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October 3 Presidential Debate

Romney comes out forcefully vs. Obama

Presidential debate: Romney comes out forcefully vs. Obama

by Dan Nowicki and Rebekah L. Sanders - Oct. 3, 2012 10:28 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

An energetic and aggressive Mitt Romney took on a subdued President Barack Obama Wednesday over jobs, taxes, Medicare, health care and even Big Bird in the first high-stakes debate of the 2012 White House campaign.

The Republican Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, hit Obama hard on a key legislative accomplishment of his administration, the 2010 health-care overhaul law. Romney attacked the law, which he and other critics refer to as "Obamacare," as a job killer while the president defended it as a crucial safety net for millions of American families.

The stakes at the University of Denver in Colorado could not have been higher for Romney. The first of three presidential debates came at a point when national polls indicate a tight race but usually show Obama with a modest lead. In key swing states, polls have suggested that Romney has an even more daunting challenge to change the trajectory of the race with just five weeks left until Election Day.

Romney has been dogged in recent weeks by campaign missteps, and needed a strong performance to help regain his equilibrium. He may have cleared that goal, aided in part by Obama's lackluster showing during the 90-minute showdown on domestic issues. A post-debate CNN poll indicated that Romney was the runaway winner.

Romney, who was calm, easily rattled off information on a variety of topics and managed to work a number of personal stories into his remarks, succeeded in appearing presidential, the main task of the night, said Earl de Berge, research director for the Rocky Mountain Poll.

"He came off well-disciplined and on top of his facts," de Berge, a nonpartisan pollster, said. The goal for any challenger is to "give off the aura of a strong, principled, visionary type of leader. Romney did that."

The two candidates presented their competing ideological visions for creating jobs and improving the still-sluggish economy.

Obama said the economy has been getting better, but called for improving public education, which would include hiring 100,000 more science and math teachers, creating 2 million slots in community colleges for job training and keeping tuition low. He said he wanted to lower the corporate tax rate and provide tax breaks for companies that invest in the United States, as well as boost domestic energy production and invest in future energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels. He said Romney's plan would include $5 trillion in tax cuts that would hamper the nation's ability to make those key investments.

"Ultimately, it's going to be up to the voters -- to you -- which path we should take," he said. "Are we going to double-down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess, or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says America does best when the middle-class does best."

Rejecting what he called Obama's "trickle-down government" approach, Romney promised to push for North American energy independence; open up more trade, particularly in Latin America, and crack down on China if it cheats; make sure America's schools are the world's best; pursue a balanced federal budget and champion small businesses. He repeatedly denied having a $5 trillion tax cut, but did promise tax relief for the middle-income Americans. He said wealthy Americans will do well under either president.

But "under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried -- they're just being crushed," Romney said. "Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself."

Romney and Obama's clash over the president's signature health-care reform was a centerpiece of the debate.

"I just don't know how the president could have come into office facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic crisis at the kitchen table and spend his energy and passion for two years fighting for Obamacare instead of fighting for jobs for the American people," Romney said. "It has killed jobs. And the best course for health care is to do what we did in my state: craft a plan at the state level that fits the needs of the state and then lets focus on getting the costs down for people, rather than raising it with a $2,500 additional premium."

Obama pushed back by stressing that the health-care law helped millions of families that were worrying about going bankrupt if they got sick or getting health coverage with a pre-existing condition. The law doesn't constitute a government takeover of the health-care industry, he said, "but it does say insurance companies can't jerk you around" with arbitrary lifetime limits and other conditions.

"We did work on this alongside working on jobs because this is part of making sure middle-class families are secure in this country," Obama said.

Obama also noted that the national law was based on a Republican idea and a health-care-reform law implemented in Massachusetts while Romney was governor.

"The irony is that we've seen this model work really well in Massachusetts because Governor Romney did a good thing, working with Democrats in the state, to set up what is essentially the identical model," Obama said. "As a consequence, people are covered there. It hasn't destroyed jobs. And as a consequence, we know have a system in which we have the opportunity to start bringing down costs as opposed to just leaving millions of people out in the cold."

