Remember in the debate when Obama brought up the fact that oil companies making billions in profits, get tax credits reducing their overall tax payment to zero? Well Romney responded by attacking Obama for giving in "one year" $90 billion in tax "breaks" to the Green Energy industry. This really pissed me off and I am glad politifact called him out on it:
That’s more than 60 percent of the $90 billion Romney’s campaign said he was talking about. Much of it funneled through state and local governments to contractors for specific projects, rather than as breaks directly for companies.
Less than 40 percent of the $90 billion included was for things such as the installation of wind turbines and solar panels, supporting American manufacturing of advanced batteries and other advanced vehicle technology, research and development of clean coal technology and a few billion in tax credits for alternative energy.
Those investments are more in line with Romney’s characterization. But they represent less than half the "$90 billion" he repeatedly mentioned.
Why does it matter if Romney mischaracterized how the money was used, as long as it went to clean energy? He draws a conclusion about winners and losers, and says, "and these businesses, many of them have gone out of business."
It’s a claim that our colleagues at FactCheck.org addressed this week, pointing out that might be true of companies that got loan guarantees in a single year — a sliver of a sliver of the money that Romney’s talking about. But less than 12 percent of the 26 companies that ultimately benefited from the program filed for bankruptcy, FactCheck.org reported.
And the entire loan guarantee program represented just a few billion of the $90 billion investment outlined by the Council of Economic Advisors.
"A very small percentage of all the companies that benefited from the $90 billion in green job spending have gone out of business," said Grabell, the author of Money Well Spent? "Not half of them. Not even half of the loan guarantees. "
Our ruling
Romney used the number "$90 billion" five times in the first presidential debate, claiming, "In one year, (Obama) provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world … into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1."
That is incorrect in several ways. That $90 billion, as described in a report provided by the Romney campaign, wasn’t provided in one year, wasn’t distributed primarily via tax breaks, wasn’t primarily provided directly to companies, wasn’t primarily spent on solar and wind, and wasn’t spent at all on Fisker or Tesla.
In reality, more than 60 percent of it was directed to state and local governments and utility companies for energy efficiency, transportation and electrical infrastructure .
One of the more disturbing things about this election cycle has been the brazen willingness to lie. All politicians lie to some extent, democrats as well as republicans, but I think Republicans have been far worse lately. I attribute that to the fact that many in their base are willing to completely disregard fact-checking groups, lumping them in with the "liberal media". So that gives their politicians a license to ignore them, too. One of the most flagrant examples is Josh Mandell running against Sherrod Brown. He's broken the record for "Pants on Fire" awards from the PolitiFact Ohio, and then went on to assert that he was going to repeat his (now proven false) accusations, without repercussions because Politifact is part of the liberal media bias.
Politicians have always lied, but it seems the lies are becoming more outrageous, with the Kerry swiftboating as a perfect example. And the sad thing is that the lies often work.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
Kevin Graham wrote:Remember in the debate when Obama brought up the fact that oil companies making billions in profits, get tax credits reducing their overall tax payment to zero? Well Romney responded by attacking Obama for giving in "one year" $90 billion in tax "breaks" to the Green Energy industry. This really pissed me off and I am glad politifact called him out on it:
Odd that the second claim bothered you, but the first didn't.
If you're going to talk about eliminating "tax credits" for oil companies, you should at least be clear about what the specific "credit" is, why it was implemented, and what the effects of its repeal might be. The government isn't just writing checks to these companies; their taxes (and the associated "breaks") are very complex.