Ken Carr's Daily Read

Sen. John McCain incorrectly claimed that earmarks nearly doubled from $7.8 billion to $14.5 billion in Newt Gingrich’s first two years as House speaker. Actually, the increase was about half that.

Furthermore, earmarks first peaked, then declined under Gingrich. By the final year of his speakership, earmarked spending was 20 percent higher than before, not double.

McCain is a longtime opponent of earmarks, which are pet projects added to annual appropriations bills at the request of members of Congress. McCain, who has endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president, has been making an issue of earmarks to help undermine Gingrich’s claim that he is a fiscal conservative. The Romney campaign has posted McCain’s critical remarks about earmarks on its website.

The Arizona senator’s latest comments came on “Meet the Press.”

McCain, Jan. 29: My problems with Newt have been over earmark spending, billions and billions and billions. They — when Newt Gingrich became speaker, they turned earmarks into an art form and it — as [Sen.] Tom Coburn says, it is the gateway to corruption. And we had members, former members of Congress in jail. Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Abramoff, all of this is because of the corruption that is bred by this outrageous, obscene corruption–earmark process. They went in his first year from $7.8 billion in earmarks to two [years] later to $14.5 billion in earmarks.

It’s true that spending on earmarks went up while Gingrich was speaker. But McCain is cherry-picking data to make it appear spending increased more than it actually did. McCain misled viewers of “Meet the Press” to believe that earmark spending rose 86 percent in Gingrich’s first two years — but the rise was actually 45 percent. Also, McCain ignores that such spending went down in Gingrich’s final two years, so the last budget passed when Gingrich was speaker represented a modest 20 percent increase over four years.

The senator relied on data compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste. That data show that Congress spent $7.8 billion on earmarks in fiscal year 1994, $10 billion in fiscal year 1995, $12.5 billion in fiscal year 1996 and $14.5 billion in fiscal year 1997.

But here’s McCain’s problem: Gingrich became speaker in January 1995, and the first set of annual appropriations bills to be passed under his leadership was for the fiscal year 1996 budget — which congressional historians will remember triggered a battle that led to two partial government shutdowns in November and December of 1995. Fiscal years run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, so the fiscal year 1996 budget started Oct. 1, 1995, and ended Sept. 30, 1996. In order to show the growth in spending under Gingrich, one would have to compare Gingrich-era spending bills to the fiscal year 1995 spending bills, which were signed by President Clinton prior to the November 1994 election that gave Republicans control of the House and elevated Gingrich to speaker.

Earmarks totaled $12.5 billion in fiscal year 1996, the first budget under Gingrich. That’s an increase of 25 percent compared with the prior year’s budget bills ($10 billion in earmarks in fiscal year 1995). Earmarks increased again in fiscal year 1997 — reaching a high of $14.5 billion in the Gingrich era. That’s an increase of 45 percent over two years, not 86 percent.

But then spending on earmarks started to decline — a point that McCain ignores. Earmarks dropped to $13.2 billion in fiscal year 1998 and $12 billion in fiscal year 1999, according to the CAGW database. Gingrich left Congress in January 1999. The fiscal year 1999 spending bills were all signed into law in 1998, making the FY1999 budget Gingrich’s last as speaker.

So, McCain is right in that earmarks did reach $14.5 billion while Gingrich was speaker. But, in fairness to Gingrich, McCain was wrong to use $7.8 billion as his baseline to show the growth in spending. Plus, earmarks did drop to $12 billion before Gingrich left office.

McCain wasn’t alone in misusing CAGW’s data. ABC News in December and the National Review in January both mistakenly said that earmarks under Gingrich “nearly doubled” (National Review) or “roughly doubled” (ABC News). Both cited the CAGW database.

ABC News, Dec. 15, 2011: ABC News has taken a look back at Gingrich’s record on the issue of so-called earmarks — a common congressional practice of inserting taxpayer money for special projects into big appropriations bills — and found a startling spike under Gingrich’s leadership as speaker. Not only did earmark spending in Congress increase between 1994 and 1998, when he departed, the overall dollar amount roughly doubled.

National Review, Jan. 27: Earmarks nearly doubled under Gingrich’s tenure as speaker, according to an analysis done by CAGW. In fiscal year 1994, $7.8 billion in earmarks was included in the budget. By fiscal year 1997, that number had skyrocketed to $14.5 billion. The funds allotted to earmarks tapered off a little by 1999, when earmarks totaled $12 billion, but they would never again drop to 1994 levels. The 2010 budget included $16.5 billion in earmarks, according to CAGW.

Both news organizations made the same mistake McCain did in using fiscal year 1994 as the baseline, instead of fiscal year 1995. In addition, ABC News used fiscal year 1998 as Gingrich’s last, when in fact he was still speaker when the fiscal year 1999 spending bills passed Congress and were signed into law, as we said earlier in this article.

Again, this is not to say that earmarks did not go up under Gingrich’s leadership or that he didn’t have a role in their expanded use. In fact, CAGW President Tom Schatz wrote in a 2010 blog post that Gingrich was responsible for making earmarks more accessible to rank-and-file members, instead of just leadership. Schatz writes that “one of the driving factors for the dramatic increase came from a request by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to the Appropriations subcommittee chairmen (known as ‘Cardinals’) to add projects to their respective bills in the districts of vulnerable Republican freshmen.”

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, agreed with Schatz. He told us in an email that Gingrich “took earmarks from being the province of the powerful appropriators and shared the spoils with rank and file lawmakers.”

Even so, the true explosion in the growth of earmarks occurred in the early to mid-2000s — after Gingrich left office. After falling to $12 billion in fiscal year 1999, spending on earmarks steadily climbed and reached a peak of $29 billion in fiscal year 2006, according to CAGW’s database. That’s an increase of 142 percent in seven years.

– Eugene Kiely

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Keeping both sides honest

Newt Gingrich falsely claimed he never favored a federal mandate requiring individuals to have health insurance. Rick Santorum claimed five times more people are seeking free care at Massachusetts hospitals because of Mitt Romney’s health care law — a claim contradicted by official statistics.

Romney repeated a false accusation that President Obama failed to denounce Hamas rocket attacks in a speech to the United Nations. And Santorum insisted that Muslim terrorists are seeking missile bases in Cuba — a wild claim based most likely on mistranslations of an Italian newspaper report.

These were among the factual fouls that we noted as four GOP presidential candidates met for yet another debate. This one, the final debate prior to Florida’s Jan. 31 primary, took place Jan. 26 at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., and was carried live on CNN.

Gingrich Rewrites His Mandate History

Former House Speaker Gingrich claimed he had never favored a federal mandate requiring individuals to obtain health insurance — only a state requirement.

Gingrich: I didn’t advocate federal mandates. I talked about it at a state level …

Not true. Gingrich said “Congress” must require high-income persons to have insurance, not state legislatures. He did so explicitly in a 2007 opinion piece:

Gingrich, June 25, 2007: In order to make coverage more accessible, Congress must do more, including passing legislation to [among other things] require anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year to purchase health insurance or post a bond.

