Fact Check Wednesday: Romney Vs. Obama – Round Two
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - It's Fact Check Wednesday, when we put the Presidential campaigns under the scrutiny of factcheck.org, a nonpartisan non-profit part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Usually, we present this segment on Fridays, but the debate was yesterday, so we're doing it today. President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney faced off on the campus of Hofstra University for their second debate.
The post-debate headline from factcheck.org was "Obama And Romney Continue False, Misleading Attacks In Second Debate."
Brooks Jackson from factcheck.org checked in with WCBS 880's Wayne Cabot to list some of the bigger offenses.
LISTEN: WCBS 880's Wayne Cabot Checks The Facts
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On Benghazi, Romney said, "It took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror."
Obama replied, "Get the transcript."
Moderator Candy Crowley said, "He did, in fact, sir" to which Obama said, "Can you say that a little louder Candy?"
"Obama was correct on this. He said in a Rose Garden speech the day after those attacks, 'No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation' and he followed up with similar remarks that very night at a fundraiser in Las Vegas," Jackson told Cabot. "References were rather scarce, or lacking entirely, for after that first day following. So, Romney's not entirely wrong. But on this one, the transcript, you gotta rule it for Obama."
Is there any evidence of a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to mislead the public on Benghazi?
"I think we're going to have to wait until we see a complete record on that and it may never be entirely clear," said Jackson.
On taxes, Obama repeated his claim that he would not put tax rates for affluent families than they were under President Bill Clinton.
"We can go back to the tax rates we had when Bill Clinton was president," Obama said.
"You know, this is a misleading line he uses all the time. He's referring to families with income over $250,000; individuals with income over $200,000 and it's true, income tax rates would be restored on income at those levels to what they were before [George W.] Bush, but what Obama doesn't mention is that he's already signed two new taxes as part of the health care law that would fall on those very people, a 3.8 percent tax on unearned investment income, and a 0.9 percent payroll tax surcharge on income exceeding those accounts, in addition to current Medicare withholding," Jackson. "So, the people at that income level, many if not most of them, would be paying more taxes even if they're paying the same income tax rate."
On jobs, numbers can be so numbing as they fly back and forth, but Romney claimed, "In the last four years, women have lost 580,000 jobs."
"That's just completely wrong. He may be using some outdated, stale talking point. I don't know. But if you check BLS figures, you'll see that it's closer to 93,000," Jackson said. "Just a vastly inflated number."
On green energy, Obama said that Romney referred to wind power jobs as imaginary.
"Score that one for Romney. The president misquoted him. The quote was 'Obama's living in an imaginary world, where the economy is powered by wind and solar,'" Jackson said.
VIDEO EXTRA: WCBS 880's Steve Scott Walks You Through The Post-Debate 'Spin Alley'
Be sure to check back next week when we again bring you the truth.
