Fact-checking Paul Ryan's RNC speech
(CBS News) Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan brought several standing ovations at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.
A few facts, however, raised a lot of eyebrows for stretching the truth.
"A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant..." began Ryan on stage.
The controversy over Ryan's accuracy starts with his version of the now closed GM plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wisc. Ryan suggested the President broke a promise to help the Janesville plant stay open and he called the plant a symbol of how the President had failed the recovery.
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"It is locked up and empty to this day," Ryan said of the plant. "And that's how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."
But GM confirmed Thursday that it shut down the Janesville plant a month before the president took office. Candidate Obama did promise "an effort to retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville," but GM statement says "from a business perspective, (the Janesville closing) was a done deal" by December 2008.
Ryan also blamed the president for failing to act on the Simpson-Bowles debt commission - a bipartisan panel that proposed deficit reductions of around $4 trillion - by combining tax increases with spending cuts. Again, the lack of action was the president's fault.
"They came back with an urgent report," Ryan said on stage. "He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing."
It's true that the president never endorsed Simpson-Bowles - but Ryan played a major role in why the commission failed. Ryan was a member on that panel, but cast a critical vote against its recommendations because he said there were not enough controls on the cost of health care.
"You're keeping Obamacare in place. And I have a problem with that health care law," Ryan said. "This budget and Simpson-Bowles keeps it in place."