His support for a federal mandate is of long standing. In 1993, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said:

Gingrich, 1993: I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health insurance.

Gingrich was proposing an individual mandate as an alternative to the Clinton administration’s ill-fated health care plan, which was centered on an employer mandate, requiring businesses to provide insurance for their workers. And he held to a similar position as recently as last May, also on “Meet the Press”:

Gingrich, May 15, 2011: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay — help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I’ve said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond … or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

NBC’s David Gregory: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

Gingrich: It’s a variation on it.

If Gingrich was thinking about a state-only mandate, he never said so at the time. And he clearly said “all of us” would be subject to his “variant” of the mandate just last May. We judge that Gingrich is falsifying his own history on this matter.

Santorum Attacks ‘Romneycare’

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum claimed the Massachusetts health care law had quintupled the number who seek free care at hospitals rather than buying coverage.

Santorum: Free ridership has gone up five-fold in Massachusetts. Five times the rate it was before. Why? Because … Because people are ready to pay a cheaper fine and then be able to sign up to insurance, which are now guaranteed under “Romneycare,” than pay high cost insurance, which is what has happened as a result of “Romneycare.”

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said that was “simply impossible” that free riders had gone up, because the percentage of insured residents had increased under the law to 98 percent.

Romney is right. The percentage of insured residents in the state went up from 93.6 percent in 2006, the year the law was enacted, to 98.1 percent in 2010. And data from the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy show a 46 percent decline in the number of free care medical visits paid for by the state’s Health Care Safety Net. The number of inpatient discharges and outpatient visits under the program went from 2.1 million in 2006 to 1.1 million in 2010 (see page 12).

Contradicting Santorum’s claim, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation said in a November report that usage of the state’s free care, or safety net, “fell dramatically, as expected” after the law took effect.

BSBC Foundation report, Nov. 2011: In fact, the number of HSN patient visits at hospitals and community health centers declined by 36 percent in the first full HSN fiscal year of health reform. Over the past three years, HSN utilization has trended upward but is still below pre-reform levels.

A Santorum campaign spokesman pointed us to a Wall Street Journal column by Michael F. Cannon of the libertarian Cato Institute, who stated that “Massachusetts reported a nearly fivefold increase in such free riding after its mandate took effect.” But that doesn’t square with official data just cited. Cannon didn’t specify the time period and so may have referred to some temporary or transitory bump in free riders. We will update this item if we are able to get more information from Cannon.

Santorum blamed the supposed increase in free riders on persons choosing to pay the penalty instead of buying insurance. But that doesn’t square with official state data either. In 2009, only 48,000 residents paid a penalty — 26,000 of them were uninsured for the entire year, and 22,000 for part of the year, according to state figures. Those aren’t big numbers compared with the usage numbers for the Health Care Safety Net — 1.1 million payments in 2010. The evidence doesn’t suggest that those penalty-payers are driving an increase — let alone a “fivefold” one — in reliance on free care.

Romney’s False Rocket Claim, Again

Romney once again falsely accused Obama of saying “nothing” about the Palestinians launching rockets into Israel during a 2009 speech to the United Nations. In fact, Obama said those who suffer include “the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night.”

We called out Romney for this same false claim last year, when he made it at a GOP debate in Orlando, Fla., on Sept. 22.  Here’s the way he worded it this time:

Romney: This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Romney is referring to President Obama’s first-ever address to the United Nations in September 2009, but his claim is still false. We’ll just repeat what we said last time.

Obama not only said, “We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel,” he made specific reference to suffering caused by rocket attacks:

Obama, Sept. 23, 2009: We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It’s not paid by politicians. It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. It’s paid for by the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own.

Jihadist Missiles in Cuba

Santorum made a wild claim that Cuba is working to harbor Muslim terrorists seeking to develop missile sites.

Santorum: We’re going to reward a country [Cuba] that is now working with these other countries to harbor and bring in Iran and the terrorist — the Jihadists who want to set up missile sites and to set up training camps.

Santorum’s comment sounds very similar to a claim that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann made back in the fall about Hezbollah working with Cuba, and potentially building missile sites within its borders.

Bachmann, Sept. 26, 2011: There’s reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is potentially looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you’re 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don’t want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. This would be foolish.

But according to a report on the Hill’s Briefing Room blog, Bachmann was getting her information from an Italian newspaper that did not report that Hezbollah was developing missile sites in Cuba.

The Hill, Sept. 27, 2011: Bachmann was referring to a report in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, which claimed that Hezbollah was setting up a base in Cuba to target Israelis in Latin America. The article was circulated on some conservative blogs, but did not report that Hezbollah planned to import weapons; rather, the terror operation was said to be oriented around intelligence collection, coordination of the group’s logistics in Latin America and identification forgery.

‘Language of the Ghetto’

Asked about an ad running in Florida that claims Gingrich once said “Spanish is the language of the ghetto,” Romney claimed not to know about the spot, adding, “I doubt that’s my ad.” It is. And that’s not exactly what Gingrich said. He referred to “bilingual” education but not specifically to Spanish.

The Miami Herald reported this week that the Romney campaign released a Spanish-language radio ad in Miami that argues that Ronald Reagan would not have agreed with Gingrich. The Herald translated it as saying, “Reagan would have never offended Hispanics as Gingrich did when he said Spanish is the language of the ghetto.”

The announcer says the ad was “paid for by Romney for President.” And then Romney himself adds at the end, in Spanish, “Soy Mitt Romney. Estoy postulado para presidente y apruebo este mensaje.” Translation: “I’m Mitt Romney. I’m running for president, and I approve this message.”

After a commercial break, CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer noted that his staff had checked, and confirmed the ad was Romney’s. Romney then posed a question to Gingrich: “Did you say what the ad says or not?”

Gingrich said the “language of the ghetto” comment was “taken totally out of context.”

“Oh, OK, he said it,” Romney responded.

Not exactly. Gingrich claimed he never specifically used the word “Spanish” in connection with the phrase “language of the ghetto,” and that he was speaking “in general, about all languages.” That’s true. Gingrich never specifically mentioned Spanish at all. In fact, shortly after making his “ghetto” comment, Gingrich criticized the government for printing ballots in 700 languages.

As Romney said, “Let’s take a look at what he said.”

The comment in question comes from a speech Gingrich gave to the National Federation of American Women on March 31, 2007, which C-SPAN has archived in its video library (the part in question begins around the 24-minute mark).

Gingrich, March 31, 2007: [W]e should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and so they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

That same day, the Associated Press wrote a story — later picked up by the Washington Post – about Gingrich’s comments and quoted Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, saying, “The tone of his comments were very hateful.”

Several days later, Gingrich posted a video on YouTube, in which he addressed his comments, in Spanish (he explained in the video that he had been taking Spanish lessons “for a while now”). According to the English subtitles provided, Gingrich began:

Gingrich, April 4, 2007: Last weekend I made some comments that I recognize produced a bad feeling within the Latino community. The words I chose to express myself were not the best, and what I wanted to say is this. In the United States it is important to speak English well in order to progress and have success. To achieve this goal, we should replace bilingual education programs with intensive English instruction courses and in this way permit that English be the language that all of us have in common.

