PDF Questionable statements:
"Let's start with one important fact. Our country has never elected a president born and raised in Michigan."
Mitt Romney was born in Detroit and raised in Bloomfield Hills, before moving out of Michigan to attend college. What about Gerald Ford? He was born in Nebraska (moving to Michigan as an infant), and he was never elected. Ford was a congressman from Grand Rapids when President Nixon appointed him to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew, who resigned after pleading no contest to income tax evasion. Ford became president after Nixon resigned in August 1974 under the weight of the Watergate scandal. Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.
"Mitt Romney is not a career politician."
Romney has only held public office for four years, but his history in politics is extensive. It's impossible to know how much of a career politician he might have been if voters had been more receptive. He lost a U.S. Senate race in 1994 to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002. He didn't seek re-election in 2006, but has spent most of the past six years running for president.
Still, it is undeniably true that Romney spent decades as a successful businessman in the private sector before launching his political career.
"With Washington running trillion dollar annual deficits, our nation's recovery has been the slowest since the 1930s."
It is true that the annual federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion annually since Obama became president. The ad does not acknowledge that Obama inherited a growing deficit due in large part to unfunded wars and the unfunded prescription drug program for senior citizens, initiated by President Bush.
The answer to whether the nation's recovery has been the slowest in 70 years depends on how you measure it. The recession officially ended in June 2009, but unemployment continued to rise. Employment returned to end-of-recession levels after 20 months. That was nine months faster than the recovery from the 2001 recession, according to Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard. The stock market, one measure of the recovery, has rebounded, while housing has remained weak.
Gross domestic product has increased for 10 straight quarters, with increases ranging from a low of 0.4 percent to 3.9 percent. Going back to 1947, there has not been a period of 10 straight quarters of growth in which the growth never exceeded 4 percent in at least a single quarter.
It is taking longer for the country to re-create all of the jobs that were lost in this recession, largely because so many jobs were lost. Obama argues that the recession would have been worse without such actions as the auto industry bailout and the federal stimulus package. Romney contends those actions exacerbated the problems.
"Upon taking office, his state had a $3 billion deficit. By the end of his term, it had accumulated a $2 billion 'rainy day' fund."
When politicians at the state level talk about deficits, they are typically talking about projections — the situation expected to exist if no actions are taken to raise revenue and/or cut spending. But governors and legislatures are elected to take those kinds of actions and budgets usually end up being balanced by the end of the fiscal year.
Snyder's op-ed, echoing assertions by Romney, implies that Massachusetts was $3 billion in the hole, when was never really the case. Massachusetts had a rainy day fund of over $500 million at the end of 2002 as Romney was preparing to take office. It was, as Snyder says, more than $2 billion when he left office at the end of 2006.
Although Romney projected the $3 billion deficit, the number was reduced significantly by higher-than-anticipated capital gains tax revenue as well as unexpected federal aid. Factcheck.org estimates the actual shortfall at $1.2 billion. Romney relied on a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases — raising fees such as marriage licenses and court filings, and closing so-called "tax loopholes" to balance the budget. He also cut taxes, providing relief for senior citizens and tax credits for businesses. Critics said that reduction in state aid to local governments forced many cities and towns to raise local taxes.
"He will move immediately to reduce non-defense discretionary spending by 5 percent. He also sees a clear path to bring spending below 20 percent of Gross Domestic Product in four years, which is in line with historical precedent."
Snyder here is talking about all federal spending except defense and entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These items include roads, education, the FBI, national parks, environmental protection, aid to the poor, veterans programs and border patrol. Even if Romney cuts these 5 percent, it will have relatively little impact on the federal deficit. The Brookings Institution estimates that non-defense discretionary spending will total about $600 billion in 2012, about 18 percent of the total budget. A 5 percent cut of 18 percent equates to less than a 1 percent reduction in the total budget.
Reducing federal spending to below 20 percent of Gross Domestic Product in four years would in fact be a return to historical norms. The rate, now at 24 percent, was as low as 18 percent during the Clinton years.
Overall impression:
Gov. Snyder makes the case that Michigan has done well since electing someone from the private sector who understands the private sector. He asserts that Mitt Romney can do that nationally as president.
The ad emphasizes Romney's experience as Massachusetts governor and seeks to portray him as a hard-nosed executive who will make the tough choices to reduce the federal deficit and return the nation to prosperous times.
Foul or no foul:
Technical foul. There is nothing blatantly false in Snyder's op-ed piece. However, the claim that the economic recovery is the worst since the 1930s in at best undocumented, and exaggerates Romney's budgetary achievements in Massachusetts. It also ignores the roles that wars and policies launched during the administration of George W. Bush played in the rising federal deficit and slow economic recovery.
