Former Vice President Al Gore didn't invent the Internet, but apparently President Barack Obama wants voters to believe he created trash collectors and bus drivers.

His first campaign ad of 2012 uses claims made in a debunked study that counted such jobs to boost its “green energy” job count above 2 million.

The 30-second TV ad has been aired in six “battleground” states, including Michigan. Among other specious claims in the ad is one giving President Obama credit for 2.7 million “green energy” jobs nationally.

The source of this claim was a Brookings Institute study that made the rounds of the news media in the summer of 2011. Capitol Confidential examined the study in a July 31, 2011, article titled: “Media Loves 'Green Jobs' Report; Fine Print Shows 'Green' Means the Garbage Man.”

Of the 2.7 million alleged “green energy” jobs in the study, 736,663 were either in waste management or mass transit. In addition, the study never credited President Obama for creating any of the supposed jobs it had allegedly tabulated.

Jonathon Rothwell is senior research analyst for the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and one of the authors of the study. He was asked last summer if observations in news media accounts of the study paint a more glowing picture of what the report said about the status of the nation's green jobs.

“I would say that we took a very cool, very reasonable approach in the study,” Rothwell said. “Frankly, I don't think the report really is all that encouraging about clean economy jobs."

According to the study, 386,116 of the so-called “cutting edge” jobs were in waste management and another 350,547 in mass transit. Even if the claims were legitimate, 2.7 million jobs would represent a very small fraction of the national workforce. The authors of the study bemoaned that fact that their trash and tram enhanced figures were so low. A large portion of the study included their suggestions on how to boost the numbers.

The ad is below.

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In a speech delivered last Friday at the University of Michigan, President Obama said that the “largest factor” in tuition increases at colleges and universities is state budget cuts in higher education. But overall operating expenses at U-M and most Michigan public universities have risen substantially in recent years, regardless of state funding.

In his talk, President Obama focused on preparing students for the 21st century economy and discussed what universities and government could do to meet coming challenges. During the speech, he said, "I was talking to your president (U-M President Mary Sue Coleman), and this is true all across the country, states have to do their part by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets . . . We know that these state budget cuts have been the largest factor in tuition increases at public colleges over the past decade. So we're challenging states: Take responsibility as well on this issue."

In December, Coleman wrote a letter to the president that said, “There is no stronger trigger for rising costs at public universities and colleges than declining state support.” She also claimed that “The University of Michigan and our state’s 14 other public institutions have been ground zero for funding cuts.”

While the state is scheduled to give U-M and its two satellite campuses about $54 million less this fiscal year than 2010-2011, a 15 percent cut, Coleman’s claims were examined in a previous Capitol Confidential article. Although state appropriations have been reduced this year, overall spending at U-M has increased. According to the University of Michigan budget, the college’s operating expenses increased 24 percent, from $4.25 billion to $5.28 billion, between 2006 and 2010. At the same time, student tuition and fees and scholarship allowances increased 28 percent, from $675 million in 2006 to $863 million in 2010. 

James Hohman, a fiscal policy expert at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, pointed out that there are many other reasons for the tuition increase at U-M. For example, Michigan’s average compensation for full-time faculty increased from $122,943 per full-time position in 2005-2006 to $141,753 in 2009-2010, a 15 percent increase over four years.

The Mackinac Center reported in 2010 that the number of administrators and service staff at Michigan’s 15 state universities increased 15 percent while their average compensation grew 13 percent between 2005 and 2009. The University of Michigan-Flint campus now has more full-time administrators (278) than full-time faculty (275).

"The president would have better luck at lowering tuition by encouraging government universities to cut back on growing administration and rising employment costs," said Hohman. "Asking for more taxpayer money only masks this problem."

U-M spokesman Rick Fitzgerald responded to claims about the universities higher tuition and staff compensation here.