Glenn Kessler: Fact-checking the GOP debate in New Hampshire

[alp227]

Obama “didn’t create the recession, but he made it worse and longer. And now we have more chronic long-term employment than this country has ever seen before.”

--Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

In the first part of this statement, Romney is reprising a line from his announcement speech, but we didn’t think it was accurate then. It is still not accurate now.

After all, National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonpartisan research organization that identifies recessions, last year declared that the recession ended in June 2009 — two years ago. So, with NBER saying the economy is now out of a recession, it is difficult to see how Romney can claim that Obama made it worse.

In the second part of his statement, Romney is riffing off a line from his new ad, which incorrectly asserted, “Long Term Employment Is Now Worse Than the Great Depression.”

That statement was based on an erroneous CBS News report which we debunked a few hours before the debate started. We awarded Romney two Pinocchios for using it.

(...)

“We think you can save $70 billion to $120 billion in Medicare and Medicaid annually by not paying crooks.”

--Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)

Gingrich loves this statistic — repeats it everywhere — but it is wildly inflated. Yes, the government estimated that there were $125 billion in improper payments across the entire federal government, but that doesn’t mean they were all fraudulent or went to crooks.

The improper payment rate for the government is about 5.49 percent. As the federal government defines it, “‘Improper payments’ occur when funds go to the wrong recipient, the recipient receives the incorrect amount of funds (including overpayments and underpayments), documentation is not available to support a payment, or the recipient uses funds in an improper manner.”

Full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/factchecking-the-gop-debate-in-new-hampshire/2011/06/13/AGYXjGUH_blog.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. newt calls Gov. Rick Scott a crook

[Cassandra]

2. Newt would know a lot about...

using funds in an improper manner.

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

3. Long Term Employment Is Now Worse Than the Great Depression.”?

Long term employment is worse. I presume this is a typo. I think long term employment is a good thing.