President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney threw a lot of facts and numbers at each other in Denver Wednesday night — details often so jarringly at odds that the two men seemed to be inhabiting two parallel universes. 
 
 Here’s POLITICO’s guide to sorting through some of the edgiest claims, and what the independent experts off the stage have had to say about what the two candidates claimed: 
 
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 reset 2012 First Presidential Debate in Denver POLITICO's 2012 Presidential Debate Post Game 
 
 (See also: Complete coverage of 2012 presidential debates) 
 
 The $5 Trillion Tax Cut 
 
 Romney: “I’m not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. … I won’t put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit. That’s part one. So there’s no economist that can say Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan. ... .I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.” 
 
 Obama: “Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut….For 18 months he’s been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he’s saying that his big, bold idea is, ‘Never mind.’” 
 
 (PHOTOS: Scenes from the Denver debate) 
 
 Independent analysts say Romney’s numbers don’t add up. The rate cuts and other changes he’s proposing would indeed total almost $5 trillion over 10 years, and though he said Wednesday he’d pay for those cuts by reducing deductions and credits, a study by the Tax Policy Center found that it was “mathematically impossible” to cover the $5 trillion reduction by eliminating tax breaks solely on high-income taxpayers. 
 
 In an interview earlier this week, Romney said he might cap deductions at $17,000. During the debate, he suggested such a cap might kick in at $25,000 or $50,000. However, it’s not clear how those limits would get around the problem the Tax Policy Center study noted. The Romney camp contends that study is biased and points to others with different results. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Romney’s 5 best debate lines) 
 
 Romney acknowledged Wednesday that the bare numbers of his tax plan might not be revenue-neutral, but he said growth and new jobs created by his policies would generate added revenue to cover the gap. 
 
 Simpson-Bowles 
 
 Obama: “We’ve [taken the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan,] made some adjustments to it, and we’re putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan.” 
 
 Obama made the deficit-cutting plan he’s offered sound comparable to the plan from the chairmen of the Simpson-Bowles debt cutting commission. But it’s not: His proposal doesn’t save as much money as Simpson-Bowles and doesn’t offer the kinds of detailed entitlement cuts the panel’s leaders did. 
 
 The president’s $4 trillion plan, including $3 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in tax hikes from allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire, is spread over 10 years — a year longer than Simpson-Bowles. It sounds like a minor difference, but cuts and spending balloon in the so-called out years. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama’s 5 best debate lines) 
 
 Also, Obama doesn’t touch Social Security in his plan. And the tax changes and war spending are accounted in ways that make Obama’s plan substantially less aggressive. 
 
 “The president’s budget falls well short of the savings claimed by the [Simpson-Bowles] commission,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The committee, the kind of wonky group Obama loves to cite, said Obama’s plan provided only about two-thirds of the savings Simpson-Bowles proposed over a comparable period with comparable assumptions. ||||| Wall Street executives who lost a bet that Republican Mitt Romney would defeat President Barack Obama are bracing for tougher regulation and hoping a deal can be struck with Congress to cut the deficit. 
 
 Obama’s choice to succeed Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will be watched closely for signs about the administration’s approach to business and the deficit, industry executives said. Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton, would be a sign that Obama is willing to endorse a bipartisan debt-reduction plan supported by many business leaders, they said. 
 
 “With the appointment of the Treasury secretary, Obama will be sending an important message to the public and to the foreign governments who own a lot of Treasuries,” Curtis Arledge, chief executive officer of Bank of New York Mellon Corp.’s investment-management arm, which oversees $1.4 trillion, told journalists in New York yesterday. “If he goes with somebody like Erskine Bowles, then the message will be that he cares about the deficit and is serious about cutting it.” 
 
 Shares of Wall Street firms fell in New York yesterday on what analysts said were dashed hopes that a Romney administration would roll back or temper the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that overhauled financial regulation. Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) each tumbled more than 6 percent, putting them among the 10 biggest decliners in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. (SPX) 
 
 Campaign Contributions 
 
 Employees of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Credit Suisse Group AG made their firms the five biggest sources of campaign contributions to Romney, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks political donations. 
 
 Still, executives at the firms downplayed the significance of the election, focusing instead on the need to achieve political agreement on debt reduction and avert the so-called fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take effect at the beginning of next year. 
 