This is an expression of support for Latinos, not an attack on their language. I have never believed that Spanish is a language of people of low income nor a language without beauty.

Gingrich’s Dubious Freddie Mac Claim

Gingrich said the consulting contracts between the Gingrich Group and Freddie Mac expressly stated that he would do “no lobbying, none.” His campaign website makes the same claim. But that’s not quite true. The 1999 contract did contain such language, but the 2006 contract did not.

Gingrich, Jan. 26: The contracts we released from Freddie Mac said I would do no consulting, wrote in, no — I mean no lobbying, none.

Gingrich website, Nov. 9, 2011: Speaker Gingrich’s consulting firm, The Gingrich Group, was retained in 2006 by Freddie Mac. To be clear, Speaker Gingrich did no lobbying of any kind, nor did his firm. This was expressly written into the Gingrich Group contracts.

On Jan. 23, the Gingrich Group released a one-year consulting contract for 2006 with Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage entity. The contract paid the firm $25,000 a month in exchange for “consulting and related services by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public Policy,” Craig Thomas, who is a registered federal lobbyist.

There was no provision “written” into the 2006 contract that Gingrich would do “no lobbying,” as Gingrich said. Lobbying was mentioned only once in the contract: “Consultant will also supply copies of any disclosures or reports it may be required to file by law, such as reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.”

A day after releasing the contract, the Gingrich Group released a second contract: a 1999 agreement with Freddie Mac that also paid $25,000 a month, plus reimbursement of up to $1,000 per month for expenses. It was this contract — as Gingrich said — that had language clearly stating that Gingrich would do no lobbying for Freddie Mac. It said: “Neither The Gingrich Group nor Newt Gingrich will provide lobbying services of any kind nor participate in lobbying activities on Freddie Mac’s behalf.”

The 1999 contract “was entered into by the Gingrich Group on July 21, 1999 and was a renewable contract, which lasted through 2002,” according to the firm’s press release.

Bottom line: There were two contracts released, and only one contained the language cited by Gingrich and his website. So they are wrong to use the plural form “contracts” when saying that the agreements released to date included a no-lobbying clause.

Santorum: ‘Stolen’ Social Security Numbers?

We have a small quibble with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s choice of words in claiming that most illegal immigrants are working on Social Security numbers that are “probably stolen.”

Santorum: And people who have come to this country illegally have broken the law repeatedly. If you’re here, unless you’re here on a trust fund, you’ve been working illegally. You’ve probably stolen someone’s Social Security number, illegally.

His word choice — describing the numbers as “stolen” — wasn’t exactly on target. But his overall point is backed up by Pew Hispanic Center estimates that most illegal immigrants are working under “fraudulent” Social Security numbers, which could be stolen or just falsified.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that workers have traditionally used phony names and Social Security numbers to gain employment. But technology has made it increasingly difficult for counterfeit documents to pass muster, resulting in illegal immigrants increasingly acquiring the documents of real people. In 2009, the Supreme Court noted the difference between fake and stolen Social Security numbers, ruling that harsher federal sentences for identity theft cannot be handed down unless an illegal immigrant knowingly uses the number of a real person. Either way, the illegal immigrants are breaking the law, which was Santorum’s point.

– Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, D’Angelo Gore and Ben Finley

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Keeping both sides honest

Summary

The air wars in a pivotal Florida Republican primary race have so far been a decidedly one-sided affair, with Mitt Romney and a pro-Romney super PAC saturating the airwaves for weeks with a slew of attack ads aimed chiefly at Newt Gingrich.

Many of the attacks are accurate. But the avalanche of negativity also contains a few distortions, including some that are being recycled.

One claim that is repeated in several of the ads is that Gingrich supported funding for “China’s brutal one-child policy.” The truth is that the bill in question specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.”

Another claim is that Gingrich “supports amnesty for illegal immigrants.” He does advocate allowing some to gain legal status — but only those who have resided in the U.S. for years, are employed, and have ties to their communities. It’s not known how many could meet the tests Gingrich proposes.

One of the newest attacks makes fun of Gingrich for his constant mentions of Ronald Reagan, noting correctly that the former president mentioned Gingrich only once in his published diaries. But the ad slightly exaggerates when it claims Reagan said Gingrich’s “ideas” — plural — would “cripple our defense.” It was only one idea — to freeze all federal spending at 1983 levels. Plus, we found that Reagan in public speeches voiced support for Gingrich’s ideas on taxes and school prayer.

But accurate or not, the pounding has been going on for weeks on Florida television, with no response from Gingrich or his allies. Romney and Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC, spent $6.7 million on TV ads in Florida from Dec. 26 to Jan. 24, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of Kantar Media. Restore Our Future went on the air the day after Christmas and spent $3.3 million through Jan. 24. The Romney campaign followed on Jan. 4 and spent $3.4 million, the data show. Most of Romney’s ads are positive, but one recent addition is a pure attack on Gingrich.

Gingrich won’t be so defenseless in the final days before the Jan. 31 vote, however. The pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, entered the fray Jan. 25 with a promised $6 million ad campaign. We’ll check its ads in a later article.

Meanwhile, we offer in our Analysis section a sampling of the ads that have been hammering away at Gingrich, along with our comments on what’s accurate, what’s not and what additional context voters might find useful.

Analysis

The assault on Gingrich started early in Florida. The pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, went on TV the day after Christmas and hasn’t stopped since. Through Jan. 24, as we mentioned earlier, Romney and the super PAC supporting him outspent Gingrich $6.7 million to nothing, according to data supplied by the ad-tracking service CMAG.

It wasn’t until Jan. 25 that the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, started to run TV ads in Florida. But even if the group spends $6 million in Florida, as reported by the Washington Post, Romney and his allies will far outspend Gingrich.

Romney leaves most of the attacks on Gingrich to the super PAC supporting him. We have only one example of an anti-Gingrich ad that comes from Romney’s own campaign. That attack ad started running Jan. 24.

Note: For additional coverage of the Florida ad wars, see our Jan. 26 items, “Liberal Union Joins Attack on Romney in Florida” and “Gingrich Spanish Radio Ad Pulled.”

Misleading ‘Florida Families’

The Romney ad accuses Gingrich of contributing to the housing crisis (which has hit Florida particularly hard) and for ethics violations. We find it contains some exaggerations.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Romney for President TV Ad: “Florida Families”

Announcer: While Florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in. Gingrich was paid over $1.6 million by the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis.

Gingrich: And I offered my advice, and my advice as a historian …

Announcer: A historian? Really? Sanctioned for ethics violations, Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace. And then cashed in as a DC insider. If Newt wins, this guy [Obama] would be very happy.

The ad says Gingrich “cashed in” and “was paid over $1.6 million” from Freddie Mac, “while Florida families lost everything” in a housing crisis Freddie Mac “helped create.” It’s an exaggeration to link Gingrich’s consulting contract to the suffering of Floridians, and to say he personally was paid $1.6 million.

