Ryan:Simpson-Bowles Commission. “I found it utterly hypocritical, and it was, at a minimum, disingenuous not to mention his (Ryan’s) membership on the commission,” said Ornstein, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “The reality is that the three House Republicans who voted against it, unlike the Senate Republicans, were instrumental in keeping the plan from coming directly to Congress. John Spratt (the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee) voted for the plan, and one of the other House Democrats on the Commission, Xavier Becerra, subsequently indicated a willingness to act on entitlement reforms, while none of the three House Republicans were willing to budge on taxes.”

Ryan falsely claimed Obama broke his promise to keep a Wisconsin GM plant from closing. There is no evidence Obama explicitly made such a promise — and more importantly, the Janesville plant shut down before he took office.

Ryan said Obama “funneled” $716 billion out of Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” The law limits payments to health care providers and insurers to try to reduce the rapid growth of future Medicare spending. Those savings, spread out over the next 10 years, are then used to offset costs created by the law (especially coverage for the uninsured) so that the overall law doesn’t add to the deficit.

Romney said Obama began his presidency “with an apology tour.” A review of Obama’s foreign travels and remarks during his early presidency showed no evidence to support such a blunt and disparaging claim. Obama’s speeches contained some criticisms of past U.S. actions, combining those passages with praise for the United States. Politifact did not find a single apology in his speeches.

Romney declared that “this Obama economy has crushed the middle class” citing the following: Romney: “the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future.” Americans are indeed pessimistic about their children’s prospects. That’s nothing new, according to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. For at least the last 20 years, Americans have expected that our kids would be worse off than we are. Romney cast this national outlook as specifically an Obama-era phenomenon. Romney: “unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class.” Obama has not raised taxes on middle-income taxpayers. In fact, he has targeted tax cuts and credits to benefit them. Poverty: Romney: “More Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.” It’s also true that there are more Americans now. The rise started well before Obama took office. Gasoline: Romney: “Gasoline prices have doubled” since Obama took office. That’s correct, but only because gasoline prices were unusually depressed when Obama was inaugurated due to the recession and financial crisis. Premiums: Romney: “Health insurance premiums are higher” under Obama. But premiums have been going up for years. Experts say the federal health care law was responsible for only a small part of the recent hike in employer-based plans. Gingrich dutifully repeated a meritless Romney claim, asserting that Obama “gutted” the 1990s welfare overhaul, and accusing him of “waiving” the law’s work requirement. Obama has simply allowed state governors to seek waivers from the law’s requirements, if they can propose a more effective way to move people from welfare to work. Nothing has been waived yet. Romney’s lieutenant governor boasted Romney “cut taxes 19 times” as governor. Tax rates remained unchanged under Romney. Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group, called his tax record “mixed,” because he raised hundreds of millions of dollars by increasing fees and closing loopholes in the corporate tax structure.

Next week: Factchecking the Democratic National Convention.

Sources: http://www.politifact.com/ http://www.factcheck.org.