Cut taxes. Raise defense spending. Balance the budget. That, in a nutshell, is the promise of Mitt Romney's 162-page, 59 point economic plan. But if that refrain sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. After all, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the leading lights of the Republican Party have been repackaging that same formula for over […]

At events across the country, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is trying to convince voters that small business owners in fact build the roads and bridges they use every day. Unfortunately, Romney's "We Did Build It" gatherings have hit some potholes, with many participants revealed to be the recipients of government contracts and subsidies and others […]

When it comes to touting bogus presidential endorsements by foreign leaders, candidate George W. Bush is in a class by himself. But while Governor Bush was (easily) duped by a Canadian comedy show into proudly accepting the backing of mythical Prime Minister Jean Poutine, Mitt Romney's misrepresentation of his private conversation with actual Australian foreign […]

During Mitt Romney's first run for the White House four years ago, his GOP rival Mike Huckabee warned that the former private equity CEO reminded voters of "the guy who laid them off." Now, with the growing imbroglio over his secret tax returns, labyrinthine overseas accounts and "I win even when they lose" Bain business […]

Even with four months to go until Election Day, Mitt Romney's shameless lying has already become one of the defining storylines of the 2012 campaign. Theories abound as to why Romney has emerged as a reverse George Washington, a man who cannot tell the truth. Jonathan Chait turned to Freud, explaining there's a clinical term […]

Among the myriad Republican myths about taxes, the most pernicious and demonstrably false - that "tax cuts pay for themselves" - is the mostly deeply held by the GOP faithful. As President George W. Bush famously (and erroneously) put it, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." Now, a survey of leading economists conducted […]

Back in 2007, Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney declared that taking a big payment from a company that later failed "would make me sick, sick at heart." If so, Romney by now must be badly in need of a quadruple by-pass. Because as the New York Times became just the latest to report, through […]

If nothing else, you have to admire Mitt Romney's persistence. After he formally announced his candidacy a year ago by declaring when President Obama "took office, the economy was in recession, and he made it worse, and he made it last longer," fact checkers quickly demolished Romney's obvious falsehood. But despite his subsequent denial just […]

"Politics," Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg declared during Harry Truman's presidency decades ago, "stops at the water's edge." Not, it turns out, for Mitt Romney. Three years ago, Romney blasted Obama's "apology tour" even as the President was visiting Cairo, Ankara and other capitals. (For that slander, the Washington Post fact-checker gave Romney a "Four Pinocchio" […]

In the wake of the disappointing May jobs report, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney comically charged that Barack Obama "hasn't put forth a plan to get us working again." Comically, that is, because the same Senate Republicans who gave the February 2009 stimulus bill only three votes filibustered President Obama's proposed $447 billion American Jobs […]