The candidates faced off about withdrawl from Afghanistan during the debate. | REUTERS Fact-checking the VP debate

Joe Biden’s 36 years poring over legislation in the Senate and Rep. Paul Ryan’s wonky affinity for budget details made for a fact-intensive vice presidential debate Thursday night as the two men faced off in Kentucky.

However, spouting so many facts and figures inevitably leads to claims that one candidate or the other shaded the truth, bent it or maybe even fibbed a bit.


( Also on POLITICO: 7 takeaways from the VP debate)

Here’s POLITICO’s look at where Biden and Ryan pushed the factual envelope during their 90-minute verbal fencing match:

Afghanistan withdrawal

Biden: “We are leaving. We are leaving by 2014, period.”

Most American troops are expected to be gone two years from now. But President Barack Obama’s plan calls for leaving behind a force of U.S. troops that would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. He’s never said how long that smaller force would stay.

Biden repeated Obama’s campaign pledge to “end the war” in Afghanistan, trying to draw a contrast between the president and statements by Mitt Romney and Ryan.

( Also on POLITICO: Biden goes after Ryan in lone VP debate)

“With regard to Afghanistan, [Obama] said he will end the war in 2014,” Biden said. “Governor Romney said we should not set a date, No. 1. And No. 2, with regard to 2014, it depends.”

But the 2014 date is the point at which the American “combat mission” is supposed to end in Afghanistan, and U.S. troops are supposed to hand primary responsibility to the Afghan National Security Forces. Washington and its international allies have committed to a long-term relationship with Afghanistan that could include thousands or tens of thousands of U.S. and international troops helping to train their Afghan counterparts and hunt terrorists.

( Also on POLITICO: Vice presidential debate transcript)

The U.S. and its allies also will likely have to continue financing the Afghan force for at least decade, because Kabul can’t afford to pay on its own for the army and police trained by the U.S. and its allies.

Unemployment rates

Ryan: “Joe and I are from similar towns. He’s from Scranton, Pa. I’m from Janesville, Wis. You know what the unemployment rate in Scranton is today? … It’s 10 percent. … You know what it was the day you guys came in — 8.5 percent…That’s how it’s going all around America.”

The Republican got Scranton’s numbers right, but he’s off the mark for the rest of the country.

The seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in September, exactly the same place it was when Obama took office in January 2009.

( Also on POLITICO: Media mystified by Joe Biden’s smile)

As for the hometowns of the other top candidates: Honolulu, where Obama was born, was at 5.1 percent in August 2012, just below the 5.2 percent level from January 2009, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Detroit, where Romney was born, fell from 22.7 percent to 19.6 percent. Janesville, Wis., where Ryan is from, has gone from 13.5 percent to 9.2 percent.

Ending the Iraq War

Biden: “On Iraq, the president said he would end the war. … He ended it. Governor Romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30,000 troops there.”

Romney has argued that it was a mistake for the U.S. not to keep some troops in Iraq and during the primary campaign he sometimes used figures as high as 30,000.

However, Biden glossed over an important fact: even though Obama regularly boasts about the complete U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, the Obama administration also wanted to leave a substantial number of American forces behind.

How big a force did Obama want to keep in Iraq? Administration officials have dodged and weaved when asked about the numbers, but news reports said the White House and Defense Secretary favored leaving 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers there. Military brass reportedly favored a larger force on the order of 10,000 to 18,000.

As Ryan noted, the administration ultimately did not reach agreement with the Iraqi government about a deal that would promise U.S. soldiers continued immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Without such a pact, Obama opted to carry out the Bush-era plan to withdraw troops at the end of 2011. And Obama painted that as a triumph, even though it wasn’t exactly what his own administration wanted.

Auto bailout

Biden: “We immediately went out and rescued General Motors. … When that occurred, what did Romney do? Romney said, ‘No, let Detroit go bankrupt.’”

That’s a misquote.

Romney did author a November 2008 op-ed in The New York Times about the auto bailout that came with this headline: “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” But Romney didn’t write the headline, and he never used those words in his article.