That $1.6 million figure — which is also repeated in many of the anti-Gingrich attack ads from Restore Our Future — refers to money paid to the former speaker’s consulting firm. As we have reported before, the firm had many employees and expenses.

Gingrich this week released a $25,000 per month contract with Freddie Mac, which states that the firm was hired to perform “consulting and related services as requested” by Freddie Mac’s director of public policy, a registered lobbyist for the government-sponsored mortgage entity. The $1.6 million figure — reported by Bloomberg — was not disputed when Romney cited it during the Florida GOP debate on Jan. 23. But Gingrich said, “My share annually was about $35,000 a year.” If that’s true, he personally received somewhere around $280,000 over an eight-year period.

It’s also debatable how much Freddie Mac and the other government-sponsored mortgage agency, Fannie Mae, “helped create” the housing bubble. As we said a few times in 2008, there is a lot of blame to go around — including but not limited to the Federal Reserve, investment banks, mortgage lenders, homeowners, regulators, and both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Plus, there’s no evidence that whatever Gingrich did for Freddie (and we still don’t know) had even a tenuous link to the suffering of Florida homeowners.

The ad also strains the facts when it links Gingrich’s decision to leave Congress to his ethics. It says, “Sanctioned for ethics violations, Gingrich resigned from Congress in disgrace.” But Gingrich announced his resignation nearly two years after the ethics case was resolved, prompted by a miserable election result. As we wrote twice earlier this month, Gingrich stepped down as House speaker in November 1998 after the Republicans suffered historic losses in the 1998 election. He then left Congress altogether in January 1999. The House voted to reprimand Gingrich in January 1997.

Amnesty, Ethics and Obama’s ‘Plan’

Restore Our Future, meanwhile, is spending more than $1 million each on two ads that are in heavy rotation in Florida. In one of them, “Smiling,” the pro-Romney super PAC focuses on electability — telling viewers that Obama would prefer to run against Gingrich. That may be so, but the ad misrepresents Gingrich’s immigration position, his ethics case and even a news article.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Smiling”

Announcer: Barack Obama’s plan is working. Destroy Mitt Romney. Run against Newt Gingrich. Newt has a ton of baggage. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations and took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac before it helped cause the economic meltdown. Newt supports amnesty for illegal immigrants, and teamed with Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore on global warming. Maybe that’s why George Will calls him the least conservative candidate. Check the facts at NewtFacts.com.

The ad starts off by saying, “Barack Obama’s plan is working. Destroy Mitt Romney. Run against Newt Gingrich.” To support that claim, the ad cites an Aug. 9, 2011, story by Politico that carries the headline: “Obama Plan: Destroy Romney.” But the story does not mention Gingrich at all, or any of the “baggage” that the ad claims will hurt the former speaker in a general election. Politico’s story was about the Obama campaign’s strategy for running against Romney in the general election, not about any plan to torpedo him in the primaries.

The ad also claims that Gingrich “supports amnesty for illegal immigrants.” That’s not true for most illegal immigrants; Gingrich supports something resembling amnesty for only a relatively small portion of those who are in the U.S. illegally.

As Gingrich has said in campaign appearances and debates, he believes that illegal immigrants who have lived a long time in the United States, are employed, and have ties to their community should not be deported. He would give them legal permission to remain, but not allow them to become citizens.

The ad contains the now familiar claim that Gingrich was “fined” $300,000 for ethics violations. As we have written, it was technically not a fine. The House ethics report on the case said the $300,000 was a reimbursement to defray some of the cost of the investigation.

Gingrich ‘Is No Ronald Reagan’

Another ad from Restore Our Future was released the morning of Jan. 25, and is titled “Reagan.” It says Gingrich exaggerates his connection to the former president, dropping his name 50 times in debates while Reagan mentioned Gingrich only once in his diaries, saying his “ideas” would “cripple our defense.”

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Reagan”

Narrator: From debates, you’d think Newt Gingrich was Ronald Reagan’s vice president.

Gingrich: I worked with President Ronald Reagan … worked with Ronald Reagan …. Ronald Reagan playbook … President Reagan … Reagan … Reagan … Reagan

Narrator: Gingrich exaggerates, dropping Ronald Reagan’s name 50 times. But in his diaries, Reagan mentioned Gingrich only once. Reagan criticized Gingrich, saying Newt’s ideas, quote, “would cripple our defense program.” Reagan rejected Newt’s ideas. On leadership and character, Gingrich is no Ronald Reagan.

This ad exaggerates only slightly. Gingrich indeed mentions Reagan’s name constantly and boasts of “helping” him create jobs and lower taxes, among other things. He mentioned Reagan seven times in the most recent debate on Jan. 23, for example, and a total of 10  more times in the two previous debates on Jan. 19 and Jan. 16. There have been 17 GOP debates so far.

And it’s true that Reagan mentioned Gingrich — at the time a junior House member from Georgia — only once in his published diaries. As we reported earlier when Romney brought this up during a debate, Reagan wrote that the young congressman’s 1983 suggestion to freeze spending “would cripple our defense program,” and he rejected it.

But this ad goes a bit too far when it says Reagan rejected “Newt’s ideas,” in the plural. Reagan mentioned rejecting only one — the spending freeze.

We also did a text search of Reagan’s public statements, speeches and papers on the Reagan presidential library website and found only seven mentions of Gingrich – most of them pro-forma at times when Reagan visited Georgia. That’s less than one mention a year during Reagan’s two terms. However, Reagan twice singled out Gingrich for praise on policy issues — specifically taxes and school prayer. In a March 2, 1984, speech to conservatives at the annual CPAC convention, Reagan noted that he was “gratified” that Gingrich was going to organize a rally on the Capitol steps in support of the prayer in school amendment.

Gingrich ‘Has Tons Of Baggage’

Yet another Restore Our Future ad, titled “Risk,” started running in Florida the afternoon of Jan. 24. It asks, “Can we risk four more years of Barack Obama,” and suggests that Gingrich would lose the general election because he “has tons of baggage.”

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Risk”

Narrator: Can we risk four more years of Barack Obama? Newt Gingrich’s tough talk sounds good, but Newt has tons of baggage. How will he ever beat Obama? While Newt was speaker, earmarks exploded. He co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy. And he teamed up with Pelosi on global warming. Beating Obama is important. Too important to risk on Newt Gingrich.

This spot repeats an unfair and misleading claim that Gingrich backed funding for a U.S. program “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” As we reported when Restore Our Future first used this claim against Gingrich in Iowa, it’s a distortion. The truth is that the bill specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.” The funding in question was a small part of a much larger bill, which died before ever coming up for a vote. For more details, see our Dec. 23 article, “Attacks Against Gingrich: How Accurate?”

The ad’s claim that appropriations earmarks “exploded” under Gingrich is accurate, however. The ad cites a Dec. 15 story by ABC News:

ABC News, Dec. 15: [We found] a startling spike under Gingrich’s leadership as speaker. Not only did earmark spending in Congress increase between 1994 and 1998, when he departed, the overall dollar amount roughly doubled.

