Gov. Rick Perry and the Truth-O-Meter

By Molly Moorhead
Published on Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 at 10:50 a.m.

Related rulings:

"Romneycare has … killed 18,000 Massachusetts jobs."

Rick Perry, Monday, October 10th, 2011.

Ruling: Mostly False | Details

"The first round of stimulus ... it created zero jobs."

Rick Perry, Monday, September 12th, 2011.

Ruling: Pants on Fire! | Details

Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme."

Rick Perry, Monday, September 12th, 2011.

Ruling: False | Details

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Rick Perry's Truth-O-Meter report card shows that half of his ratings are Mostly False or lower.

Editor's Note: The is the latest in a series of stories summarizing our ratings on the Republican candidates for president. We'll be publishing one each day through Dec. 31.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry likes to make bold statements. Look no further than the time he called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."

The problem is, his boldest claims often tend to be far from the truth.

When Perry compared the nation’s retirement safety net with a fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme in his 2010 book "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington" and in subsequent promotional events, we rated the claim False.

Perry earned another False when he said kids aren’t allowed to pray in public schools, and again when he claimed that scientists are at odds on whether global warming is man-made. The Meter hit Pants on Fire when he repeated the popular Republican falsehood that the economic stimulus program created no jobs.

PolitiFact Texas has been checking Perry since early 2010 and has rated 112 claims he has made. On the Truth-O-Meter, he most often comes in at Half True (30 times) And a lot of those relate to his own state.

When he boasted about cutting $15 billion from the Texas budget, we found that most of that savings represented expiring federal stimulus dollars.

In his claim that bullets and bombs from Mexico were crossing the border into El Paso, he was right about the bullets and wrong about the bombs.

And he has a tendency to credit himself with accomplishments that are largely the result of outside factors.

Perry’s PolitiFact record can be summed up with this line from a PolitiFact Texas story when he was running for governor: Much of what he says has some truth to it.

As of today, his tally is 15 Trues, 11 Mostly Trues, 30 Half Trues, 22 Mostly Falses, 23 Falses and 11 Pants on Fires.