred to, we found no reports quoting Republicans talking openly about sitting idle on the economy to improve Romney’s election chances.
The Obama campaign backed up Plouffe’s claim by pointing to a Wall Street Journal article
titled “Republicans See Advantages in Go-Slow Approach on Bills.” The
subhead reads:“GOP Lawmakers Banking on Election Gains; Democrats also
resist compromise.”
Right away, this suggests the article is not
what the White House adviser implied. Sure enough, the piece says
Republicans are “bullish about Mr. Romney winning and the GOP making
gains in the Senate,” and that “they are wary of cutting deals that
would curb the options of more conservative leadership that could be in
place next year.”
In other words, GOP lawmakers don’t see much
sense in making deals with Democrats when they might have a lot more
power after the election. One senior member of the House Budget
Committee, Rep. Scott Garrett (R - N.J.), reportedly asked: “Where is
the upside?”
The article says nothing about Republicans trying to
sabotage the Obama administration with inaction on the economy in order
to help Romney’s prospects. In fact, it said, “Republican leaders deny
that.”
Furthermore, the report noted that Democrats themselves
are avoiding compromise on major budget issues because “they don’t want
to undercut their ability to make a campaign issue of Republicans’
support for curbing the growth of Medicare and other popular entitlement
programs.” This is the only mention of either party using inaction as a
strategy to affect the upcoming election, and it’s an indictment of the
left, not the right.
We should point out that calculated moves
are nothing new for lawmakers during an election year. In 1996, for
example, congressional Republicans saw little hope that then-GOP
presidential nominee Bob Dole would unseat President Bill Clinton, so
they passed welfare-reform legislation before the GOP convention had
even taken place. This increased their own odds of victory in the
election, but it undercut Dole, taking away an issue he had hoped to use
against Clinton.
We should also mention that the current
Republican strategy mirrors an approach Democrats used when they were
confident their party would win the presidency in 2008. Congressional
leaders then held back many key appropriations bills until Obama took
office in 2009, thus allowing them to shape the 2008 budget more to
their liking.
As for Plouffe’s claim about the Bay State’s employment gains, data
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Massachusetts added 22,400
private-sector jobs during Romney’s tenure. That means the state would
need to have created 134,400 public-sector jobs in the same period for
the White House adviser’s claim to be true.
That’s not even close
to what happened. Massachusetts gained just 5,300 state-government jobs
while Romney was in office. As such, the state added more than four
private-sector jobs for every state-government job. This is pretty much
the reverse of what Plouffe claimed.
The best reasoning we could find to support Plouffe’s claim is that the rate
of public-sector job growth for the state (4.7 percent) was about six
times that of private-sector gains (.79 percent) during Romney’s tenure.
But this is very different from having six times the numberof
new government jobs, which is what the White House adviser clearly
implied when he said, “for every private-sector job created in
Massachusetts by Governor Romney, six public sector jobs.”
The
bottom line here is that Plouffe equated growth rates with raw numbers,
thereby vastly exaggerating the amount of public-sector work the Bay
State created under Romney.
We should note that we didn’t include
local or federal employment in our analysis because governors generally
have little control over those numbers. Regardless, it wouldn’t have
made a difference. Government jobs as a whole in Massachusetts increased
at a slower rate (.46 percent) than private sector jobs (.79 percent)
during Romney’s tenure.
In this regard, the state added more than
11 private-sector jobs for every government job. Again, this contradicts
what Plouffe said.
The Obama campaign did not respond to
questions about Plouffe’s statistics, but issued this statement about
his remarks Sunday: “Instead of taking action on the economy and passing
the President’s American Jobs Act now, congressional Republicans
continue to drag their feet and play politics, though their own
candidate Romney has no plan on jobs. Just like David Plouffe said, we
have an economy that needs help right now, with a middle class that’s
struggling. Republicans should set the politics aside and do what’s in
the best interest of the country.”
The Pinocchio Test
Government jobs in Massachusetts grew at six times the rate of private-sector jobs during Romney’s term as governor, but that’s not at all the same as adding six public-sector jobs for every one in the private-sector. The state actually gained at least four private-sector jobs for every government job.
Plouffe referred to an “amazing
article” that supposedly proved that Republicans have talked openly
about improving Romney’s chances in the election by doing nothing on the
economy. But the article actually explained that GOP lawmakers prefer
to postpone any deal making until after the election because they’re
feeling bullish about their chances. That is no different than what
Democrats have done in the past.
Neither of Plouffe’s claims were factually correct, so Team Obama earns four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4 Pinocchios For Obama's Newest Anti-Romney Ad
“Running for governor, Mitt Romney campaigned as a job creator. But
as a corporate raider, he shipped jobs to China and Mexico. As governor,
he did the same thing: Outsourcing state jobs to India.”
— Voiceover of new Barack Obama campaign ad
The Obama campaign apparently loves to ding former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with the charge of “outsourcing.” On several occasions, we have faulted the campaign for its claims, apparently to little avail.
Now,
all of the claims have been combined in one 30-second ad, with the
added incendiary charge that Romney was a “corporate raider.” Let’s look
anew at this material.
The Facts
The phrase “corporate raider” has a particular meaning in the world of finance. Here’s the definition on Investopedia:
“An investor who buys a large number of shares in a corporation whose assets appear to be undervalued. The large share purchase would give the corporate raider significant voting rights, which could then be used to push changes in the company’s leadership and management. This would increase share value and thus generate a massive return for the raider.”
In other words, this is generally an adversarial stance, in
which an investor sees an undervalued asset and forces management to
spin off assets, take the company private or break it up.