And the ad is also true — as far as it goes — when it says Gingrich “teamed up with [Nancy] Pelosi on global warming.” Gingrich did indeed appear in a TV commercial with Pelosi back in 2008 and urged unspecified federal action to address climate change. But he later opposed Pelosi’s cap-and-trade bill. For full details on Gingrich’s shifting stance on climate change and cap-and-trade legislation, see our Dec. 15 item, “Gingrich On Climate Change.”

‘Desperate’ For Facts

A Restore Our Future ad called “Desperate” picks up on the same Gingrich-has-more-baggage-than-the-airlines theme that worked so well in Iowa in mid-December. And it  makes some of the same dubious claims that we checked then.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV ad: “Desperate”

Announcer: Newt Gingrich’s attacks are called foolish, out of bounds and disgusting. Newt attacks because he has more baggage than the airlines. Newt was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy. Don’t be fooled by Newt’s desperate attacks.

The ad repeats some of the claims of other ads we discussed above, including claims about being “fined” $300,000 for ethics violations and “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.”

On Admitting Mistakes

Another Restore Our Future 30-second ad landed some punches against Gingrich for admitting mistakes or flipping on issues.

⬐ Click to expand/collapse the full transcript ⬏

Restore Our Future TV Ad: “Whoops”

Announcer: Ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes?

Gingrich: It was probably a mistake. … I made a mistake. … I’ve made mistakes at times. …

Announcer: So far, Newt Gingrich has admitted his mistakes or flipped on teaming up with Nancy Pelosi, immigration, Medicare, health care, Iraq, attacking Mitt Romney and more.

Gingrich: I made a big mistake in the spring.

Announcer: Haven’t we had enough mistakes?

“So far, Newt Gingrich has admitted his mistakes or flipped on teaming up with Nancy Pelosi, immigration, Medicare, health care, Iraq, attacking Mitt Romney and more,” the ad says while showing clips of Gingrich admitting mistakes.

We’ve previously reported that Gingrich made a partial flip on his illegal immigration stance; he said in 2005 he would require “all” illegal immigrants to return to their countries. And we’ve written that Gingrich regretted making an ad with Pelosi about climate change but ultimately opposed her cap-and-trade bill.

Regarding Medicare, Gingrich did indeed backtrack and apologize to Rep. Paul Ryan after criticizing the congressman’s plan to revamp the program. As for flipping on his attacks against Romney, Gingrich’s campaign recently said it would pull or edit a Spanish-language radio ad running in Florida that claims Romney is “anti-immigrant.”

Regarding health care, the former speaker flipped on “Romneycare,” according to a Wall Street Journal article. Gingrich has been denouncing the Massachusetts health care law on the campaign trail but voiced enthusiasm for the state legislation when it was passed six years ago.

As for flipping on Iraq, Gingrich wrote a USA Today column in 2002 urging an invasion of Iraq. Under the headline “Strike Sooner Than Later,” he wrote: “I believe [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld’s guidelines make an overwhelming case for replacing Saddam as soon as possible.” But after things went badly, Gingrich said in 2006: “It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003. …We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it.”

– by Robert Farley, Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson and Ben Finley

Sources

Miller, Joe and Brooks Jackson. “Who Caused the Economic Crisis?” FactCheck.org. 1 Oct 2008.

Miller, Joe. “Oversimplifying the Fiscal Crisis.” 7 Oct 2008.

Kiely, Eugene, et. al. “Factual Flubs in Florida.” 24 Jan 2012.

Farley, Robert. “Disgrace, Influence Peddling and Other Debate Charges.” 24 Jan 2012.

Smith, Ben and Jonathan Martin. “Obama plan: Destroy Romney.” Politico. 9 Aug 2011.

Phillips, Frank. “Romney profited on firm later tied to fraud.” Boston Globe. 10 Oct 2002.

Morse, Michael. “McCollum’s Misleading Accusations.” FactCheck.org. 14 Jul 2010.

Hiassen, Scott and John Dorschner. “Rick Scott touts CEO experience in run for Florida governor, to a degree.” Miami Herald. 27 Jun 2010.

Miller, Joe and Brooks Jackson. “Who Caused the Economic Crisis?” FactCheck.org. 1 October 2008, accessed 25 January 2012.

Miller, Joe. “Oversimplifying the Fiscal Crisis.” 7 October2008, accessed 25 January 2012.

Kiely, Eugene, et. al. “Factual Flubs in Florida.” 24 January 2012, accessed 25 January 2012.

Farley, Robert. “Disgrace, Influence Peddling and Other Debate Charges.” 24 January 2012, accessed 25 January 2012.

Smith, Ben and Jonathan Martin. “Obama plan: Destroy Romney.” 9 August 2011, accessed 25 January 2012.

Huisenga, Sarah. “Gingrich Outlines ‘Path to Legality’ for Some Illegal Immigrants.” National Journal. 26 Nov 2011.

Oppenheimer, Andres. “Gingrich brings common sense to immigration debate.” Miami Herald. 26 Nov 2011.

Madison, Lucy. “Newt Gingrich apologizes to Paul Ryan.” CBS News. 18 May 2011.

Mullens, Brody and Adamy, Janet. “Gingrich Applauded Romney’s Health Plan.” Wall Street Journal.” 27 Dec 2011.

Yadron, Danny. “Gingrich Pulls Ad Attacking Romney After Rubio Criticizes It.” Wall Street Journal.” 25 Jan 2012.

Hotsheet Live. “Gingrich: I was wrong about mandates.” CBS News. 28 Dec 2011.

Woodward, Calvin. “Positions of the Republican candidates, in brief.” Associated Press. 23 Jan 2012.

Gingrich, Newt. “Strike sooner than later.” USA Today. 18 Oct 2002.

Labelle, Monica. “Gingrich at USD: Pull out of Iraq.” Argus Leader. 11 Apr 2006.

Farnam, T.J. “Mitt Romney likely to far outspend Newt Gingrich on Florida TV ads.” Washington Post. 25 Jan 2012.

Weiner, Rachel. “Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich makes $6 million ad buy in Florida.” Washington Post. 24 Jan 2012.

“Campaign Summary: 2012 Presidential Election: 12/25/11 — 1/23/12.” Kantar Media. Accessed 25 Jan 2012.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. “The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan.” Undated, accessed 26 Jan 2012.

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Keeping both sides honest

Summary

Newt Gingrich is out with two new attacks on Mitt Romney: an ad airing in South Carolina that tries to brand Romney as a “pro-abortion” governor, and a nearly three-minute Web video that gauges Romney statements on a “Baloney-O-Meter.” We found a bit of baloney in both.

