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Opinion

Six numbers to ignore from the presidential campaign

President Obama has repeatedly said that the Medicare "voucher" plan proposed by GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan would raise seniors' costs by $6,400 a year. The figure comes from a study by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which used projections from the Congressional Budget Office to estimate out-of-pocket costs that future retirees would face under the budget Ryan proposed -- a year and a half ago. Yes, Mitt Romney endorsed that budget earlier in the campaign, but Ryan has changed his proposal significantly, and Romney has his own plan for Medicare. According to the Romney campaign, that plan would provide subsidies large enough to cover the cost of at least two different insurance plans offering at least as much coverage as traditional Medicare.

President Obama has repeatedly said that the Medicare “voucher” plan proposed by GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan would raise seniors’ costs by $6,400 a year. The figure comes from a study by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which used projections from the Congressional Budget Office to estimate out-of-pocket costs that future retirees would face under the budget Ryan proposed -- a year and a half ago. Yes, Mitt Romney endorsed that budget earlier in the campaign, but Ryan has changed his proposal significantly, and Romney has his own plan for Medicare. According to the Romney campaign, that plan would provide subsidies large enough to cover the cost of at least two different insurance plans offering at least as much coverage as traditional Medicare.   (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press )

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The presidential race has been replete with statistics and data tossed out by the candidates that purport to show something threatening or wrongheaded about their opponent’s policies. Typically, they don’t just make up their numbers; instead, they take research produced by someone else (often an ideologically friendly source), then apply their own spin. And in many cases, that spin takes the statistic so far out of context, it becomes misleading at best. Here are six examples of numbers frequently cited by the Obama and Romney campaigns that voters should either ignore or take with a very large grain of salt. --Jon Healey

23 million

In both of his debates with President Obama, GOP rival Mitt Romney has asserted that there are “23 million” Americans “out of work.” That figure combines estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of people who are out of work -- the unemployed, who number about 12 million -- with part-time employees who’d rather be working full-time -- the underemployed, about 8.6 million -- and those who’ve given up finding work or are only marginally attached to the labor force -- 2.5 million. It’s fair to say these people are struggling to find enough work, but Romney’s statements imply that they’re all jobless.  (Julie Jacobson / Associated Press)

$300 million

To deflect criticism about the fatal attack on the U.S. ambassador to Libya, the Obama campaign has accused GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of proposing to cut $300 million from the budget for embassy security. As Vice President Joe Biden put it in his debate with Ryan, “the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.” But there was no such reduction in Ryan’s budget, which didn’t specify a funding level for embassies. Instead, the figure was derived by the Obama campaign by assuming across-the-board cuts to all discretionary programs based on the overall spending caps the budget proposed. That’s quite a stretch, especially considering how Republicans have sought to cut social programs in order to maintain spending on security-related needs.   (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

$716 billion

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), have repeatedly accused President Obama of “cutting” $716 billion from Medicare in order to offset the cost of the 2010 healthcare law. Those “cuts,” which Ryan incorporated into his own budget proposals, don’t reduce the benefits provided by the core Medicare program, however. Instead, they reduce the subsidies paid to private insurers through the Medicare Advantage program and trim the rate increases that doctors and hospitals are slated to receive. Critics of the changes say that Medicare Advantage customers are likely to lose some of the extra benefits that program provides. But contrary to its original purpose, Medicare Advantage has been less efficient at delivering benefits than traditional Medicare has been.   (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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