In a
previous life, The Fact Checker covered renowned corporate raiders such
as Carl Icahn and his ilk. We also have closely studied Bain Capital and
can find no examples that come close to this situation; its deals were
done in close association with management. Indeed, Bain generally held
onto its investments for four or five years, in contrast to the quick
bust-em-ups of real corporate raiders. So calling Romney a “corporate
raider” is a real stretch.
So how does the Obama campaign justify this phrase? It cites a single Reuters story
from last August, about a campaign stop in New Hampshire, written by a
stringer, Jason McLure, who was previously based in Africa. Buried in
the article is a reference to Romney as a “former corporate raider.”
“Reuters
typically refers to Romney as a ‘former private equity executive’ or
something along those lines,” said Ros Krasny, the Boston bureau chief.
“Of the hundreds of times we have referenced Romney over the past year
or more, honestly, that example from Jason must have just slipped
through the net — 10 months ago.”
A better source for Romney’s
behavior as an investor might be someone who actually worked on Wall
Street, such as former Obama auto czar Steven Rattner. “Bain Capital is
not now, nor has it ever been, some kind of Gordon Gekko-like,
fire-breathing corporate raider that slashed and burned companies,
immolating jobs wherever they appear in its path,” Rattner wrote in Politico this year.
Regarding
the outsourcing claims, we have frowned on these before. The Obama
campaign rests its case on three examples of Bain-controlled companies
sending jobs overseas. But only one of the examples — involving Holson
Burns Group — took place when Romney was actively managing Bain Capital.
Regarding the other claims, concerning Canadian electronics
maker SMTC Manufacturing and customer service firm Modus Media, the
Obama campaign tries to take advantage of a gray area in which Romney
had stepped down from Bain — to manage the Salt Lake City Olympics — but
had not sold his shares in the firm. We had previously given the Obama campaign Three Pinocchios for such tactics.
The
Modus Media case is also not an example of shipping jobs overseas. The
company closed one plant in California and transferred the jobs to North
Carolina, Washington and Utah. At the same time, it opened an unrelated
plant in Mexico. The Obama campaign once trumpeted the fact that we had dinged a conservative Super PAC for making the same leap in logic.
The claim that Romney outsourced jobs as governor is equally overblown.
This
concerns Romney’s veto of a bill that would have prohibited
Massachusetts from contracting with companies that outsourced the
state’s work to other countries. Lawmakers were especially concerned
about a $160,000-a-month contract with Citigroup to operate a system of
electronic food-stamp cards that included a customer phone service
center in India.
Both the liberal editorial page of the Boston
Globe and conservative editorial page of the Boston Herald urged Romney
to veto the amendment, saying it would cost the state money. Romney
agreed, saying the
measure did not protect state jobs — the call center might have moved
from India to another state — but “had the potential of costing our
citizens a lot more money.” The Democratic-dominated Massachusetts
legislature did not override his veto, even though it overturned 117
others, suggesting that there was little real support for the measure.
When
the food-stamp contract expired, the Massachusetts Department of
Transitional Assistance insisted that those jobs be returned to the
United States. But they ended up in a call center based in Utah — just
as Romney had predicted.
As we mentioned, we recounted this ancient Massachusetts history before, giving the campaign Two Pinocchios.
So we were very surprised that the Obama campaign cited that critical
Fact Checker column as a source for the ad in its back-up materials.
The ad also cites as a source a Boston Globe article from last month that merely reports on an earlier ad making similar charges. That’s highly circular reasoning — and is not fair play.
Upon
hearing this ad was under consideration for a tough rating, the Obama
campaign supplied reams of additional SEC documents regarding Romney’s
ownership in Bain after he left for the Olympics, most of which we had examined previously
when we first looked at this question. The campaign also supplied SEC
documents showing that two of these companies, Modus and SMTC, as well
as one called Stream International (a predecessor of Modus), earned
money in part by helping other companies subcontract work overseas. Some
of this business predated Romney’s departure from Bain, but thus far it
seems a slim case for this particular ad.
“Romney can’t run from
his record. At Bain and in Massachusetts, he had the chance to keep
jobs in America and sent them overseas instead,” said Kara Carscaden,
deputy press secretary for the Obama campaign. “Even while he was at the
Olympics, Romney owned and profited from Bain, continues to profit from
it today and cannot ignore what Bain did during that time. Whether it’s
outsourcing public jobs to India or shipping private ones to Mexico and
China, Romney’s record is clear.”
The Pinocchio Test
The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about
every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of
“corporate raider” to its examples of alleged outsourcing. Simply
repeating the same debunked claims won’t make them any more correct.
Four Pinocchios
Would I Lie To You? - The Eurythmics
Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you honey?
Now would I say something that wasn't true?
I'm asking you sugar
Would I lie to you?
My friends - know what's in store.
I won't be here anymore.
I've packed my bags
I've cleaned the floor.
Watch me walkin'.
Walkin' out the door.
(Believe me - I'll make it make it)
Tell you straight - no intervention.
To your face - no deception.
You're the biggest fake.
That much is true.
Had all I can take.
Now I'm leaving you
(Believe me - I'll make it make it)
Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you honey?
Now would I say something that wasn't true?
I'm asking you sugar
Would I lie to you?
My friends - know what's in store.
I won't be here anymore.
I've packed my bags
I've cleaned the floor.
Watch me walkin'.
Walkin' out the door.
(Believe me - I'll make it make it)
Tell you straight - no intervention.
To your face - no deception.
You're the biggest fake.
That much is true.
Had all I can take.
Now I'm leaving you
(Believe me - I'll make it make it)