 “The outcome of the election almost takes a backseat to the formulation of a plan to address the federal deficit,” James Mahoney, Bank of America’s head of corporate communications and public policy, said in a phone interview. “That is clearly the No. 1 focus at this point. It’s an essential ingredient for stability of the financial markets and for a strong economy.” 
 
 Simpson-Bowles Plan 
 
 Wall Street leaders started throwing their support behind Bowles’s debt-reduction efforts even before the election. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, 56, said last month that the economy “would be booming” if Congress had passed the so-called Simpson-Bowles plan co-authored with former Republican Senator Alan Simpson last year. 
 
 Obama named the two in February 2010 to lead an 18-member bipartisan commission. Its $3.8 trillion budget-cutting plan would have lowered individual and corporate income-tax rates, eliminated deductions such as the one for mortgage interest, raised the gasoline tax and reduced Social Security, Medicare and discretionary spending. 
 
 The plan was rejected by seven commission members, including Romney’s vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan, and failed to reach the 14 votes required to send it to Congress. It never was taken up for a vote by the Senate and was defeated 382-38 in a House vote this year. 
 
 Blankfein Backing 
 
 Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, 58, was interviewed with Bowles and Simpson on CNBC on Oct. 11 to promote reviving a bipartisan plan to reduce the $16 trillion U.S. government debt. 
 
 If there were “some compromise laid out, what kind of stimulus do you think that would provide?” Blankfein asked at the time. “I’d be a buyer of the market.” 
 
 Blankfein, who wouldn’t reveal which candidate he voted for, said now that it’s over, “we can all focus on playing a part toward our shared goal of making our country and economy more successful.” 
 
 Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, declined to comment when asked which candidate Dimon supported. 
 
 “To succeed in business you have to be able to compromise, why should that be different in politics?” John Mack, the former chairman of Morgan Stanley and a Romney backer, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu. “Erskine has plenty of experience not only in government but in business. He ran his own business. He grew up in business.” 
 
 Bowles has served as a board member of Morgan Stanley since December 2005, when Mack was CEO and chairman. He is also a director of Facebook Inc. (FB) and Norfolk Southern Corp. His wife, Crandall Bowles, is on JPMorgan’s board. 
 
 Fink, Lew 
 
 Mack said he doesn’t think the administration worked closely enough with the business community, adding that he would be comforted by seeing Obama choose a CEO to run Treasury such as BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink, General Electric Co.’s Jeff Immelt, American Express Co.’s Kenneth I. Chenault or Honeywell International Inc.’s David Cote. 
 
 “Not only are they first-class executives but they’re global, and the next Treasury secretary has to have experience in the global economy,” he said. 
 
 Others on Wall Street said that experience in Washington might be more important for the next Treasury secretary than a business background. Jacob Lew, 57, Obama’s chief of staff, has years of experience as both a congressional aide and as director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 
 
 Lew “knows his way around Washington” and also has “strong backing” from Obama, Evercore Partners Inc. CEO Ralph Schlosstein, an Obama supporter, told Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle yesterday. Bowles, while also knowledgeable about Washington, “doesn’t bring the same closeness to the president,” he said. 
 
 ‘Massive Negotiation’ 
 
 Harry Wilson, founder and CEO of corporate-restructuring firm Maeva Group LLC and a former adviser to Obama’s Auto Task Force, attributed a decline in stock markets after the election to concern that Obama won’t be able to negotiate successfully with House Republicans to achieve agreement on debt reduction. 
 
 “This president’s been the primary obstacle to it and some of his political staff,” Wilson, a Romney supporter, told Schatzker and Ruhle yesterday. “This is a massive negotiation, and it’s being led by a guy who hasn’t negotiated a deal really in his life.” 
 
 ‘The Taxman’ 
 
 The solution worked out by the Obama administration will probably include more tax increases and fewer spending cuts than investors thought before the election, which is weighing on the market, Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross told Bloomberg Television’s Trish Regan. 
 
 “We played the old Beatles song ‘The Taxman,’ on our trading floor this morning,” said Gross, who manages the $281 billion Total Return Fund. 
 