Romney countered that he worked with a Democrat-dominated Legislature and didn't raise taxes or cut Medicare and let people keep their own insurance plans.

"I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate," Obama said. "The fact of the matter is we used the same advisers, and they say it's the same plan."

De Berge, the Phoenix pollster, was surprised Obama didn't deploy attacks on Romney that have become a big part of the campaign, such as referencing Romney's secretly recorded comments that 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims."

"Maybe (Obama is) holding them in his holster for the next debate," de Berge said.

De Berge said Romney did a good job of repeatedly saying he didn't want to kill jobs.

Other debate watchers on both sides of the political aisle took note of Obama's dull performance.

One Democratic observer speculated that Obama may not have wanted to go on the attack Wednesday.

"Governor Romney was much more aggressive," said Ron Ober, who was chief of staff to former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., and is the founder of the Phoenix consulting firm Policy Development Group. "There weren't any knockouts tonight, and I think the campaign goes on and it's going to be a race through Nov. 6."

Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, a Republican, predicted that Romney connected with voters during the debate.

"You really didn't feel like President Obama was even in the debate," DiCiccio said.

Jim Lehrer thinks best moderator is no moderator at all

Analysis: Jim Lehrer thinks best moderator is no moderator at all

by Robert Bianco - Oct. 3, 2012 08:12 PM

USA Today

Apparently, Jim Lehrer thinks the best moderator is no moderator at all.

Of course, considering Wednesday night's first presidential debate was the 12th presidential or vice presidential debate Lehrer has moderated since 1988, it's likely that he knew most of his efforts to move the candidates off their talking points were going to fail. Which might be why, fairly quickly in, he seemed to give up.

He asked President Obama and Gov. Romney to stick to the questions asked. They didn't. He asked Gov. Romney, after the first statement, to ask President Obama a direct question. He didn't. He objected to Gov. Romney taking the last word on the first question. He took it anyway. He told President Obama his time was up. He took more time.

He asked them both, at the start, to stick to the limits set. And then he, and they, acted as if the limits didn't exist.

Clearly, Lehrer lost control, early and often. But just as clearly, he had a goal beyond presiding over a tightly structured debate -- which was to stay out of the way as much as possible and make the candidates run the debate themselves. And for better or worse, that goal he largely achieved.

"We're way over our first 15 minutes," Lehrer said at around the 20-minute mark, as the men continued to talk around the first question -- which was supposed to be about jobs and moved on to taxes and the budget before cycling back, sort of, to jobs. That was all right, Lehrer said, because the discussion was still about the economy. It just wasn't about that part of the economy he had asked them to discuss.

Of course, you could forgive the candidates and viewers alike for forgetting exactly what Lehrer's vague, open-ended question was from segment to segment -- which is what happens when the moderator seems to float with the tide. As a drinking game, you could count how many times one of the candidates talked over Lehrer, or how often Lehrer was reduced to sputtering "but" or "OK." or "no, no, no." Or you could just count how many times Lehrer asked Gov. Romney if he supported vouchers for Medicare before he seemed to just give up on getting an answer.

To be fair, the format put Lehrer in an almost impossible situation. If you give the candidates free rein, as he pretty much did, you end up with a debate that wanders, sometimes incomprehensibly, from surface point to surface point. If you step in too often, you risk grabbing the focus at an event that is supposed to be centered on the two candidates -- and you get slammed as biased by whichever candidate suffers under your tighter control.

Still, some control might have been nice. Perhaps Lehrer can keep that in mind if a 13th debate comes his way.

Romney's 'Big Bird' comment stirs social media

Romney's 'Big Bird' comment stirs social media

by Melanie Eversley - Oct. 3, 2012 07:39 PM

USA Today

Who knew Sesame Street's Big Bird would play a role in tonight's presidential debate in Denver?

About 30 minutes into the verbal contest between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the former governor explained that he would cut what he considers non-essential items in the budget, including cuts to PBS, which employs debate moderator Jim Lehrer.

"I'm sorry Jim. I'm gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm gonna stop other things," Romney said. "I like PBS, I like Big Bird, I actually like you too."

