1. Dodd-Frank hurts small community banks. In condemning financial regulation approved by Congress to prevent another economic crisis, Mitt Romney suggested Dodd-Frank hurts the banking sector, especially small community banks because, he cited, small banks do not have the resources to hire legal advisors to implement the new regulations. However, lobbyists won exemptions for community banks for many of the Dodd-Frank legal requirements, so the new regulations do not necessary apply to small banks that are not too big to fail.
2. America has a weak presence in the Persian Gulf. If there was one major foreign policy theme uniting Republicans against the Obama administration, it has been Iran. According to Mr. Romney we have zero aircraft carriers in the gulf and are not confronting Iran. In fact, White House and Pentagon officials say they keep an average of 1.8 carriers in the gulf at any one time, and Mr. Obama has led a consortium of nations to approve new round of sanctions against Iran.
3. The Navy is smaller today than at any time since 1917. Mitt Romney, who is against the growth of government on normal days, questioned the decline of the Navy, saying, “our Navy is now smaller than at any time since 1917.” In fact, the Navy has never been stronger with the advances of new technology, including the development of drones and the advancement of nuclear weapons, so comparing today’s military to that of 60 to 100 years ago is comparing apples to oranges. The United States spent $149.9 billion on the Navy alone in 2012, which is expected to increase in the coming years.
4. Newt Gingrich was never a lobbyist. Newt Gingrich continues to argue he was never a lobbyist in Washington, even though his consulting firm received as much as $200,000 a year from companies such as Novo Nordisk, a drug maker, who hired Mr. Gingrich to help expand the market for its diabetes treatments in the United States. In its annual report to shareholders, Novo Nordisk noted Mr. Gingrich’s work for the company, saying, “Such activities are often referred to as lobbying.”
5. Rick Santorum lost re-election in Pennsylvania because it was a bad year for Republicans. Mr. Santorum lost the election in 2006 by 18 percentage points because, as he argues, it was a “meltdown year” for Republicans. However, Mr. Santorum fails to mention he alienated conservatives by endorsing Arlen Specter over conservative Congressman Pat Toomey in the 2004 primary for Pennsylvania’s other senate seat.
