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Obama is hardly the only politician to tell a fib last year, but this one topped them all.
While we're picking on Obama here are a few runner--up lies he told last year. I swiped this list from the comments. If I had one on Romney, I'd throw it in here.
“If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it”
Washingtonpost.com
“The NSA is not abusing its power”
Washingtonpost.com
“I said benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”
Lubbockonline.com
“the foreign intelligence Surveillance court is transparent.”
Politifact.com
“First of all, I didn’t set a red line,” said Obama. “The world set a red line.”
Weeklystandard.com
nbcnews.
“The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”
Politifact.com
“Mitt Romney raised nursing home fees eight times.”
Politifact.com
“Mitt Romney called the Arizona law a model for the nation.”
Politifact.com
“Planned Parenthood provides mammograms”
Spero News
“We got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system”
cbsnews.com
Benghazi violence was caused by an internet video & demonstrations
State Department
“Mitt Romney Plans to fire Big Bird”
Politifact.com
“Under Gov. Romney’s definition … Donald Trump is a small business.”
politifact.com
Because of Obamacare, “over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up — it’s true — but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.”
politifact.com
“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration”
abcnews.com
Romney and Ryan will gut pell grants for low-income college students.
Factcheck.org
My budget will cut the deficit by $4 Trillion over 10 years.
Factcheck.org
“I am told that Governor Romney’s new running mate, Paul Ryan, might be around Iowa the next few days,” he said while in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “He is one of the leaders of Congress standing in the way. So if you happen to see Congressman Ryan, tell him how important this farm bill is to Iowa and our rural communities.”
House passed bill on August 2, 2012 (Paul Ryan voted yes)
The American automobile industry has come roaring back…So now I want to say what we did with the auto industry, we can do it in manufacturing across America. Let’s make sure advanced, high-tech manufacturing jobs take root here, not in China. And that means supporting investment here. Governor Romney … invested in companies that were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to outsource. I want to insource.
Forbes- Outsourcer-In-Chief: Obama Of General Motors
“You Didn’t Build that”
President Obama’s assurance that “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” was named the “Lie of the Year” on Thursday by PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization spun off of the Tampa Bay Times.
Mr. Obama’s promise, repeated ad infinitum during and after the health care bill’s passage through Congress, was a “catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan” to overhaul the country’s health care system, PolitiFact argued. “But the promise was impossible to keep.”
“So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong,” PolitiFact explained. “Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief. Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along. The stunning political uproar led to this: a rare presidential apology.”
After the cancellation letters began pouring in and the administration found itself on the defense, Mr. Obama apologized to anybody who felt misled by his statement.
“We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place, and I want to do everything we can to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than they were before this law happened,” he told NBC News in an interview last month. “And I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”
Still, the administration has insisted that nothing in the health care law explicitly forces insurance companies to cancel plans or shift customers to a new plan. But the law’s stringent grandfather clause, intended to preserve existing insurance plans, only applied to plans that were in place before the law was passed and received only minimal changes since then. Any substantial alteration to a grandfathered plan would subject that plan would to the minimum coverage requirements stipulated by Obamacare. If a plan did not meet those requirements, it would be canceled.
Those complicated policy mechanics, PolitiFact argued, were not adequately captured by the president’s glib declaration, which he repeated throughout the 2012 presidential election.
“Obama’s ideas on health care were first offered as general outlines then grew into specific legislation over the course of his presidency,” the organization noted. “Yet Obama never adjusted his rhetoric to give people a more accurate sense of the law’s real-world repercussions, even as fact-checkers flagged his statements as exaggerated at best. Instead, he fought back against inaccurate attacks with his own oversimplifications, which he repeated even as it became clear his promise was too sweeping.”
Several of PolitiFact’s recent “Lie of the Year” rulings have focused on the president’s health care law, which has become the subject of misinformation from all sides. In 2010, the fact-checking organization condemned Republicans’ claim that Democrats were proposing a “government takeover” of health care, noting that the Democrats’ were merely proposing a system that “at its heart…relies on private companies and the free market.”
And in 2009, the organization called out former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, who warned that Democrats’ health care reform plans would create “death panels” to ration care provided to the elderly and infirm.