At that point, someone in the Twitterverse responded by creating a @FiredBigBird account, which, as of this writing shortly after 10 p.m. ET, had almost 9,900 followers.

Tweets followed.

"I worked with Big Bird. I served with Big Bird. You, sir, are no Big Bird," The Lance Arthur, @thelancearthur, of San Francisco tweeted.

"Why is there no Muppet-vision way to watch the #debate?" tweeted Ryan Penagos of New York City, also known as, @Agent.M, executive editorial director of Marvel Digital Media Group and Marvel.com.

"Big Bird, you have two minutes for rebuttal," tweeted Ina Fried, @inafried, of San Francisco, the senior editor for a website called All Things Digital.

Facebook users chimed in too, with someone creating a page called "Big Bird for President." As of 10:20 p.m. ET, the page had about 460 "Likes."

"I am in," commented Facebook user Matthew H. Johnson.

"Go Big Bird!," commented Facebook user Brent Rochford.

Fact check: Claims on job gains need a second look

Fact check: Claims on job gains need a second look

Oct. 3, 2012 10:50 PM

USA Today

In the first presidential debate Wednesday night, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney packed their responses with accusations about each other's policies and defenses of their own.

Here are a few claims that deserve a deeper look:

Private-sector job gains

The claim: Obama said the U.S. economy has created 5 million private-sector jobs the past 30 months.

The facts: After the economy plummeted in late 2007 and throughout 2009, the United States has gained 4.6 million private-sector jobs since the labor market bottomed in February 2010 -- or 5.1million under preliminary revisions released last week that are not part of the official tally by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, that's weak by historical standards. Under President George W. Bush, the private sector also added 5 million jobs in the 30 months after employment hit bottom following the 2001 downturn, and the pace of private-sector gains in the previous two recoveries was far stronger.

Tax cuts

Claim: Obama says Romney's tax plan would cut taxes by $5 trillion over 10 years, inflating the deficit.

Facts: Romney has proposed cutting tax rates by 20 percent in each bracket, which the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says would cost $4.9trillion over 10 years.

Romney said his plan will be paid for by curtailing tax deductions, so middle-class people pay less overall and upper-income people don't see lower taxes. Last month in Ohio, Romney said middle-class people would see little change in their taxes under his plan.

Romney has declined to say what tax deductions he would end. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has contended that middle-class families would see taxes rise about $2,000 a year under Romney's plan if he keeps his promise to make the tax reform revenue-neutral, arguing that it can't be done without ending popular middle-class deductions on mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, has said the gap can be closed by ending tax breaks targeting the wealthy, including tax exemptions for interest on municipal bonds.

Romney said he would not raise taxes and would not approve any tax cut that would expand the deficit. He argued that tax cuts will increase investment, putting more people to work and increasing the taxpaying population.

The middle class

Claim: Romney said middle-class families' income is down $4,300 since Obama took office.

Facts: According to a March analysis by Maryland-based economic consulting firm Sentier Research, Romney was correct. According to their analysis, based on February's Current Population Data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income was $50,065 in February, compared with $54,481 in December 2007 -- right as the recession was starting -- and about 11 months before Obama was elected. The current median household income is $50,678.

What Romney didn't say is that the decline in real median household income has been occurring over the course of the past decade, well before Obama took office. The trend has continued under the Obama administration, but it did not start there.

Obama, Romney clash on economy in first debate

Obama, Romney clash on economy in first debate

Posted: Wednesday, October 3, 2012 7:34 pm | Updated: 7:39 pm, Wed Oct 3, 2012.

Associated Press

DENVER — In a showdown at close quarters, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney sparred aggressively in their first campaign debate Wednesday night over taxes, deficits and strong steps needed to create jobs in a sputtering national economy. "The status quo is not going to cut it," declared the challenger.

Obama in turn accused his rival of seeking to "double down" on economic policies that actually led to the devastating national downturn four years ago.

Both men made frequent references to the weak economy and high national unemployment, by far the dominant issue in the race for the White House. Public opinion polls show Obama with a slight advantage in key battleground states and nationally, and Romney was particularly aggressive, like a man looking to shake up the campaign with a little less than five weeks to run.