 Winning the confidence of investors, bankers and foreign governments will depend in large part on who Obama chooses to lead Treasury. 
 
 “We hope they do in fact make good progress in terms of the quality of the individual that goes into this role,” Kevin Kabat, CEO of Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp, said in a phone interview. “It will be really the determining legacy of the next four years.” 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net. ||||| CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We heard a number of dubious or misleading claims on the first night of the Democratic National Convention: 
 
 The keynote speaker and others claimed the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, would raise taxes on the “middle class.” He has promised he won’t. Democrats base their claim on a study that doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion. 
 
 The keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, also said there have been 4.5 million “new jobs” under Obama. The fact is the economy has regained only 4 million of the 4.3 million jobs lost since Obama took office. 
 
 Castro also insisted Romney and Ryan would “gut” Pell Grants for lower-income college students. Actually, the Ryan budget calls only for “limiting the growth” of spending for the program, and Ryan has said the maximum grant of $5,550 would not be decreased. 
 
 A Democratic governor said Romney “left his state 47th out of 50 in job growth.” Actually, Massachusetts went from 50th in job creation during Romney’s first year to 28th in his final year. 
 
 Two advocates of equal-pay legislation said women make 77 cents for every dollar men earn. That’s true on average, but the gap for women doing the same work as men is much less, and not entirely or even mostly the result of job discrimination. 
 
 A union president accused Romney of seeking “a government bailout” for “his company.” Not really. In fact, Romney negotiated a favorable but routine settlement with bank regulators on behalf of a former company, the one he had left to form his own Bain Capital firm. No taxpayer funds were involved. 
 
 Multiple speakers repeated a claim that the Ryan/Romney Medicare plan would cost seniors $6,400 a year. That’s a figure that applied to Ryan’s 2011 budget plan, but his current proposal (the one Romney embraces) is far more generous. The Congressional Budget Office says it “may” lead to higher costs for beneficiaries, but it can’t estimate how much. 
 
 In prepared remarks released to reporters, Rep. James Clyburn engaged in partisan myth-making with the claim “Democrats created Social Security” while Republicans “cursed the darkness.” History records strong bipartisan support in both House and Senate for the measure President Roosevelt signed in 1935. 
 
 Note to Readers Our managing editor, Lori Robertson, is on the scene in Charlotte at the convention center. This story was written with the help of the entire staff, based in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. We are vetting the major speeches at this convention for factual accuracy, holding Democrats to the same standards we applied in last week’s coverage of the Republican convention. 
 
 Middle-Class Taxes 
 
 The keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, repeated a frequent but groundless Democratic talking point, warning that Romney would raise taxes on the middle class. 
 
 Castro was joined in this by other Democrats including former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. But they all misrepresented the position Romney has made clearly and repeatedly — that he would somehow lower taxes on those in the middle class. Their claim rests on a distortion of a nonpartisan group’s findings. 
 
 Castro: And now we need to make a choice. It’s a choice between a country where the middle class pays more, so that millionaires can pay less or a country where everybody pays their fair share. Kaine: To pay for their plan, they’d slash middle-class tax breaks, raising taxes on the middle class. O’Malley: Instead of a balanced, achievable plan to create jobs and reduce the deficit, Mitt Romney says he will cut taxes for millionaires and raise them for the middle class. 
 
 Their comments are based on an Aug. 1 report from the Tax Policy Center that concluded it is simply not mathematically possible for Romney to lower tax rates across the board — as he has proposed — without losing revenue, which he has also promised, or shifting the tax burden to the middle class. 
 
 Tax Policy Center, Aug. 1: Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed – including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment – would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers. 
 
 To see our full analysis of the TPC report, and the Romney campaign’s push-back against it as “biased,” see our Aug. 3 article, “Romney’s Impossible Tax Promise.” 
 
 For his part, Romney has repeatedly insisted he will not raise taxes on the middle class. He reiterated that promise during his speech accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention: 
 
 Romney, Aug. 30: I will not raise taxes on the middle class. 
 
 In a blog post on the TPC analysis, Donald Marron, director of the Tax Policy Center, wrote: “I don’t interpret this [the Aug. 1 study] as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich, as an Obama campaign ad claimed. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives. One can charitably view his plan as a combination of political signaling and the opening offer in what would, if he gets elected, become a negotiation.” 
 