• The ad airing in South Carolina misleadingly says that Romney “expanded access to abortion pills.” The law in question concerned emergency contraception, or “the morning-after pill” (now available over the counter), not the controversial RU-486, known as “the abortion pill.”
• The ad also says Romney “put Planned Parenthood on a state medical board but failed to put a pro-life group on the same board.” The Web video makes an even more sweeping claim that Romney “gave Planned Parenthood power over Massachusetts healthcare.” But the president of a right-to-life affiliate told us that the board had nothing to do with abortion and was a “minor” issue. “This isn’t something that we would choose to even bring up,” she said.
• It makes the misleading claim that the Massachusetts health care law called for “taxpayer-funded abortions.” But the law said nothing about abortion. It was the state exchange that later said abortions would be covered by subsidized plans, following state Supreme Court rulings on what is required of Medicaid coverage.
• Gingrich’s Web video lacks context when it claims that Romney raised taxes and fees “on gun owners and people who are blind.” The fees on the blind never took effect. And Romney did propose increasing firearm fees, but not as high as the fees that the Democratic Legislature later passed.

Analysis

The ad, which began airing in South Carolina on Jan. 10, claims that after Romney switched his position in 2004 from pro-abortion rights to anti-abortion, “he governed pro-abortion.” The Web video, titled “Pious Baloney,” went up on YouTube on Jan. 9 and is part of a new Gingrich campaign site called www.stopromneyspiousbaloney.com.

No ‘Abortion Pills’ Here

The Gingrich ad makes the highly misleading claim that Romney “expanded access to abortion pills.” But the law in question had nothing to do with the “abortion pill,” RU-486, the controversial medication that can induce abortion in women who are up to nine weeks pregnant. Instead, the law concerned access to emergency contraception, known as “the morning-after pill,” which even the National Right to Life Committee makes clear is not “the abortion pill.”

The “morning-after pill” can prevent pregnancy, but won’t affect established pregnancies, if taken within a few days of unprotected sex. It is essentially a high dose of birth control pills. It delays ovulation and can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. It’s true that some abortion opponents say the pill, along other forms of birth control, is an abortifacient, which is a drug that induces abortion. But it is not known as “the abortion pill,” which is a much more controversial topic. The Gingrich ad does not explain what it means by “abortion pills,” misleading viewers into believing that Romney expanded access to RU-486. That’s not the case.

In fact, “the morning-after pill,” or Plan B, is available without a prescription for women 17 and older. It was the Bush administration that first made the pill available over the counter in 2006 for women 18 and older. (The Obama administration recently overruled a Food and Drug Administration recommendation to make the pill available to teenagers without a prescription.)

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, a National Right to Life affiliate, told us the group’s position is that emergency contraception is “a possible abortifacient.” The issue is whether the drug stops ovulation, similar to the birth control bill – and the group takes “no position on something that’s simply contraception” — or if the drug prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, which would make it an abortifacient in Citizens for Life’s view. What the drug actually did would depend on the person taking it. Ms. Fox said that “it’s a stretch” to call the drug an “abortion pill,” but also said that given the type of language used in political ads, Gingrich “could probably get away with it from our point of view.”

To be sure, some abortion opponents have pushed for a so-called “personhood” law declaring that life begins at the moment a human egg is fertilized, which could make the “morning-after” pill illegal, and arguably an “abortion” pill. But an effort to pass such a law by ballot initiative was recently rejected by more than 55 percent of voters in Mississippi. And of course, it wasn’t the law in Massachusetts.

Our view is that the language in the ad misleads voters into thinking Romney expanded access to RU-486, which – there’s no debate about it – induces abortion.

The ad refers to a law that Romney signed in October 2005, calling for the state to ask for a federal Medicaid waiver to expand eligibility for family-planning services for low-income individuals. Those services would include emergency contraception, as well as a range of family-planning services, such as gynecological exams, screenings for breast and cervical cancer, prenatal care, birth control counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. The Boston Globe reported that anti-abortion groups were upset with Romney, especially since he had vetoed a law earlier that year that called for hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims and for pharmacists to provide it without requiring a prescription. The paper quoted just one anti-abortion advocate who headed a 6,000-member group in Chicago and told the Globe: “Birth control is the kissing cousin of abortion.”

It’s worth noting that many states — 21 of them to be exact — already had these family-planning waivers in 2005. The Boston Globe quoted Eric Fehrnstrom, who was then Romney’s communications director, saying that the state “already provides these health services to low-income women, and we have no objection to the Legislature’s directive that we seek a waiver to expand the eligible population to women with a slightly higher income.”

But the waiver never was granted. (The Medicaid.gov site lists all waivers for all states and the “1115 Family Planning” waiver isn’t among Massachusetts’ waivers.) However, the state did get a waiver to expand eligibility for Medicaid overall. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2009 that at least 26 state Medicaid programs covered emergency contraception.

Romney’s Abortion Record

The Gingrich ad also repeats a few old claims: that Romney “put Planned Parenthood on a state medical board but failed to put a pro-life group on the same board. And Romney signed government mandated health care with taxpayer-funded abortions.”

Both of these claims have to do with the Massachusetts health care overhaul. The law says Planned Parenthood in the state is allowed to appoint one person to a 14-member MassHealth Payment Policy Advisory Board, which reviews rates and payments for Medicaid. The law doesn’t call for an anti-abortion group to appoint a member, but the president of one such group told us the anti-abortion community wasn’t concerned about this at all.

Ms. Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said this issue was “minor” and didn’t have anything to do with abortion.

“The committee doesn’t decide anything that has anything to do with abortion. It is just a rate-setting thing,” Ms. Fox told us. “It was not something that right to lifers were concerned about at the time. It was a minor thing. It really is Gingrich trying to make something significant [out of nothing]. This isn’t something that we would choose to even bring up.”

The Gingrich “Baloney-O-Meter” video, which we’ll address below, gives the impression that the board appointment was a much bigger deal than it was, saying that Romney “gave Planned Parenthood power over Massachusetts health care.” But the 14-member board is only charged with reviewing Medicaid rates and making recommendations for rates “that provide fair compensation for MassHealth services and promote high-quality, safe, effective, timely, efficient, culturally competent and patient-centered care.” MassHealth is the state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Romney didn’t veto this provision of the law, as he did several other sections. That point was made during the 2008 presidential campaign by GOP candidate Fred Thompson. But, according to Anne Fox, the candidates are making much ado about nothing.

As for the claim that “Romney signed government mandated health care with taxpayer-funded abortions,” that, too, is overblown. The state health care law didn’t say anything about abortion. Instead, the state exchange later decided that subsidized insurance plans would include coverage for abortion. And the exchange may have had little choice but to do so. In 1981, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that women eligible for Medicaid had a state constitutional right to payments for medically necessary abortions. In 1997, the state high court again ruled that Massachusetts must cover medically necessary abortions if it covers other medically necessary care, such as childbirth.

As we’ve said before, some have argued that Romney could have done more to put limits on abortion coverage in the state health care law. But it’s not true that he signed a law that included “taxpayer-funded abortions.”

The Gingrich Web video says that Romney “used taxpayers funds to pay for abortions.” Again, the law didn’t say anything about abortion. Were taxpayer funds ever actually used to cover abortions for those who gained subsidized coverage under the law? We asked the Gingrich campaign if it had any proof for that claim. So far, we have not received a response. But overall, the law didn’t lead to any increase in abortions in the state. In fact, both the number and rate of abortions have declined since the legislation was passed.