Polite but pointed, the two men agreed about little if anything.

Obama said his opponent's plan to reduce all tax rates by 20 percent would cost $5 trillion and benefit the wealthy at the expense of middle income taxpayers.

Shot back Romney: "Virtually everything he just said about my tax plan is inaccurate."

The former Massachusetts governor and businessman added that Obama's proposal to allow the expiration of tax cuts on upper-level income would mean tax increases on small businesses that create jobs by the hundreds of thousands.

The two campaign rivals clasped hands and smiled as they strode onto the debate stage at the University of Denver, then waved to the audience before taking their places behind identical lecterns.

There was a quick moment of laughter, when Obama referred to first lady Michelle Obama as "sweetie" and noted it was their 20th anniversary.

Romney added best wishes, and said to the first couple, "I'm sure this is the most romantic place you could imagine, here with me."

Both candidates' wives were in the audience.

The two men debated before a television audience likely to be counted in the tens of millions. They will meet twice more this month, and their running mates once, but in past election years, viewership has sometimes fallen off after the first encounter.

Without saying so, the two rivals quickly got to the crux of their race — Romney's eagerness to turn the contest into a referendum on the past four years while the incumbent desires for voters to choose between his plan for the next four years and the one his rival backs.

Romney ticked off the dreary economic facts of life — a sharp spike in food stamps, economic growth "lower this year than last" and "23 million people out of work or stropped looking for work."

But Obama criticized Romney's prescriptions and his refusal to raise taxes and said, "if you take such an unbalanced approach then that means you are going to be gutting our investment in schools and education ... health care for seniors in nursing homes (and) for kids with disabilities."

Not surprisingly, the two men disagreed over Medicare, a flash point since Romney placed Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on his ticket.

The president repeatedly described Romney's plan as a "voucher program" that would raise out-of-pocket costs on seniors.

He continued, directly addressing the voters at home: "If you're 54 or 55 you might want to listen because this will affect you."

Romney said he doesn't support any changes for current retirees or those close to retirement.

"If you're 60 or 60 and older you don't need to listen further," he said, but he contended that fundamental changes are needed to prevent the system from becoming insolvent as millions of baby boom generation Americans become eligible.

Romney also made a detailed case for repealing Obamacare, the name attached to the health care plan that Obama pushed through Congress in 2010. "It has killed jobs," he said, and argued that the best approach is to "do what we did in my state."

Though he didn't say so, when he was governor Massachusetts passed legislation that required residents to purchase coverage — the so-called individual mandate that conservatives and he oppose on a national level.

Romney also said that Obamacare would cut $716 billion from Medicare over the next decade.

The president said the changes were part of a plan to lengthen the program's life, and he added that AARP, the seniors lobby, supports it.

Jim Lehrer of PBS drew moderator's duties, with Obama getting the first question and Romney the last word.

Five weeks before Election Day, early voting is under way in scattered states and beginning in more every day. Opinion polls show Obama with an advantage nationally and in most if not all of the battleground states where the race is most likely to be decided.

That put particular pressure on Romney to come up with a showing strong enough to alter the course of the campaign.

The sputtering economy served as the debate backdrop, as it has for virtually everything else in the 2012 campaign for the White House. Obama took office in the shadow of an economic crisis but promised a turnaround that hasn't materialized. Economic growth has been sluggish throughout his term, with unemployment above 8 percent since before he took office.

The customary security blended with a festival-like atmosphere in the surrounding area on a warm and sunny day. The Lumineers performed for free, and Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am delivered a pep talk of sorts to Obama's supporters. School officials arranged to show the debate on monitors outside the hall for those without tickets.

There was local political theater, too, including female Romney supporters wearing short shorts and holding signs that said, "What War On Women?" — a rebuttal to claims by Obama and the Democrats.

Both campaigns engaged in a vigorous pre-debate competition to set expectations, each side suggesting the other had built-in advantages.

Romney took part in 19 debates during the campaign for the Republican primary early in the year. The president has not been onstage with a political opponent since his last face-to-face encounter with Arizona Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival in 2008.

Obama and Romney prepared for the evening with lengthy practice sessions. Romney selected Ohio Sen. Rob Portman as a stand-in for the president; Obama turned to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to play the Republican role.

