South Carolina Debate Fact Check Times reporters take a closer look at some of the statements made by the Republican presidential candidates during Monday night's debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Obama and Food Stamps Newt Gingrich described President Obama as "the best food stamp president in American history" and said the growth of food aid tended to "maximize dependency." "More people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history," Mr. Gingrich said Monday. Agriculture Department statistics show that the number of food stamp recipients has increased 44 percent, to 46.2 million in October 2011, from 32 million in January 2009, when Mr. Obama took office. The total cost of the program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, increased to $75.3 billion in fiscal year 2011, from $53.6 billion in fiscal year 2009 and $33 billion in fiscal year 2007, before the recession began. The growth partly reflects an increase in need, as millions of Americans have lost income and lost jobs or remain out of work. In addition, food prices have increased, eligibility has been expanded, and the 2009 economic stimulus law temporarily increased benefits. Before Mr. Obama took office, food stamp participation was rising, in part because of federal policies that encouraged low-income people to seek aid for which they were eligible. Nearly half of food stamp recipients are under age 18. Nearly 30 percent of food stamp households have earned income. Only 15 percent of such households have income above the poverty level ($18,500 for a family of three in 2011). Robert Pear Gingrich and U.N. Program Mr. Gingrich said Mitt Romney's "super PAC" had distorted his record on a bill he co-sponsored with Representative Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, with Mr. Romney saying that the bill would have given $60 million a year to a United Nations program supporting China's brutal one-child policy. The bill actually attempted to address climate change, PolitiFact says, and a third of the House members were co-sponsors. "The bill did propose money for the United Nations Population Fund, but it stated specifically that its funding could not be used for "involuntary sterilization or abortion or to coerce any person to accept family planning," " PolitiFact said. Katharine Q. Seelye Gingrich on Balanced Budgets While making the case for why his plan to privatize Social Security would not add to the national debt, Mr. Gingrich argued that he was responsible for four balanced federal budgets - and so could be trusted to be fiscally responsible. It is a claim Mr. Gingrich makes almost every day on the campaign trail, but it is based on an odd timeline. The years of balanced budgets in question are from fiscal 1998 through 2001, but Mr. Gingrich was in office for only the first two. He left the House in January 1999 and had no role in crafting the budgets for the subsequent two years. When pressed on this discrepancy, Mr. Gingrich sometimes argues that he deserves credit for policies enacted in the 1990s that promoted economic prosperity and established a climate for balancing budgets that carried beyond his time in office. This is at least the third time The Times has fact-checked this claim. PolitiFact has also looked into it repeatedly, most recently at the last Fox News debate in Iowa in December, when it was rated "false." Trip Gabriel Obama and Military Spending Mr. Romney was wrong in stating that Mr. Obama wants to cut $1 trillion from military spending. The administration is committed to reductions of less than half that amount over 10 years - about $450 billion, or roughly 8 percent of the Pentagon budget over a decade. Moreover, Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats support the level of cuts that Mr. Obama seeks. The cuts were mandated as part of the bipartisan deficit-reduction agreement with Mr. Obama in August. That bipartisan deal does include another round of cuts in January 2013 that would be automatic, half in domestic programs and half in the military, and it would bring total military reductions to about $1 trillion over 10 years. But the administration opposes that outcome for the Pentagon. Mr. Obama's defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has said reductions on that scale would be ruinous. Mr. Obama has proposed alternative deficit-reduction measures to avoid the threatened automatic cuts, but Republicans oppose his plan because it calls for additional revenues from higher taxes on the wealthy as well as spending reductions in entitlement benefit programs like Medicare, farm subsidies and federal pension programs. Jackie Calmes Negotiating With the Taliban Mr. Romney says he would never negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan with the Taliban. Instead, he argued, "we should kill the Taliban." On this issue, he is at odds with not only the Obama administration, but also with many of his fellow Republicans. As Henry Kissinger, among others, have pointed out, you don't end wars negotiating with your friends. You end them negotiating with your enemies. It was a Republican president - Dwight D. Eisenhower - who negotiated a cease-fire in Korea in the early 1950s, and another Republican, Richard M. Nixon, who negotiated an exit from Vietnam. And it was the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, whose administration took the position that the United States needed to defeat Al Qaeda