Associated Press Debate Fact Checkers Critique The Accuracy Of Candidate Claims

Both President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney came highly prepared for their verbal battle during the debate on Tuesday evening. Fact checking agencies are focused not on who won the passionate exchanges but which candidate was being the most honest with the American voter.

A host of political junkies posting on Twitter about both candidates’ debate performances noted they would like to have heard more direct answers to the questions posed. The blinking red light alerting the men that their time was up did nothing to stop the banter at the microphones. Perhaps during the next debate, the moderator should just kill the mic when the question posed isn’t directly answered during the first 45 seconds or a candidate goes over their designated time.

The Associated Press (AP) fact checkers took President Obama to task for stating that his administration created 5 million jobs in the private sector during the past 30 months. Here is what the AP had to say about the job creation claims:

“As he has done before, Obama is cherry-picking his numbers to make them sound better than they really are. He ignores the fact that public-sector job losses have dragged down overall job creation. Also, he chooses just to mention the past 30 months. That ignores job losses during his presidency up until that point. According to the Labor Department, about 4.5 million total jobs have been created over the past 30 months. But some 4.3 million jobs were lost during the earlier months of his administration. At this point, Obama is a net job creator, but only marginally.”

Mitt Romney’s statements about the president’s energy policies and the impact such initiatives have on things like gas and electricity prices were also challenged by the AP fact check team:

“Presidents have almost no effect on energy prices; most are set on financial exchanges around the world. When Obama took office, the world was in the grip of a financial crisis and crude prices – and gasoline prices along with them – had plummeted because world demand had collapsed.”

The Associated Press also concluded that there was some disparity in President Obama’s claims about going back to the tax rates which existed during Bill Clinton’s administration for citizens earning over $250,000 per year. Here is what the AP staff had to say about the tax rate comments:

“The Bush tax cuts set the top income rate at 35 percent. Under Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on households earning more than $250,000, the president would return the top rate to the 39.6 percent set during the Clinton administration. But he neglected to mention that his health care law includes a new 0.9 percent Medicare surcharge on households earning over that amount and that tax would be retained. The health care law also imposes a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for high earners.”

Mitt Romney cited a recent study that reportedly showed middle class citizens will see a $4,000 per year tax increase as a result of the Obama administration’s borrowing and spending. According to the AP, the claim is not entirely true. Although annual deficits exceeded the $1 trillion mark at the end of each year of the president’s term in office, the fact checking report notes that Obama is not directly responsible for all of the deficits which occurred during his watch. The debate review article maintains that the food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security programs run on “autopilot” and deep cuts in such entitlement programs have not been proposed by Washington leaders.