When it came to health-care and tax reform, nearly everything that came out of Vice President Bidens mouth was untrue. Heres an incomplete list:
1. Biden repeated the false talking points — as did moderator Martha Raddatz (!) — about the Romney Medicare plan exposing seniors to higher costs. In fact, the Romney plan is explicitly designed to ensure that seniors are not exposed to any additional costs.
2. Biden repeated the false talking points about Obamacares $716 billion in Medicare cuts not being real cuts, because they allegedly dont cut "benefits." Indeed, the ratio of Obamacares Medicare cuts to "new benefits" is 15 to 1.
3. Biden claimed that Democratic senator Ron Wyden opposes the Wyden-Ryan Medicare reform plan. Wyden opposes the House GOP budget, because it repeals Obamacare and block-grants Medicaid, but rest assured that Wyden still supports the Wyden-Ryan plan. And that plan is actually to the right of Romneys plan, because Wyden-Ryan contains a hard cap on Medicare spending growth (GDP + 1 percent) whereas Romneys plan contains no growth cap.
4. Biden claimed that having the government directly negotiate drug prices under Medicare Part D would save taxpayers "$156 billion right off the bat." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that such a change "would have a negligible effect on drug spending."
5. Biden claimed that Paul Ryans House budgets would "knock 19 million people off of Medicare." This is an entirely made-up figure. Not a single person would lose their Medicare coverage under Ryans budgets, and not a single person would under Romneys plan either.
6. Biden repeated the long-debunked claim that Romney seeks a "$5 trillion tax cut," when in fact Romneys tax proposal is designed to be revenue-neutral. Furthermore, Biden claimed that there is a study from AEI supporting his claims. "The American Enterprise Institute study [says that] taxes will go up on the middle class," claimed Biden. There is no such study. Two AEI scholars, Matt Jensen and Alex Brill, have in fact made the opposite case.
For those who enjoy getting in the weeds, I have more details over at my Forbes blog.
Original Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330237/bidens-frequent-falsifications-medicare-and-tax-reform-avik-roy