Instead, the Republican’s idea for the then-tanking U.S. auto industry was for the federal government to get involved in a “managed bankruptcy” where GM, Ford and Chrysler could “shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs” while getting guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assurances for their car buyers that their warranties would still be good.

Medicare cuts

Ryan: “Their own actuary from the administration came to Congress and said one out of six hospitals and nursing homes are going to go out of business as a result of” the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts.

This doesn’t add up. The claim stems from an April 2010 report from Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Actuary Rick Foster that projects the ACA’s Medicare cuts would make 15 percent of Medicare Part A providers — which includes hospitals and nursing homes — unprofitable within a decade. But even Foster was skeptical that future Congresses would allow the cuts to take effect.

( Also on POLITICO: Medicare cage fight: Biden vs. Ryan)

“Although this policy could be monitored over time to avoid such an outcome, changes would likely result in smaller actual savings than show here for these provisions.” And not all health analysts have been as grim as the Medicare actuary.

As for that actuary: Ryan referred to Foster several times as the Obama administration’s actuary or “your actuary.” Foster and his office are actually independent. He hasn’t been shy about clashing with Obama – or with former President George W. Bush when he was passing the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Contraception

Ryan: “Our church should not have to sue our federal government to maintain their religious liberties,” Ryan said.

Biden: “Let me make it absolutely clear, no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy Hospital, any hospital, none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide.”

Neither got things right.

Contrary to Ryan’s claim, the Obama administration exempted churches and certain religious organizations. And it gave others a yearlong reprieve while they work out a solution — but they haven’t yet worked one out that the Catholic bishops, some religious colleges and universities, and the Catholic Health Association are satisfied with. The Catholic Health Association was a supporter of the Obama health law.

And Biden overstated the policy. Some of the obstacles arise because religious groups feel that their dollars are going toward contraception, even if they’re not paying for it directly. Private employers who oppose contraception are not exempt from the requirement that the employee health plan cover it.

More than 30 private employers and nonprofit organizations have sued, and those cases are still pending.

Libya attack

Ryan: “It took the president two weeks to acknowledge this was a terrorist attack.”

That’s not exactly right. The morning after the Sept. 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Obama said in the Rose Garden that ”No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

After Obama’s initial statement, the White House declined to say it was terrorism, even as others said it must have been. And in a series of TV appearances five days after the attack, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said the initial assessment was that the assault was part of a “spontaneous” demonstration about an anti-Muslim video.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has confirmed that Rice’s statement was based on the intelligence community’s initial assessment that the attack emerged from a protest. They have since abandoned that view.

The administration’s public retreat from that view began eight days after the event with National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen telling a Senate committee it was a terrorist attack. On Sept. 20, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said it was “self-evidently” an act of terrorism. Obama didn’t use that word in response to a question on the point on Sept. 24, but Carney clarified two days later that was the president’s view.

Benghazi consulate security

Biden: “We weren’t told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security.”

Whether Biden was right comes down to what he meant by “we.” If he meant him, Obama and others at the White House, his statement may be correct. But there’s no doubt the State Department received requests for greater security

Documents show pleas for from three to five additional Diplomatic Security agents. And the top State Department security official for Libya, Eric Nordstrom, told a House panel Wednesday that he asked his superior verbally for a dozen more agents, which were not provided.However, Nordstrom said it was unlikely a handful more agents would have been able to repel an armed assault as organized and intense as the one in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Taxes

Biden: “The middle class will pay less and people making $1 million or more will begin to contribute slightly more.”

Ryan: “Lower tax rates 20 percent. We raised about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. We forgo about $1.1 trillion in loopholes and deductions. And so what we’re saying is, deny those loopholes and deductions to higher-income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation.”

Who, exactly, would be affected if the two top income tax brackets expire at the end of the year, as Biden advocated?

That was a bit unclear. Biden said at one point that $800 billion worth of tax cuts “goes to people making a minimum of $1 million.”

That’s not accurate. And during the debate, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tweeted a “fiscal fact check,” saying that “Tax cuts for people making over $1M is only $466B. Tax cuts for people making over $250K is about $800B.”

But Biden then made a more accurate statement, saying that “120,000 families by continuing that tax cut will get an additional $500 billion in tax relief in the next 10 years and their income is an average of $8 million.”