The two presidential rivals also are scheduled to debate on Oct. 16 in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla.

Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have one debate, Oct. 11 in Danville, Ky. Both men have already begun holding practice sessions.

Romney finds his voice on economy

Analysis: Romney finds his voice on economy

By Karen Tumulty, Published: October 3

Mitt Romney finally found his voice Wednesday night.

After many months of awkward moments and shifting campaign messages, he forcefully and confidently stood alongside President Obama and offered an alternative economic vision to what he called Obama’s “trickle-down government approach.”

The two contenders seemed to swap roles Wednesday. Obama was the one who struggled for his footing, scowling on the split screens of millions of television viewers across the nation and often looking like a man who wished he were elsewhere.

Romney came to the debate at the University of Denver with a heavy set of goals, chief of which was to regain ground on the economy. That issue is uppermost among voter concerns and the one that Romney believes provides his greatest advantage.

Romney pressed his case against Obama’s stewardship of a disappointingly weak recovery. He sought to sharpen his own proposals and to soften the perception among voters that he favors the interests of the wealthy over those who are struggling.

“The people who are having the hard time right now are middle-income Americans. Under the president’s policies, middle-income Americans have been buried,” Romney said, echoing a damaging phrase that Vice President Biden used the day before to describe the status of average Americans over the past four years.

Obama, meanwhile, did not make many of the arguments that he and his campaign have used most effectively against Romney. He did not recount the former governor’s career in private equity, during which Romney laid off workers, or the secretly taped video in which the Republican nominee told wealthy donors that the 47 percent of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes are dependent on government and see themselves as victims.

The president also left many of Romney’s claims unchallenged. Romney asserted eight times that Obama plans to cut $716 billion from Medicare without noting that the Republican vice presidential nominee, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), shepherded a budget through the House that would do the same thing.

In talking about the economy, which was the primary focus of the debate, Romney delivered none of the “zingers” that his team had boasted they were preparing. Each candidate instead dug into the details of his proposals and sharply criticized his opponent’s.

And in some areas, they ceded ground to the other, primarily to stress their differences.

Obama said he agreed with Romney that “our corporate tax rate is too high, so I want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25 percent. But I also want to close those loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. I want to provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States.”

And Romney insisted that he does not want to reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthy.

“High-income people are doing just fine in this economy,” he said. “They’ll do fine whether you’re president or I am.”

Romney also tried to draw a clearer link between his tax proposal, which heavily benefits the wealthy, and the economic benefit he insists it would provide for everyone else.

“The problem with raising taxes is that it slows down the rate of growth. And you could never quite get the job done,” he said. “I want to lower spending and encourage economic growth at the same time.”

The closest Romney came to matching his reputation as an unsentimental, bottom-line-driven executive was when he discussed the budget cuts he would make. The one he singled out was ending the government subsidy for the Public Broadcasting System, which airs the iconic children’s program “Sesame Street.”

“I love Big Bird,” Romney said. “But I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”

The central premise of the Republican nominee’s campaign has been that voters, disillusioned with Obama’s performance in reviving economic growth, would turn to Romney, who promotes the expertise and experience he gained in the corporate world.

But with less than five weeks to go before Election Day, Romney has been struggling to make a convincing case for himself on that score — and is running about even with Obama on who would better handle the economy.

Where Romney held a seven-point edge over the president on that question among registered voters in an August Washington Post-ABC News poll, the latest survey shows them tied, with 47 percent saying Romney would do a better job and the same proportion opting for Obama.

Meanwhile, the president continues to hold a double-digit advantage when voters are asked which of the two candidates better understands the economic problems people in this country are having. In the most recent poll, 52 percent said it was Obama, while only 39 percent named Romney.

The first debate, which history suggests will draw the biggest audience, amounted to Romney’s best opportunity to change a political dynamic that has been moving against him.

As a result, he was getting an avalanche of advice — some of it conflicting — from the conservative commentariat and from his allies on the sidelines: Be more aggressive, be more personable, attack Obama’s record, offer more details about his plans, stay out of the weeds and stick to big themes.