 In other words, Romney has over-promised. But that’s no reason to assume –as Kaine, O’Malley and Castro have — that Romney would choose the course of breaking a promise not to raise middle-income taxes. He could choose, for example, to renege on his promise to cut rates or to keep the amount of revenue neutral rather than violate his promise not to raise taxes on those in the middle. 
 
 There’s also been some dispute about the Tax Policy Center’s findings. Republican economist Martin Feldstein wrote an Aug. 28 piece for the Wall Street Journal‘s opinion pages saying that Romney could lower rates across the board as promised without losing revenue — if he eliminated most deductions for those making $100,000 or more. 
 
 In a rebuttal, Democratic tax expert Len Burman — a former director of the Tax Policy Center — said “such a plan would make no sense as policy,” because eliminating deductions for family income above $100,000 would cause an effective tax rate as high as 62.5 percent on income just above that level. 
 
 Romney has yet to provide details of just how he would manage to avoid either losing revenues (and thus increasing the deficit) or shifting the tax burden onto middle-income taxpayers. But as things stand, he’s promised that neither will happen, and Democrats who accuse him of proposing a middle-income tax increase are misrepresenting what he’s said. 
 
 Keynoter’s Jobs Spin 
 
 Keynote speaker Castro also put a misleading spin on employment data. He claimed “we’ve seen 4.5 million new jobs” under President Obama. In fact, the nation has regained 4.5 million jobs that had been lost, but employment is still below where it was when the president took office. 
 
 Castro: Four years ago, America stood on the brink of a depression. Despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition, our president took action. And now we’ve seen 4.5 million new jobs. 
 
 Although he didn’t say so, Castro is referring only to private-sector jobs — which have fared better than government jobs — and he is using February 2010 as the starting point, because that was the low point for private-sector jobs. There were 106,773,000 jobs then, and the number has been rising ever since. In July, there were 111,317,000 private-sector jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s an increase of 4,544,000. 
 
 The picture changes dramatically, however, when starting from the beginning of Obama’s presidency. Between January 2009 and the most recently reported figures, there has been a net increase of just 332,000 private-sector jobs. 
 
 Moreover, if you include all jobs — including the hard-hit government job sector — there remains a net decrease of 316,000 jobs since the start of Obama’s presidency. Total employment has gained about 4 million since February 2010, not 4.5 million. It’s all in how you slice the data. 
 
 Pell Grant Piffle 
 
 Castro also went too far in saying the Republican ticket “guts Pell Grants.” The Ryan budget plan would limit the growth, but maintain the maximum award of $5,550. 
 
 Castro: It’s a choice between a nation that slashes funding for our schools and guts Pell Grants — or a nation that invests more in education. 
 
 Ryan has called for changes in the Pell Grant program. His fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, known as “Path to Prosperity,” says that Obama’s budget “pushes Pell Grant spending toward unsustainable rates.” Ryan’s budget plan proposes “limiting the growth of financial aid and focusing it on low-income students who need it the most.” 
 
 He does not, however, set specific funding levels for the program, so we don’t know — and neither does Castro — how much Ryan would limit the program’s growth. However, Ryan said in April that his plan “maintains the maximum Pell award of $5,550,” so for those who do receive the grants, they will continue to get the same level as this year. 
 
 Castro could have said that Ryan’s plan would result in fewer students receiving Pell Grants, since the Wisconsin Republican does want to tighten eligibility requirements and limit the growth of the program. But Castro went too far in saying that the Republican plan “guts Pell Grants.” 
 
 Massachusetts 47th? Or 28th? 
 
 Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn went on the offensive, saying Romney had failed to deliver on campaign promises he made while running to become governor of Massachusetts. But some of Quinn’s talking points were a stretch. 
 
 Quinn: Mitt Romney promised Massachusetts three things: more jobs, less debt and smaller government. Then he left his state 47th out of 50 in job growth, added $2.6 billion in debt and on his watch, government jobs grew six times faster than private-sector jobs. What does Romney promise today? More jobs, less debt and smaller government. But he didn’t do it then, and he won’t do it now. 
 