Obama's "keep your plan" promise labeled "Lie of the Year" - CBS News
Mr. Obama’s promise, repeated ad infinitum during and after the health care bill’s passage through Congress, was a “catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan” to overhaul the country’s health care system, PolitiFact argued. “But the promise was impossible to keep.”
“So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong,” PolitiFact explained. “Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief. Obama and his team made matters worse, suggesting they had been misunderstood all along. The stunning political uproar led to this: a rare presidential apology.”
After the cancellation letters began pouring in and the administration found itself on the defense, Mr. Obama apologized to anybody who felt misled by his statement.
“We weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place, and I want to do everything we can to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than they were before this law happened,” he told NBC News in an interview last month. “And I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”
Still, the administration has insisted that nothing in the health care law explicitly forces insurance companies to cancel plans or shift customers to a new plan. But the law’s stringent grandfather clause, intended to preserve existing insurance plans, only applied to plans that were in place before the law was passed and received only minimal changes since then. Any substantial alteration to a grandfathered plan would subject that plan would to the minimum coverage requirements stipulated by Obamacare. If a plan did not meet those requirements, it would be canceled.
Those complicated policy mechanics, PolitiFact argued, were not adequately captured by the president’s glib declaration, which he repeated throughout the 2012 presidential election.
“Obama’s ideas on health care were first offered as general outlines then grew into specific legislation over the course of his presidency,” the organization noted. “Yet Obama never adjusted his rhetoric to give people a more accurate sense of the law’s real-world repercussions, even as fact-checkers flagged his statements as exaggerated at best. Instead, he fought back against inaccurate attacks with his own oversimplifications, which he repeated even as it became clear his promise was too sweeping.”
Several of PolitiFact’s recent “Lie of the Year” rulings have focused on the president’s health care law, which has become the subject of misinformation from all sides. In 2010, the fact-checking organization condemned Republicans’ claim that Democrats were proposing a “government takeover” of health care, noting that the Democrats’ were merely proposing a system that “at its heart…relies on private companies and the free market.”
And in 2009, the organization called out former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, who warned that Democrats’ health care reform plans would create “death panels” to ration care provided to the elderly and infirm.
Obama's "keep your plan" promise labeled "Lie of the Year" - CBS News
While we're picking on Obama here are a few runner--up lies he told last year. I swiped this list from the comments. If I had one on Romney, I'd throw it in here.
“If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it”
Washingtonpost.com
“The NSA is not abusing its power”
Washingtonpost.com
“I said benghazi was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”
Lubbockonline.com
“the foreign intelligence Surveillance court is transparent.”
Politifact.com
“First of all, I didn’t set a red line,” said Obama. “The world set a red line.”
Weeklystandard.com
nbcnews.
“The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”
Politifact.com
“Mitt Romney raised nursing home fees eight times.”
Politifact.com
“Mitt Romney called the Arizona law a model for the nation.”
Politifact.com
“Planned Parenthood provides mammograms”
Spero News
“We got back every dime we used to rescue the financial system”
cbsnews.com
Benghazi violence was caused by an internet video & demonstrations
State Department
“Mitt Romney Plans to fire Big Bird”
Politifact.com
“Under Gov. Romney’s definition … Donald Trump is a small business.”
politifact.com
Because of Obamacare, “over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up — it’s true — but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.”
politifact.com
“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration”
abcnews.com
Romney and Ryan will gut pell grants for low-income college students.
Factcheck.org
My budget will cut the deficit by $4 Trillion over 10 years.
Factcheck.org
“I am told that Governor Romney’s new running mate, Paul Ryan, might be around Iowa the next few days,” he said while in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “He is one of the leaders of Congress standing in the way. So if you happen to see Congressman Ryan, tell him how important this farm bill is to Iowa and our rural communities.”
House passed bill on August 2, 2012 (Paul Ryan voted yes)
The American automobile industry has come roaring back…So now I want to say what we did with the auto industry, we can do it in manufacturing across America. Let’s make sure advanced, high-tech manufacturing jobs take root here, not in China. And that means supporting investment here. Governor Romney … invested in companies that were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to outsource. I want to insource.
Forbes- Outsourcer-In-Chief: Obama Of General Motors
“You Didn’t Build that”
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