For Obama, who went into the debates with a slight lead in nearly every poll, the biggest challenge was to avoid a stumble. In past debates, his worst flaws were ones of style, in which he came off as arrogant and aloof, or long-winded and professorial.

Whether the debate did much to win over undecided voters or change anyone’s mind is not likely to become clear for at least a few days. In that time, news organization fact checkers will pick over the assertions that were made, pundits will award style points, and social media will amplify — and perhaps amend — the overall impressions that were left.

In this deeply polarized country, the number of people who are truly wavering in their choice is relatively small. And those who are probably were not among the tens of millions who tuned into the debate, said AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer.

By and large, “they are undecided because those people are not checked into the election,” Podhorzer said. “They’re paying attention to the coverage of the debate and they’re paying attention to what their friends are saying.”

And in an era when so much of the national dialogue takes place on social media, “inevitably some moments will live on in YouTube,” he added.

Winners and losers from the first presidential debate

Winners and losers from the first presidential debate

Posted by Chris Cillizza on October 3, 2012 at 11:42 pm

The bad news: The first presidential debate is over.

The good news: The vice presidential debate is a week from tomorrow.

The Fix flooded the zone for tonight’s presidential debate — with live-tweeting, some video back and forth with Ezra Klein and our first thoughts from the event. But, what’s a big political event without a little sifting through of the winners and losers from the debate that was?

Our take is below. Enjoy!

WINNERS

* Mitt Romney: Romney needed a strong performance after roughly a month of unrelenting bad news — and even worse polling in swing states. And, he got it. Romney was extremely well-prepared and came across as someone more than ready to do the job for which he is running. He also, smartly, injected people he had met along the campaign trail to illustrate his policy points and drive home his connection to average people. A star turn for Romney at a time when he badly needed one.

* Bill Clinton: Obama’s answers in the first 30 minutes of the debate were either a) a paraphrasing of the last Democratic president or b) a comparison between himself and the former president. Somewhere, Bubba was smiling. Big time.

* Studies: The first 45 minutes of the debate felt like a conversation between the heads of two opposing think tanks. Obama cited a study, Romney responded with a study of his own. The point? You can find a study that says almost anything.

* Split screen: How the candidates react to one another — and what they do when the other is speaking — is fascinating. (Cue critics who insist we pay too much attention to the theatrics of politics and not enough to the substance.) A little bit more innovation/integration of technology might be welcome too; we continue to believe showing some relevant tweets on screen during the debates might be a worthwhile endeavor.

* Donald Trump: It pains us to write this but The Donald got a mention from both Obama and Romney. And, in the “all publicity is good publicity” world that Trump occupies this is a good thing for him — and a terrible one for the society at large.

LOSERS

* President Obama: The incumbent just seemed something short of engaged in tonight’s proceedings. Like his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama’s debate performance seemed purposely restrained — striving for a workmanlike competence but achieving something well short of that. Obama’s facial expressions seemed to alternate between grimly looking down at his podium and smirking when Romney said something with which he disagreed. Snapping at debate moderator Jim Lehrer — more on that later — didn’t help Obama either.

* The format: The attempt to structure the debate around a series of 15-minute segments discussing different aspects of the economy and other domestic policy matters failed almost before it started. Both candidates — what a surprise! — ignored time cues and the specific questions they were asked. And, Lehrer struggled to wrangle them into the allotted time/topic, which left the debate feeling almost entirely format-less. In fact, the candidates were so windy that Lehrer had to essentially jettison the last segment on governing. Why not embrace the fact that these debates are always going to be rollicking policy discussions and not even attempt to put sure-to-be ignored formatting on them?

* Zingers: For all the focus on the one-liners that Romney was allegedly preparing, the debate was almost entirely devoid of the sort of “no he didn’t!” lines that are often the most-remembered moments of these sorts of things. To the extent there were zingers, they came from Romney. His “you pick the losers” and “you’re entitled to your own plane and house” lines were cutting enough to be effective without appearing entirely rehearsed (although, of course, they were.)

* Big Bird: Mitt Romney may love the big yellow bird but he told America he would get rid of funding for PBS if he was president. Whither Elmo?

