The Obama campaign’s attack on Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts is coming under fire for distorting the truth.
On Thursday, current Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama surrogate, and campaign advisor David Axelrod twisted the facts in order to accuse Romney of betraying his fiscal conservatism during his tenure as governor, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Patrick, who succeeded Romney in January 2007, told CNN that Romney left office with a $1.1-billion deficit, an allegation repeated by Axelrod.
But Romney actually left Patrick with a balanced budget, thanks to $384 million in spending cuts that Romney made in his final weeks in office, along with a newly replenished $2-billion rainy-day fund.
The deficit alleged by Patrick and Axelrod was actually a warning from the outgoing Romney administration that tax projections for the following year could leave the new governor $1 billion short of what the state would need to maintain the current rate of spending growth. In the end, robust tax collections from a rising stock market meant that Patrick faced no budget shortfall. Patrick also reversed the spending cuts that Romney made on the way out.
The campaign also claimed that Romney cut taxes for the rich when, in fact, he issued rebates that benefitted "tens of thousands" of residents.