Hype And Blame: Obama Blames Others For Doing What He Proposed

Even After Two Unfavorable Fact Checks This Week, Obama Continues To Toss Around Faulty And Misleading Rhetoric On Student Loans

Today, Barack Obama Spoke With High School Students Accusing Republicans Of Attacking Women’s Health At The Expense Of Keeping Student Interest Rates Low.OBAMA: “For each year that college doesn’t act, the average student with these Stafford loans will rack up an additional thousand dollars in debt. That’s like a thousand dollar tax hike for more than 7 million students across America. Now, let me ask, is that something that you can afford if you’re going to college? You guys shouldn’t have to pay an extra thousand dollars just because congress can’t get its act together. This should be a no-brainer, this thing we need to get done. So the good news is the Senate will the vote next week on a bill that would keep student loan rates from doubling. And some Republican Senators look like they might support it. I’m ready to work with them to make it happen, but unfortunately, rather than find a bipartisan way to fix this problem, theHouse Republicans are saying they’re only going to prevent these rates from doubling if they can cut things like preventive health care for womeninstead. So — we shouldn’t have to choose between women having preventive health care and young people keeping their student loan rates low.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks At Washington-Lee High School, Arlington, VA, 5/4/12)

Fact Checkers Find That Obama Is Distorting The Real Truth

FactCheck.org: “We’ll Chalk This Up As Another Distortion In The Political ‘War On Women.'” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

• Obama And The Democrats Are “Overselling – By A – Long Shot” The Prevention Funds Impact On Women’s Health. “But the White House is overselling – by a long shot – the idea that the fund specifically helps women.” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

The Washington Post’s “The Fact Checker” Gave Nancy Pelosi “Two Pinocchios” On Her Claim That Republicans Are Waging An Assault On Women’s Health. “We wavered between one and two Pinocchios but ultimately this fits with two on our scale: ‘Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.'” (Glenn Kessler, “A GOP ‘Assault’ On Women’s Health?,” The Washington Post , 5/3/12)

• The Washington Post’s “The Fact Checker”: “Assault On Women” Claim “Smacks Of Political Opportunism.” “Maybe evidence of that will emerge through the regular appropriations process-at which point we could revisit this ruling – but for the moment this smacks of political opportunism.” (Glenn Kessler, “A GOP ‘Assault’ On Women’s Health?,” The Washington Post , 5/3/12)

FactCheck.org: Obama And His Administration Are “Greatly Exaggerating” The Benefits For Women From ObamaCare’s Prevention Fund. “Republicans are right: The White House is greatly exaggerating when it says that ‘women, in particular,’ benefit from a prevention fund that the House GOP proposes to repeal. The truth is that the fund in question wasn’t set up specifically for women’s health programs, and we could find no concrete evidence that it has paid anything to gender-specific health programs so far.” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

Obama’s Criticism Comes Even After Obama Had Proposed To Cut The Very Same Fund By Billions And Agreed To Slash The Fund By $5 Billion. “The president’s fiscal 2013 budget proposes to slash $4 billion from the fund over 10 years. Furthermore, in February, Democrats agreed to a $5 billion cut in the fund to help pay for extending a payroll tax cut and delaying a reduction in Medicare payment to physicians. That bill passed with bipartisan support.” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

• Last Year, The Obama Administration Didn’t Argue That Cutting The Fund Would Hurt Women. “A year ago, however, when another Republican bill proposed eliminating the fund, the White House stated its opposition to the measure but didn’t mention women’s health as a focus of the fund.” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

FactCheck.org: “There’s No Specific Mention Of Women’s Health Projects” On The Health And Human Services Website Describing The Prevention Fund. “HHS says on its website that much of the money has gone to state and community projects that ‘are already using Prevention Fund dollars to help control the obesity epidemic, fight health disparities, detect and quickly respond to health threats, reduce tobacco use, train the nation’s public health workforce, modernize vaccine systems, prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, increase public health programs’ effectiveness and efficiency, and improve access to behavioral health services.’ There’s no specific mention of women’s health projects.” (“White House Spins Women’s Health,” FactCheck.org, 5/2/12)

• The Washington Post’s “The Fact Checker”: “There Are Virtually No Specific Programs Aimed At Women Currently In The [Prevention And Public Health] Fund.” “From Pelosi’s statement, one could imagine a wholesale ‘assault’ to strip funding for women’s health programs. But in fact, there are virtually no specific programs aimed at women currently in the fund. In the future, the administration hopes to add such programs, but that is not the reality today, as evidenced by the fact the administration never raised this concern last year when the GOP-led House also voted to kill the preventive health care fund.” (Glenn Kessler, “A GOP ‘Assault’ On Women’s Health?,” The Washington Post , 5/3/12)