What was more amorphous was whether Biden was pushing for a tax increase on people making more than $1 million — or those making more than $250,000 as the administration has formally proposed.

Ryan insisted that the math behind Romney’s tax plan adds up, but without specifics, it remains impossible to tell whether the plan will pay for itself, as they promise — or require a middle class tax hike to be revenue neutral. And Romney has made it clear that his plan assumes new revenues from economic growth — an assumption that’s difficult to prove, economists say

Defense cuts

Ryan: “We’re not just going to cut the defense budget like … they’re proposing. … You don’t cut defense by a trillion dollars. That’s what we’re talking about.”

The Romney campaign’s position is to devote at least 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product to defense spending, which according to one estimate would amount to about $2 trillion in additional spending over 10 years — up from $531 billion in the Defense Department’s base budget in fiscal 2012 and $115 billion for war funding.

Ryan’s “cut” of $1 trillion appeared to refer to the potential combination of $487 billion in reduced budget growth the Pentagon agreed to last year and the $500 billion in across-the-board cuts over a decade that would begin to take effect on Jan. 2 unless Congress averts them. The president and Pentagon officials have said the first reduction is doable with the Defense Department’s new global strategy, but that the additional sequestration cuts would hurt U.S. national security.

Ryan’s position Thursday night — that he and Romney would reverse both Obama’s proposed reductions and sequestration — is distinct from the campaign’s other messaging about devoting at least 4 percent of GDP to defense.

Medicare panels

Ryan: “Not one” of the 15-member IPAB “even has to have medical training.”

Ryan was talking about the ACA’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is tasked with identifying Medicare cuts if the program grows too quickly. Critics of the board have said it will ration care, while its defenders point out the law specifically forbids rationing and cutting seniors’ benefits.

There isn’t any debate, however, on who’s supposed to serve on the board.

The law says the board “shall include … physicians and other health professionals,” but it also requires other types of stakeholders to have a seat at the table. So, no, not everyone on the board has to have medical training, but it will include health care professionals.

Ryan also said it could lead to care being denied seniors. The panel couldn’t change benefits — but critics have said that cuts to doctors or hospitals could lead to less access for patients.

Windmills in China

Ryan: “Was it a good idea to spend all this money on electric cars in Finland, or windmills in China?”

Ryan was repeating a Republican criticism that money from the stimulus program went to buy Chinese-built wind turbines from a company named A-Power for a wind farm planned for Texas.

China’s A-Power, Texas developer Cielo Wind Power and U.S. Renewable Energy Group wanted to build the wind farm in Texas that would have used about 300 wind turbines built in China. The companies were planning to request $450 million, or nearly a third of the farm’s total cost, from the stimulus program. The issue drew a sharp rebuke from New York Sen. Charles Schumer, and the project was never built.

However, the U.S. wind lobby group AWEA has said it was possible that a handful or wind turbines, perhaps five or six, were among the hundreds installed in the U.S. may have come from China, or contained parts that originated in China.

Obama and Netanyahu

Ryan: “President Obama [was] in New York City the same day Bibi Netanyahu is and he, instead of meeting with him, goes on … a daily talk show.”

Ryan’s right that they didn’t meet, but his calendar is off.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama were never in New York City at the same time last month — a fact that neither the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government disputes.

Obama gave his speech on Sept. 25 and returned to Washington the same day. Netanyahu gave his speech on Sept. 27 — the same day he arrived in the city.

Obama and Netanyahu later connected by phone instead of meeting in person.

Social Security

Moderator Martha Raddatz: “Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process.”

Ryan quickly chimed in calling Raddatz’s claims “indisputable facts.” There’s little doubt that the programs are headed towards insolvency as the baby boomers retire, but their demise is not imminent. Medicare is not projected to be in the red until 2024, in part due to changes made by the Affordable Care Act. Social Security is not expected to be “broke” until 2033, more than two decades from now, according to its trustees.

During the Denver debate, Obama called Social Security “structurally sound,” a remark which drew derision from conservatives and is a dramatically different spin than Raddatz used.

Phil Ewing, Joanne Kenen, Joe Schatz, Matt Daily and Byron Tau contributed to this report.