Election 2012

How Many Lies Can Romney Tell in a Week?

According to Steve Benen, 30. 30 lies. And they're whoppers this week.

1. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Romney claimed it's fiscally responsible to eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act: "It saves $100 billion a year to get rid of it."

That's the opposite of the truth. According to the CBO and other nonpartisan budget estimates, killing the law would make the deficit go up, not down, and would cost, not save, the country hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years.

2. In the same interview, Romney said, "I think a lot of people forgetting is there is only one president in history that's cut Medicare by $500 billion and that is President Obama."

Romney says this a lot. He's not telling the truth.

3. Romney also said, "I see people holding up signs, 'Don't touch my Medicare.' It's like, hey, I'm not touching your Medicare."

Romney endorsed Paul Ryan's House Republican Budget plan, which ends the Medicare program and replaces it with a private voucher scheme.

4. In the same interview, Romney said President Obama has "never had the experience of working in the private sector."

Actually, that's not true. Obama worked at a private-sector law firm before entering public service.

Regarding that last one, it's the new version of the old "military service" litmus test. What most voters -- and especially the Republicans -- don't realize is that private sector work and public sector work are both, technically, work. You just serve different masters. Obviously, as a qualification for being elected to public office I would imagine public sector experience is more important. But that's just me. I'm crazy that way -- correlating public work with public work and private work with private work. Kooky!