 We’ve covered some similar claims before. Let’s start with the claim that Romney “left his state 47th out of 50 in job growth.” That’s a slightly different twist on a recurring Democratic attack line. It’s true that over Romney’s entire four years as governor, the state ranked 47th out of 50 states in percentage of job growth. But that’s a four-year, cumulative number. The state’s ranking actually improved while Romney was in office. 
 
 In the 12 months before Romney took office, the state ranked 50th in job creation, and by his final year, the state ranked 28th. Quinn would have been more accurate to say Romney “left his state” in 28th place, not 47th. 
 
 Quinn also made the misleading claim that Romney “added $2.6 billion in debt.” That’s a reference to long-term bond debt, used for capital improvements, such as paving roads, building bridges and repairing public college buildings and courthouses. 
 
 To be sure, long-term debt increased by $2.7 billion during Romney’s tenure. But that’s nothing out of the ordinary. It increased by $4 billion in the four years before Romney took office. State debt rose under Romney, but more slowly than before. 
 
 Last, Quinn said that under Romney, “government jobs grew six times faster than private-sector jobs.” Not exactly. Private-sector jobs in Massachusetts climbed by a modest 39,500, a little less than a 1.5 percent jump. Meanwhile state government jobs increased by 3,100 jobs, a 2.8 percent increase (all government jobs, including local, state and federal, increased by 1,300 jobs). That’s a larger percentage increase for government jobs than private-sector ones, but a far smaller number of jobs. 
 
 The 77-Cent Exaggeration 
 
 Making a pitch for “equal pay for equal work,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said “America’s women still make just 77 cents for every dollar men earn.” And the equal-pay crusader Lilly Ledbetter used the same figure and added: “[W]hen we lose 23 cents every hour, every day, every paycheck, every job, over the entire lives, what we lose cannot be measured in dollars.” 
 
 But that oft-cited 77-cent statistic exaggerates the actual gap between women and men doing the same work. 
 
 As we noted back in June, the most recent Census figures show that in 2010, “the earnings of women who worked full time, year-round were 77 percent of that for men working full time, year-round.” But that’s the median (midpoint) for all women in all jobs, not for women doing “the same work” or even necessarily working the same number of hours. 
 
 The actual gap for doing the same work varies by occupation but tends to be much less. We cited a study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research that found, for example, that female registered nurses made nearly 96 percent of male nurses, female elementary and middle school teachers made 91 percent of what their male counterparts earned, secondary school teachers made 94 percent, and police officers made 99 percent. 
 
 A senior program analyst wrote recently in the Department of Labor’s official blog: “Economists generally attribute about 40% of the pay gap to discrimination – making about 60% explained by differences between workers or their jobs.” As we noted at the time, women tend to work fewer overtime hours, tend to choose jobs that offer more “family friendly” fringe benefits in lieu of higher pay, and sometimes leave the workforce for years to rear children, for example. 
 
 Bain ‘Bailout’ Baloney 
 
 A union president claimed that Romney “asked for a government bailout” for his troubled company. That’s not what happened. 
 
 First of all, it wasn’t Romney’s company that was troubled; it was the consulting firm he had left — Bain & Co. — in order to form Bain Capital. And while Romney did negotiate a favorable debt settlement with banking regulators for Bain & Co’s partners, they did not receive taxpayer dollars. 
 
 Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union, made the claim. 
 
 Henry: We just learned that when his company found itself in trouble, Mitt Romney asked for a government bailout. 
 
 Our fact-checking colleagues at the Washington Post and ABC News vetted similar claims made by Democrats. 
 
 Based on their reporting, here’s what happened: 
 
 Romney had left Bain & Co. in 1984 to form the spin-off private equity firm Bain Capital. But Romney came back in the early 1990s when Bain & Co. was on the brink of bankruptcy. The company’s founders — Romney wasn’t one of them — had taken $200 million of borrowed money out of the firm for themselves, which led to the firm’s financial problems. 
 
 The company owed $38 million to a failed bank, which had been taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, an independent federal agency that insures bank deposits. Romney negotiated with the FDIC a reduction of $10 million in debt, and the FDIC forgave $4 million in interest. 
 