but not the Taliban. The latter, argued Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, can be diminished, and forced to the bargaining table. But Mr. Romney would take a far harder-line position. What he did not say is how many troops it would take - and how many years it would take - to defeat the Taliban. But in his critique that Mr. Obama weakened the American negotiating position by setting a date for American withdrawal, Mr. Romney is very much in the mainstream - many in the Pentagon agree with him. So do some Democratic strategists. David E. Sanger Gingrich on Private Retirement Accounts Mr. Gingrich called for major changes in Social Security, saying that younger workers should be allowed to put their share of the Social Security payroll tax into voluntary private accounts. "It makes every American an investor when they first go to work,"" Mr. Gingrich said of the proposal. "They all have a buildup of an estate, which you do not get in the current system."" Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney ripped into the proposal, saying it could increase federal deficits and debt at a time when the government should be reducing them. Supporters of individual investment accounts say they would allow workers to earn a higher rate of return than they get from the Social Security trust fund. Mr. Gingrich did not say exactly how he would pay the costs of making this change, which could be huge. Economists say that money diverted to private Social Security accounts would otherwise be available to pay benefits of current retirees, and that the government would need to find other ways to cover these costs. Mr. Santorum said he had favored private accounts for 15 years, but thought the idea would be "fiscal insanity"" at the moment. If Mr. Gingrich is right in suggesting that 95 percent of younger workers would establish private accounts, Mr. Santorum said, "there'll be hundreds of billions of dollars in increased debts,"" and "we're going to be borrowing money from China to fund these accounts, which is wrong."" Mr. Romney said, "We simply can't say we're going to go out and borrow more and more money to let people set up new accounts that take money away from Social Security and Medicare today." One way to offset the cost, Mr. Gingrich said, is to consolidate "185 different federal bureaucracies that deal with low-income Americans."" Mr. Gingrich said the government could slash overhead costs by consolidating these programs into a single block grant and sending it to the states. Romney on Tax Returns Mr. Romney declined to commit to release his income tax returns when challenged twice, first by Mr. Gingrich and then by a debate questioner, but said he might do so in April. Last month, he said in an interview that he doubted that he would release the returns. The nonpartisan fact-checking organization PolitiFact said in December that a Democratic National Committee claim that presidential candidates have traditionally released their income tax returns was "mostly true." The group reviewed the post-Watergate presidential races and found that of 34 presidential and vice-presidential candidates, seven declined to release their returns. PolitiFact noted that Mr. Romney did not release his returns when he ran for governor and senator in Massachusetts and for president in 2008. It estimated his fortune at $190 million and $250 million, based on financial disclosure forms required of all presidential candidates by the Federal Election Commission. Obama and International Trade Reprising a charge he leveled against President Obama in New Hampshire, Mr. Romney suggested tonight that Mr. Obama had done nothing to advance trade with other countries. "This president has opened up no new markets for American goods around the world in his three years, even as European nations and China have opened up 44," Mr. Romney charged. Not true: Mr. Obama has signed three trade deals since taking office, one each with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The South Korean deal was characterized by Bloomberg News as the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. Pushed by the Web site PolitiFact on the discrepancy, aides to Mr. Romney said the criticism was accurate because the deals originated in negotiations under the Bush administration, before Mr. Obama took office. But the fact remains that all three were signed by Mr. Obama in October 2011. Indeed, PolitiFact noted that all three agreements faced significant resistance from the president's own party, but ultimately passed after extensive negotiations between Mr. Obama and Congress. Nicholas Confessore Santorum on Education Rick Santorum's call earlier in the debate for the federal government to get out of elementary and secondary education was a crowd pleaser for an audience full of conservatives. He may have also had in mind Christian home schoolers in South Carolina. Mr. Santorum and his wife home-schooled their children. But the full ramifications of such a withdrawal are perhaps not fully appreciated. Historically, public education has been a responsibility of state and local governments, with the federal government imposing standards meant to raise the achievement of disadvantaged students and to ensure that students with disabilities receive an equal education. According to the Department of Education Web site, the federal government currently contributes 10.8 percent of the cost of elementary and secondary