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Riddle me this...

 
   
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Fatmouse

Jun 8, 12 16:48

Post #1 of 5 (433 views)
Riddle me this... Quote | Reply
This summer is going to suck, being in a swing state. The ads are ALREADY overwhelming.

Anyway, one of the Romney ads said that he balanced the budget in MA while he was Governor.

Obama's ad says that MA debt increased $2.5 billion when Romney was Governor.

Can both of these statements be true?

_____________________________________
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dave_w

Jun 8, 12 16:59

Post #2 of 5 (417 views)
Re: Riddle me this... [Fatmouse] [In reply to] Quote | Reply
No idea on either claim, but sure. If overall the debt increased by 2.5B, that makes Obama's claim true. If Romney "balanced the budget" in any one year, that makes his claim true. ahhhh politics


FJB

Jun 8, 12 16:59

Post #3 of 5 (415 views)
Re: Riddle me this... [Fatmouse] [In reply to] Quote | Reply
This reminds me of something Paul Beeston, the former President of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team said once. He was trained as an accountant and was speaking about the financial statements of baseball teams as the union was looking for reasons to call a lock out. He said he could turn a $100 million profit into a $100 million loss and every major accounting firm in the country would sign off on both.

That was in the private sector and the public financial statements are far easier to manipulate depending on how you account for things, what you include or don't include etc.

My take is that both are right and both are wrong (and neither are lying) and Republicans will support Romney's arguments and Democrats will support Obamas.


(This post was edited by FJB on Jun 8, 12 17:00)


sphere

Jun 8, 12 18:02

Post #4 of 5 (392 views)
Re: Riddle me this... [Fatmouse] [In reply to] Quote | Reply
I saw the Obama campaign ad for the first time today. Here's the text from the website (http://www.romneyeconomics.com). The links redirect you to another page on the campaign website, but sources are cited in the add itself.

Quote:
Mitt Romney ran for governor claiming his corporate experience made him uniquely qualified to grow the economy and decrease debt.
Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:

I'm interested to know how these claims survive unbiased scrutiny.



"Reason obeys itself; ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it." - T. Paine


justgeorge

Jun 8, 12 21:55

Post #5 of 5 (332 views)
Re: Riddle me this... [sphere] [In reply to] Quote | Reply
47th out of 50 states in job creation

That number is pretty easy to manipulate, if they're talking absolute numbers and not numbers relative to state population. MA is a pretty small state.