 The agreement didn’t amount to a loss for taxpayers. The FDIC is funded by bank insurance premiums and treasury security investments — not congressional appropriations. 
 
 In fact, as the Post points out, these kinds of agreements are typical and recover more of the outstanding loan. The FDIC’s own handbook said that restructuring a loan is more productive than spending money on litigation to recover the money. 
 
 More Medicare Malarkey 
 
 We once again heard misrepresentations of the Medicare plan that Romney and Paul Ryan have proposed. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and labor leader Mary Kay Henry both said the plan would cost seniors $6,400, but that’s a reference to an outdated Ryan plan, not the more generous one he, and Romney, now back. 
 
 Sebelius also claimed that Medicare was “missing” from the “Romney-Ryan plan.” But that’s wrong. The plan keeps traditional Medicare for current seniors, and as an option for younger workers. 
 
 California Rep. Xavier Becerra’s prepared remarks also said that Romney was telling “older Americans after a lifetime of hard work that you’re going to pull the rug out from under them and turn Medicare into a voucher system.” But for “older Americans,” nothing would change under the Romney and Ryan plan. In fact, anyone now 55 or older would stay in the current Medicare system for the rest of their lives — and younger workers could still choose traditional Medicare from among a menu of competing private insurance plans subsidized by federal dollars. Becerra was scheduled to speak on the first night, but did not. 
 
 Several times this year, we have swatted down similar claims from Democrats and the Obama campaign about the Medicare plan Ryan proposed as part of his “Path to Prosperity” budget and Romney has embraced. At the convention, Sebelius said: 
 
 Sebelius: What’s missing from the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare is Medicare. Instead of the Medicare guarantee, Republicans would give seniors a voucher that limits what is covered, costing seniors as much as $6,400 more a year. 
 
 Henry, the international president of the Service Employees International Union, said the plan that “would cost the average senior $6,400 a year out of their own pocket.” Both are referring to Ryan’s old plan. 
 
 It’s true that a Congressional Budget Office analysis indicated that a 65-year-old in 2022 could pay about $6,400 more per year under the plan Ryan proposed in 2011. Ryan’s latest plan is more generous in terms of the subsidies and choices it provides to seniors. 
 
 Ryan’s plan would create a Medicare exchange for new Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2023. They would choose from private plans or traditional Medicare and buy plans with the help of government subsidies. The old Ryan plan tied the growth of those subsidies to the rate of inflation — but health care costs have risen faster than that. The new plan ties the subsidies to the cost of the second-cheapest health care policy on the exchange. And if that policy grows faster than gross domestic product plus 0.5 percentage points, Congress would be required to do something to lower costs. 
 
 On the latest Ryan plan, CBO did say that “beneficiaries might face higher costs,” but added that there was plenty of uncertainty. There wasn’t a detailed analysis and no mention of Sebelius’ and Henry’s $6,400 claim. 
 
 The comment in Becerra’s prepared remarks about “older Americans,” however, is misleading whether it pertains to Ryan’s 2011 or 2012 plan. He claimed older Americans would be put in a “voucher” system. But, as we said, anyone 55 or older would stay in the traditional Medicare system, under either Ryan proposal. 
 
 Becerra: And, Governor Romney, you should know it’s not right to tell older Americans after a lifetime of hard work that you’re going to pull the rug out from under them and turn Medicare into a voucher system — Couponcare! 
 
 We should add that there are actually no vouchers or coupons involved. Under Ryan’s plan the federal government would pay insurance companies directly, just as it now pays for most of the cost of health insurance for millions of federal workers and retirees and their families, and just as the government will pay for subsidized policies for lower-income workers under Obama’s Affordable Care Act if it is allowed to take full effect in 2014. 
 
 Sebelius’ comment that Medicare is “missing” from the plan is also false. Ryan’s latest plan would keep traditional Medicare as an option even for younger Americans who won’t turn 65 until 2023. 
 
 Social Security Mythology 
 
 Rep. James Clyburn’s prepared remarks, which were not delivered because of a scheduling change, exaggerated in claiming that “Democrats created Social Security” without Republican support in 1935. The fact is, despite some early Republican opposition, Congress overwhelmingly approved the proposal with strong bipartisan support. And President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law within seven months of its introduction — in stark contrast to the protracted partisan battle over Obama’s health care law. 
 