education. Much of the department's $68 billion budget supports classroom enrichment for poor students and aid for students with disabilities. The federal money is both carrot and stick to compel school districts to enforce federal laws. All of the Republican candidates have called for a significant cutback in this formula, which has had bipartisan support since the 1960s. The candidates often say they would give the money as block grants to states and local districts, while repealing federal requirements. But many education experts, including in conservative research groups, doubt that many states would continue to uphold federal standards for poor and disabled students. Jackie Calmes and Trip Gabriel Romney on Obama's Job Plan Mr. Romney said that while he already has a jobs plan even though he is not "yet" president, President Obama does not have a jobs plan. This is incorrect. Mr. Obama sent legislation to Congress in early September that called for $447 billion in temporary tax cuts and spending initiatives that private-sector macroeconomic forecasters said would create up to 1.9 million additional jobs in 2012 and add up to two percentage points to the rate of economic growth. More than half of the package consists of tax cuts, including an extension and expansion of the current two-point cut in workers" 6.2 percent payroll tax for Social Security contributions, which would increase it to 3.1 percent for employees and provide relief to employers as well. Mr. Obama also called for financing for infrastructure projects to create jobs and subsidies to states to keep teachers and first responders in their jobs. Republicans have blocked much of the package because Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats proposed to offset the cost of the package with higher taxes on the wealthiest individuals. Congress and Mr. Obama agreed in December to a two-month extension of the current worker payroll tax relief and are negotiating on a full-year extension, but the partisan split over how to pay for the tax cut remains. Paul on Overseas Bases Representative Ron Paul's argument for closing American bases overseas goes to a critical question in American defense strategy: In the long run, is it more or less expensive to keep troops "forward deployed"? It is not an easy question to answer, but it is also not as black and white as Mr. Paul made it sound. Some major allies, like Japan, pay to keep American troops on their soil. And in many cases, keeping troops abroad is considered a way to deter bad behavior - that is why the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, is focused on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, despite Iranian threats. David Sanger Romney's 120,000 Jobs While defending his record as a corporate buyout specialist at Bain Capital, Mr. Romney said tonight that companies he had invested in while at Bain "ended up today having some 120,000 jobs." Mr. Romney arrives at the 100,000 jobs number by combining the current employment figures of three main companies that Bain Capital invested in - Staples, Sports Authority and Domino's Pizza. However, that number only addresses a small group of companies that Mr. Romney was successful in starting or turning around, and does not take into account the less successful companies that Bain Capital invested in, some of which went bankrupt or were forced to lay off workers. It is also worth noting that Bain Capital was not always a controlling investor in these companies. Tonight, according to his campaign, Mr. Romney was specifically referring to four start-up companies - Staples, Sports Authority, Bright Horizons and Steel Dynamics. Mr. Romney's 100,000 figure (or, in the case of tonight's debate, the 120,000 figure) only takes into account his successful instances of job creation, and does not offset the number of jobs created by the number of jobs lost. Ashley Parker "Super PAC" Coordination When Mr. Romney was criticized tonight for attack ads that a "super PAC" supporting him has run against his opponents, he dismissed the suggestion that he could do anything about it. Romney's Record on Taxes Mr. Gingrich declared that Mr. Romney "raised taxes" as governor of Massachusetts. Mr. Romney argues that he actually reduced taxes 19 times. Mr. Romney is correct. So is Mr. Gingrich - sort of. Mr. Romney, who ran for governor on a pledge of no new taxes, closed about a dozen loopholes that allowed Massachusetts corporations to avoid paying various taxes. Corporations in the state viewed the moves as tax increases, as did Grover Norquist, the influential head of Americans for Tax Reform; Mr. Romney rejected that description, saying he was merely demanding that companies pay their fair share. By the end of Mr. Romney's term, the loophole closings required companies to pay about $370 million a year in additional taxes, a nearly 20 percent increase from the period before he took office, according to an analysis of government data by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit research group that receives financing from corporations. The Romney administration also increased dozens of fees for Massachusetts residents and business (like the cost of a road test for a commercial driver's license, to $40 from $20). As with the loophole closings, these were not taxes, per se, but close to it, critics said. But the distinction is crucial for Mr. Romney, who has long run on an antitax campaign message. Michael Barbaro