The Guttmacher Institute, whose research on abortion has been cited by both political parties, has compiled statistics that show the number of abortions in the state went from 27,270 in 2005, the year before the law was passed, to 24,900 in 2008, the most recent statistic available. And the rate of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age fell from 19.9 in 2005 to 18.3 in 2008. That’s an 8 percent drop, compared with a small rise of 1 percent nationally.

Finally, the ad makes a truthful claim, saying that Romney “appointed a pro-abortion judge.” It cites a 2007 ABCNews.com piece that said Romney had nominated a longtime Democrat to a lifetime position on a district court. The later-confirmed judge, Matthew J. Nestor, once ran for state representative and campaigned as a “pro-choice” candidate. The ABCNews article pointed out that Romney nominated Nestor two months after Romney said he had changed his stance from pro-abortion rights to anti-abortion in November 2004.

ABC reported that Romney aides had said the governor considered a district court appointment to be different from one for appellate court, since the former rules on criminal and civil cases, not constitutional matters. The article also quoted Romney’s deputy campaign manager for his 2008 presidential run as saying: “The two main considerations were experience and having someone who was going to be tough on crime and able to handle the incredibly hectic pace of a busy district court.”

Readers can decide for themselves how much the district court appointment, or the other issues raised in the ad, affect Romney’s anti-abortion credentials, which our fact-checking colleagues at The Washington Post have noted are mixed. He did veto the law requiring the morning-after pill to be dispensed to rape victims at hospitals. His veto was later overridden by the Legislature. Romney then backed a state ruling that private hospitals, including religious hospitals, didn’t have to follow the requirement if they had moral objections. But he later flip-flopped on that position, saying that his legal counsel concluded that all hospitals would have to follow the new law. The Boston Globe also quoted Romney as saying: “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.”

Romney’s evolving position on embryonic stem cell research angered both anti-abortion groups and those who supported such research. He opposed a state Senate bill to support the creation of embryos for research, but he didn’t object to research on embryos from fertility clinics.

Ms. Fox, with Massachusetts Citizens for Life, says this of Romney’s overall record on abortion: “We and National Right to Life are quite comfortable with the fact that he takes a pro-life position, that he governs with it, and that he will continue to have it.”

Introducing the Baloney-O-Meter

The Gingrich campaign created a website, www.stopromneyspiousbaloney.com, that plays off Gingrich’s recent “Meet the Press” debate jab at Romney, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” The quip came in response to Romney’s claim that “for me, politics, is not a career” and that he “long[ed] for a day where instead of having people to go to Washington for 20 and 30 years who get elected and then when they lose office they stay there and make money as lobbyists or connecting to businesses, I think it stinks.” Gingrich claimed the only reason Romney wasn’t serving in the Senate was because he ran against Democrat Ted Kennedy in 1994 and lost.

The new website from the Gingrich campaign includes a nearly three-minute video featuring a Baloney-O-Meter that tilts wildly when Romney makes statements about being a true and consistent conservative.

But the ad metes out some baloney of its own.

For example, the video states: “As governor, Mitt used taxpayer funds to pay for abortions and gave Planned Parenthood power over Massachusetts healthcare.” We dealt with that claim above.

The ad also states that “Mitt Romney raised taxes and fees $700 million. After pledging not to.” The video then cuts to a clip of Romney on “Meet the Press” saying, “I’m not trying to hide the fact that we raised fees.” Text in the ad then states, “Including on guns and people who are blind.”

Let’s start with the video’s claim that “Mitt Romney raised taxes and fees $700 million.” The video cleverly groups “taxes and fees” to sidestep the debate about whether they are synonymous. Technically, Romney never raised personal income taxes, but he did increase fees by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he also closed loopholes on some corporate taxes (a fact we have noted whenever Romney has claimed he did not raise taxes as governor).

When John McCain cited an identical $700 million figure in the 2008 Republican presidential race, we noted that there is disagreement over that amount, with the state Department of Administration and Finance putting the fee total at $260 million a year and the corporate tax change at $174 million a year, and the independent Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation saying both fees and taxes totaled $740 million to $750 million a year.

As for the claim that Gov. Romney raised fees “on gun owners and people who are blind,” it’s true that in 2003 Romney put forth a fiscal year 2004 budget proposal that included fees on both. But some context is in order.

Romney’s proposed budget sought to raise firearm license fees from $25 to $75. However, the Democratic-controlled Legislature decided to raise those fees even higher, to $100 (see Section 34 of Chapter 140). That burden was eased a bit the following year when the term of a license was increased from four to six years.

As for fees on blind people, it’s true that Romney’s budget proposal called for a new $10 fee for a certificate of blindness from the state (used by blind people for tax purposes and to avail themselves of some government services) and another $15 fee for photo identification cards for the blind, which can be used to get free access to public transportation. Together, the fees were projected to bring the state $114,000 in FY 2004. But the Democratic state Legislature rejected those fees, so they never came to pass.

“In Massachusetts, the governor can only propose a budget, the legislature has to appropriate the budget,” explained Bob Hachey, president of Bay State Council of the Blind. “The governor on his own can’t institute something like that.”

“Gingrich is on the right path, but he went a little too far,” Hachey said. “He is correct in the sense that Romney tried to use these fees as a way to say, ‘I did not raise taxes.’ But that one never actually happened.”

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom has argued that Gov. Romney faced a $3 billion deficit when he took office, and that “he balanced the budget primarily through spending cuts and reforms. Fee increases accounted for approximately 10 percent of the solution, and they were not broad-based by any means.”

At one Republican debate in 2008, Romney said the fees needed to be adjusted for inflation and to cover the cost of services, but Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer told us then that the increase “wasn’t tied to any analysis of the cost of delivering those services” and the group characterized those fees as “far in excess of any reasonable measure of the cost of services.”

The Gingrich video also calls out Romney for claiming in the “Meet the Press” debate that he hadn’t seen a pro-Romney super PAC’s ads attacking Gingrich, and then a few seconds later, describing them.

Romney, Jan. 8: And with regards to their ads, I haven’t seen them.

Then a little bit later, he did, in fact, go on to describe one of the ads.

Romney, Jan. 8: But let me tell you this. The– the ad I saw said that– that you’d been forced out of the speakership. That was correct. It said that– that you’d sat down with Nancy Pelosi and– and argued for– for a climate change bill. That was correct. It said that you’d called the– the– Ron Paul– wrong Paul. Paul Ryan’s plan to– to provide– Medicare reform– a right-wing social engineering plan. It said that– that as part of an investigation, an ethics investigation that you had to reimburse some $300,000. Those things are all true.

If there was something related to abortion that it said that was wrong, I hope they pull it out. Anything wrong, I’m opposed to. But, you know, this ain’t– this ain’t a bean bag. We’re gonna come into a campaign. We’re gonna describe the differences between us.