 Echoing John F. Kennedy’s 1960 acceptance speech — in which JFK said, “We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light a candle” — Clyburn’s prepared remarks said: 
 
 Clyburn: When too many of our senior citizens were living their golden years in the darkness of economic insecurity, Franklin Roosevelt and Democrats created Social Security, lighting a candle while Republicans cursed the darkness. 
 
 The historical comparison, however, does not hold up. 
 
 The Social Security Act of 1935 was a result of the Committee on Economic Security, a Cabinet-level committee created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 29, 1934. On Jan. 17, 1935, two days after the committee issued its final report, Roosevelt proposed the “Financial Security Act of 1935,” and it was introduced in Congress the same day. 
 
 For sure, there was opposition to the legislation. 
 
 Sen. Daniel Hastings, a Delaware Republican, warned that it would “end the progress of a great country,” as the New York Times reported. But Hastings was in the minority, even within his own party, when it came to voting on the bill — which was renamed the “Social Security Act of 1935″ in committee. 
 
 The Social Security Administration website shows that the Social Security Act of 1935 passed with bipartisan support in both chambers — 372-33 in the House and 77-6 in the Senate — in April and June of 1935, respectively. 
 
 In the House, 81 Republicans voted for it, and an equal number of Republicans and Democrats – just 15 from each party – voted against it. In the Senate, 16 Republicans voted for it, and only five against, including Hastings. 
 
 Both houses gave final approval to the bill by voice vote on Aug. 8, 1935. Roosevelt signed the bill into law Aug. 14, 1935 — just seven months after it was introduced. 
 
 Correction, Sept. 5: The Democratic National Committee released prepared remarks for Reps. James Clyburn and Xavier Becerra, but neither of them spoke on Sept. 4, as scheduled. This story has been corrected to reflect the scheduling change. 
 
 Update, Sept. 7: Clyburn and Becerra spoke at the convention on Sept. 6. Here are the remarks, as delivered, that we wrote about in this article: 
 
 Clyburn: When too many of our senior citizens were living their golden years in the darkness of economic insecurity, Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress create [sic] Social Security, lighting a candle while the Republicans cursed the darkness. Becerra: Is it right to pull the rug out from under older Americans after a lifetime of hard work and turn Medicare into a voucher system. Couponcare! Couponcare! 
 
 — Lori Robertson, with Eugene Kiely, Rob Farley, Ben Finley and Brooks Jackson
– Facts and numbers were flying in last night's debate, and President Obama and Mitt Romney agreed on so few of them that "the two men seemed to be inhabiting two parallel universes," Politico observes. Thankfully, a swarm of fact-checkers have been poring over the candidates' statements to sort things out. Here are some of the more egregious fibs: Romney: "I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit." Independent analysis indicates that Romney's tax plan would add $5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. Romney says he'll pay for that by reducing deductions and credits, but the Tax Policy Center concluded that was "mathematically impossible." Obama: "We've made some adjustments" to Simpson-Bowles. Obama's plan is not, as he implied, comparable to Simpson-Bowles. It's much less aggressive, doesn't touch Social Security, and, while it too reduces the deficit by $4 trillion, it takes an extra year to do it. Romney on green energy loan recipients: "I think about half have gone out of business." Try three out of 26. Romney: Dodd-Frank "designates a number of banks as too big to fail." The law designates some banks for special treatment, but that treatment involves extra regulation and a way to liquidate them if they run into trouble; they are not, as Romney argued "effectively guaranteed by the federal government." Romney: "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." Romney's health care plan only covers people with pre-existing conditions if they "maintain continuous coverage," which was more or less the situation before ObamaCare. Obama: "Under Governor Romney's definition … Donald Trump is a small business." Romney's plan doesn't actually define small businesses. But the federal government does, and under its guidelines, Trump is a small business, because he owns some businesses with fewer than 500 employees, according to CNN. Obama: "I've put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan." True, but that plan counts savings already agreed on during the debt ceiling debate. Romney: "The president said he'd cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it." When Obama took office, the projected deficit for 2009 was $1.2 trillion. For fiscal 2012, the deficit is expected to be $1.1 trillion, the New York Times reports.