Correction

In my column/blog last Saturday, published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (WTE) under the title “Mead tows the party line even in the absence of facts,” I had a couple of my facts wrong. Those misstatements do not change my conclusion that the Governor joined GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in making an erroneous argument that the Obama administration has waived the work requirement for welfare recipients.  They need, nonetheless, to be corrected.

The column reported that on July 12, 2012, the governor sent a letter to the president at the request of the Romney campaign asking that the “authority to waive the work requirements for TANF” be reconsidered. The Department of Health and Human Services memo to which the Governor was responding is dated July 12, 2012. The letter was actually sent to HHS Secretary of the Kathleen Sebelius, a cabinet member of the Obama administration, on August 15, 2012. Otherwise the statement is accurate.

Second the column said “On August 24, (Governor Mead) held a press conference and once again repeated the falsehood.” The governor did not hold a press conference on that date to repeat the claim. On August 24th, much of the media and press, including the WTE ran an Associated Press story covering the letter Mr. Mead sent to Secretary Sebelius nine days earlier and after it had been posted on the Romney for President website. Because of that I mistakenly believed the governor’s comments had been made that same day.

Finally, there was a typo in the column. The published version said the Wyoming Department of Family Services “sent a memo from the administration on this very issue.” The sentence should have read, “DFS received a memo from the administration on this very issue.”

I regret these errors and am happy to correct them but stand by the premise of the blog/column. Governor Mead was recruited by the Romney campaign to write a letter supporting a claim that has been disproven. Mead did so while at least one Republican governor refused. 

I am still awaiting Governor Mead’s correction of his misstatement.

The revised version of the column has been posted below and it can be read at: http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com/2012/09/romney-now-matt-mead-makes-false-claim.html.