Gingrich claimed The Washington Post Fact Checker had found “virtually nothing accurate” in one of the ads from pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. Romney, as we highlighted earlier, ticked off a number of statements from the ad that he said were true.

We concluded that Romney was mostly correct about the ad statements he mentioned, and Gingrich was wrong. We noted that in our fact-check of the ad, we found it had a few false and misleading claims, but also many were accurate, as Romney said.

– by Lori Robertson and Robert Farley

Sources

Ebbert, Stephanie. “Romney Signs Bill on Family Planning.” Boston Globe. 15 Oct 2005.

Massachusetts Commonwealth Connector. “About the Connector: Overview.” www.MAHealthConnector.org, 6 Dec. 2007.

Haslmaier, Edmund F. “The Massachusetts Health Reform: Assessing its Significance and Progress.” 21 Sep. 2007.

Hyman, David A. “The Massachusetts Health Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” 28 Jun. 2007.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Session Laws, Acts 2003, Chapter 140: An Act Making Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2004.

Gov. Mitt Romney’s Budget Recommendation FY 2004. Executive Office for Health and Human Services. Fees from Certificate of Blindness and Photo ID Cards for Blind Services. Accessed via Internet Archives Wayback Machine.

FactCheck.org interview with Bob Hachey, president of Bay State Council of the Blind. 10 Jan 2012.

FactCheck.org interview with Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. 11 Jan 2012.

LeBlanc, Steve. “Romney oversaw millions in fee hikes as Massachusetts governor.” Associated Press. 28 Aug 2007.

Moody, Chris. “Gingrich’s latest Romney slam: He taxed the blind.” Yahoo News, The Ticket. 07 Jan 2012.

Kahn, Ric. “State Fees Resemble Taxes to Those Who’ll Pay.” The Boston Globe. 29 May 2003.

Landrigan, Kevin. “Taxing Matter.” Nashua Telegraph. 13 Dec 2007.

Planned Parenthood. The Abortion Pill (Medication Abortion). accessed 11 Jan 2012.

National Right to Life Committee. RU486: The Pill, The Process, The Problems. accessed 11 Jan 2012.

Kaiser Family Foundation. Women’s Health Policy Facts. Emergency Contraception. Nov 2005.

Harris, Gardiner. “Plan to Widen Availability of Morning-After Pill Is Rejected.” New York Times. 7 Dec 2011.

Associated Press. “Mississippi Defeats Life at Conception Ballot Initiative.” 8 Nov 2011.

Kaiser Family Foundation. “State Medicaid Coverage of Family Planning Services: Summary of State Survey Findings.” Nov 2009.

Massachusetts Legislature, general laws. Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006. Section 3 (Part 4): MassHealth Payment Advisory Board. Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. accessed 11 Jan 2012.

Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts v. Attorney General, 424 Mass. 586, 677 N.E.2d 101 (1997).

Jones, Rachel K. and Kathryn Kooistra. Abortion Incidence and Access to Services In the United States, 2008. Guttmacher Institute. Mar 2011.

Klein, Rick and Jake Tapper. “Romney’s Pro-Life Conversion: Myth or Reality?” ABCNews.com. 14 Jun 2007.

Helman, Scott. “Romney says no hospitals are exempt from pill law; He reverses stand on Plan B.” Boston Globe. 9 Dec 2005.

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Keeping both sides honest

Political leanings: Republican/Pro-Santorum Super PAC

Spending target: Undisclosed

The Red White and Blue Fund is a “super PAC” formed in October 2011 to support Rick Santorum’s candidacy.

The PAC, which can raise unlimited amounts of money, was started by Iowa political consultant Nick Ryan, a longtime political adviser to former Iowa Rep. Jim Nussle. Ryan is chairman of Team Iowa PAC, a statewide political action committee, and was a founder of the conservative American Future Fund, a national 501(c)(4) that got involved in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. The spokesman of the Red White and Blue Fund is Stuart Roy, a former communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

RWB, as the group also calls itself, has spent far less than super PACs supporting other Republican presidential candidates in the early stages of the nomination process. It purchased air time in Iowa and South Carolina, for example, but not in New Hampshire. As of Dec. 29, RWB reported it had spent a little more than $200,000, although an ad tracking service said that as of Jan. 10, the group had spent nearly $700,000. That’s still well short of the millions being raised and spent by Restore Our Future, Make Us Great Again, and Winning Our Future.

The group has yet to disclose its donors and will not have to do so until Jan. 31. However, Foster Freiss, a Wyoming-based investment banker, is among the group’s contributors. He told NBC News that he is a major backer of the Red White and Blue Fund, although he declined to disclose how much he has given. In a biography on his company website, the self-described born-again Christian said he is also a “major investor in the Daily Caller,” a website launched by conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson. The Columbia Journalism Review reported that Freiss invested $3 million in the Daily Caller.

The treasurer of the Red White and Blue Fund is Christopher M. Marston, who held top positions in the George W. Bush administration as assistant secretary for management at the Education Department and chief of staff at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He also was an aide to then-Rep. Rob Portman of Ohio and then-Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio. Marston is now a principal partner in Election CFO, a compliance consulting company. His wife, Michelle, was once chief of staff to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who dropped her bid for the GOP presidential nomination after finishing sixth in the Iowa caucuses.

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Keeping both sides honest

Political leanings: Republican/Pro-Ron Paul Super PAC

Spending target: Undisclosed

Santa Rita Super PAC is a pro-Ron Paul political action committee created by Donald Huffines, a Paul donor and fundraiser.

The Dallas-based land developer co-owns a Catholic radio station in the Washington, D.C.,  area and has contributed to Republicans running for House and Senate seats in states including Texas, Nevada and New Mexico. Huffines shares Paul’s view of limited government and lower taxes. “Imagine what it would be like if we had no income tax in the country?” Huffines told CNNMoney in 2008. “I don’t think anyone would do more for business — small or large — than Ron Paul. He would eliminate the role of government in our business lives, and the GDP growth of the country would skyrocket as a result.”

Santa Rita first registered with the Federal Election Commission on Jan. 4. Huffines is listed as the PAC’s president and treasurer. He co-owns Huffines Communities, a Dallas-based real estate company that builds planned communities. The group can raise unlimited amounts of money, but it will have to report its donors. Huffines declined to tell us how much he and others have contributed to his PAC.

As of January 2011, Huffines has made $63,664 in individual contributions to various Republican campaigns, according to the FEC’s online contribution database. Some of those campaigns were not without controversy.

In February 2010, Huffines donated $2,400 to the campaign of Republican Stephen Broden, a Dallas pastor who unsuccessfully ran for Texas’ 30th congressional district seat. A month before the election, Broden said in a TV interview that a violent overthrow of the government is “on the table” if the midterm congressional elections don’t produce a change in leadership.

Santa Rita has produced TV ads in support of Paul, primarily in South Carolina, but so far it has spent far less than PACs supporting other GOP presidential candidates. After South Carolina, Santa Rita says it plans to run ads in Nevada, Alaska, Maine, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota to “spread Dr. Paul’s message of Liberty and Constitutional Limited Government.”

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Keeping both sides honest