Truth-O-Meter rates False weekend claims by Rep. Frank LoBiondo, NJGOP

The Truth-O-Meter saw quite a bit of red this weekend.

Red is the color the Truth-O-Meter needle hits when a statement is deemed False. And in case you missed it, that’s where the needle landed Sunday and Monday on claims from U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo and the state’s Republican Party, respectively.

LoBiondo claim

The southern New Jersey congressman claimed in a March letter to The News of Cumberland County that the cost of the federal healthcare law would exceed $2 trillion, more than double original projections. A PolitiFact New Jersey investigation, however, found that LoBiondo’s statement had flawed methodology: he compared two estimates that didn’t cover the same time period. When the same timeframes are compared, the increase is 8.6 percent – not double.

Republican Party claim

Gov. Chris Christie’s so-called “Jersey Comeback” apparently rolled back to before he took office, if a March 19 Tweet from the state’s Republican Committee is to be believed. The tweet credited Christie and his comeback plan for New Jersey having the lowest risk of corruption nationwide, according to a finding from a State Integrity Investigation undertaken by journalists across the country. The Center for Public Integrity was among the project’s collaborators. PolitiFact New Jersey found that policies and reforms put in place before Christie took office were largely responsible for the state’s ranking in the study. Although some credit Christie’s prosecution of corruption cases when he was New Jersey’s U.S. attorney for the reduced risk, those cases were not considered in the overall study.  

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