From the Obama campaign, via email:
In his CBS interview tonight, Mitt Romney repeated the debunked and misleading claim that the President said he would drive unemployment down to 6% by this time in his term. As numerous independent fact-checkers and news outlets have highlighted, the President never said that - the figure comes from a report prepared weeks before the President took office and before even economists knew the depth of the economic recession. Under President Obama’s leadership, we’ve gone from the brink of another depression and losing 750,000 jobs a month to adding over 4.2 million private sector jobs over the last 26 months. Mitt Romney would undo this progress by giving more budget-busting tax cuts to the wealthy on the middle class’ dime and letting Wall Street write its own rules—the same formula that benefited a few, but crashed our economy and punished the middle class. Loading the country up with debt while giving tax breaks to the wealthy—America can’t afford Romney Economics.
ROMNEY: “And of course domestically, it's hard to call what, now, 39, 40 months of unemployment above 8% a success when even he said by now, it would be in the 6% range. And by now it is not. It's over eight.”
INDEPENDENT FACT CHECKERS HAVE REPEATEDLY DEBUNKED THE CLAIM THAT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PROMISED THE RECOVERY ACT WOULD KEEP UNEMPLOYMENT BELOW 8 PERCENT
PolitiFact “Could Find No Evidence Of Anyone In The Administration Making A Public Pledge That The Stimulus Would Keep The Unemployment Rate Below 8 Percent.” “Obama warned upon taking office that if "dramatic action" were not taken, "the unemployment rate could reach double digits," with the recession lasting for years. But PolitiFact could find no evidence of anyone in the administration making a public pledge that the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.” [PolitiFact, 10/13/2011]
PolitiFact Has Reviewed This Claim Multiple Times And Has Called It “Mostly False” In Each Case. “PolitiFact National and its state affiliates have debunked similar claims several times before,starting with U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) in July 2009. More recently, Romney faced the Truth-O-Meter for repeating that statement earlier this month after winning the Nevada caucuses. Each time, the claim has received a Mostly False.” [PolitiFact, 2/27/2012]
Associated Press: “Obama Never Said That He Would Hold Unemployment Below 8 Percent If Congress Adopted His Stimulus Package.” “ROMNEY: "The administration pledged that their stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent. It has been above 8 percent every month since." THE FACTS: Obama never said that he would hold unemployment below 8 percent if Congress adopted his stimulus package.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2012]
Washington Post Fact Checker: “The Information To Disprove This Claim Exists On The Romney Campaign Web Site.” “Interestingly, the information to disprove this claim exists on the Romney campaign Web site. Far from being anything that Obama said, the Romney campaign acknowledges that this 8 percent figure comes from a staff-written projection issued Jan. 9, 2009 — before Obama had taken the oath of office. Of course, the campaign still spins it as a negative.” [Washington Post, 2/21/2012]
Ø Romney’s Claim That President Obama “Said The Stimulus Would Keep Unemployment Below 8 Percent” Earned Three Pinocchios From The Washington Post Fact Checker, Who Said “It Is Distressing That Romney Would Continue [To] Hype It Up Into Such A Misleading Assertion.” [Washington Post, 2/21/2012]
THE 8 PERCENT FIGURE CITED BY ROMNEY AND REPUBLICANS COMES FROM A REPORT THE PRESIDENT’S TRANSITION TEAM PREPARED AND RELEASED WEEKS BEFORE THE PRESIDENT TOOK OFFICE
The 8 Percent Figure Cited By Romney And Republicans Comes From A Report The President’s Transition Team Prepared And Released Weeks Before The President Took Office.“The 8 percent figure cited by Romney, and many other Republicans, comes from a transition staff-written projection written by economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein that was issued weeks before Obama was sworn in and long before there even was a stimulus plan before Congress.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2012]
