RYAN: "The commitment Mitt Romney and I make to you is this: We won't duck the tough issues, we will lead."
THE FACTS: So far, vital specifics are missing from Romney as he pledges broad cuts in federal spending, but more money for the armed forces, and significant tax cuts.
He proposes to cap federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product by the end of a first term, an ambitious goal that is not fleshed out with the painful choices that will be necessary for that to happen.
If current Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries are protected, domestic Cabinet agency budgets would have to take a hit in ways that could reshape government to its core.
Health research, transportation, homeland security, education, food inspection, housing and heating subsidies for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, grants to local governments and national parks are among the programs that would be at risk of substantial cuts.
Romney promises to cut a wide swath of spending by 5 percent immediately, but independent analysts say the cuts would have to be far deeper to meet budget goals and would be certain to meet stiff resistance in Congress.
RYAN on Obama: "And in his first two years, with his party in complete control of Washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda, but that didn't make things better. "
THE FACTS: Obama succeeded in achieving a stimulus plan, the automakers' bailout, his health care law, new rules in the financial services sector and more.
Ryan's assertion that the Obama agenda "didn't make things better" is primarily a political judgment call.
But no one seriously argues that the stimulus plan or the auto bailout made no difference at all.
The question is whether such spending was worth the gains that were made.
Obama's $800 billion-plus stimulus, enacted in February 2009, created both public-sector and private-sector jobs, even if not as many as its sponsors had hoped. The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, estimated that the stimulus saved or created more than 3 million jobs.
Princeton University economist Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the stimulus, together with the bank bailout started by President George W. Bush and continued by Obama, saved or created more than 10 million jobs.
An earlier CBO analysis estimated that stimulus trimmed the unemployment rate by 0.7 to 1.8 percentage points.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162...ims-when-mitt-romney-introduces-running-mate/