Factchecking the first presidential debate of 2012

Factchecking the first presidential debate of 2012

Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:02 AM ET, 10/04/2012

There they go again.

Both President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney tossed out a blizzard of statistics and facts, often of dubious origin. Here are some highlights from the first presidential debate of 2012, with thanks to the readers who tweeted suggestions to #FactCheckThis

“Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut -- on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts -- that’s another trillion dollars”

--President Obama

“I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut”

--Governor Romney

But Romney also has said he will make his plan “revenue neutral” by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, although he has not provided the details.

The Tax Policy Center has analyzed the specifics of Romney’s plan thus far released and concluded the numbers aren’t there to make it revenue neutral.

In the debate, Romney countered that “six other studies” have found that not to be the case, but he’s wrong about that. Those studies actually do not provide much evidence that Romney’s proposal--as sketchy as it is--would be revenue neutral without making unrealistic assumptions.

Given the uncertainty, the Obama campaign has assumed the worst about Romney’s plan—that it would mean higher taxes for middle-class Americans—even though, as Romney stated, there is no chance he would try to implement such a plan as president.

“I’ve put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan…. And the way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 of additional revenue… That’s how the bipartisan commission that talked about how we should move forward suggested.”

--Obama

For instance, Simpson-Bowles envisioned $4 trillion in debt reduction over nine years; the president’s plan would spread the cuts over 10 years. A good chunk of the savings from deficit reduction piles up in that last year. When the two plans are compared apples to apples, Simpson-Bowles yields about $6.6 trillion in deficit reduction--50 percent more than Obama’s plan.

By Obama’s math, you have nearly $3.8 trillion in spending cuts, compared to $1.5 trillion in tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire for high-income Americans). That’s how he claims $1 of tax increases for every $2.50 of spending cuts.

But virtually no serious budget analyst agreed with this accounting. Obama’s $4 trillion figure, for instance, includes counting some $1 trillion in cuts reached a year ago in budget negotiations with Congress. So no matter who is the president, the savings are already in the bank. (The Obama campaign notes that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the president’s budget would reduce the deficit by $3.5 trillion over ten years. The national debt, as percentage of the gross domestic product, would rise for 73 percent to 76 percent in that period, however.)

“It’s important for us...that we take some of the money that we’re saving as we wind down two wars to rebuild America.”

--Obama

In other words, by projecting war spending far in the future, the administration is able to claim credit for saving money it never intended to spend. And Obama would still be borowing the money to “rebuild America” (Imagine someone borrowing $50,000 a year for college—and then declaring that they have an extra $500,000 to spend over the next decade once they graduate.)

This budget trick actually works both ways. The Bush administration never properly accounted for war spending, refusing to project costs in the future, which kept its deficit projections artificially low. Now that the wars are winding down, the Obama administration is happy to project costs far into the future, because it artificially inflates the potential deficit reduction. Funny how that works.

“On Medicare, for current retirees, he’s cutting $716 billion from the program….the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake.”

--Romney

Under the health-care law, spending does not decrease in Medicare year after year; the reduction is from anticipated levels of spending in future years. In fact, the savings mostly are wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries — who, as a result of the health-care law, ended up with new benefits for preventive care and prescription drugs. But Romney argued that was a “bad trade” and the Medicare actuary also has raised concerns about whether the cuts to providers were sustainable.

While it is correct that anticipated savings from Medicare were used to help offset some of the anticipated costs of expanding health care for all Americans, it does not affect the Medicare trust fund. In fact, the Obama health-care law also raised Medicare payroll taxes by $318 billion over the new 10-year time frame, further strengthening the program’s financial condition.

Moreover, under the concept of the unified budget, money that is collected by the federal government for whatever purpose (such as Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes) is spent on whatever bills are coming due at that time. Social Security and Medicare will get a credit for taxes collected that are not immediately spent on Social Security, but those taxes are quickly devoted to other federal spending.

Indeed, the House Republican budget plan crafted by Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, retains virtually all of the Medicare “cuts” contained in the health-care law, but diverts them instead to his Medicare overhaul. Republicans argue that that is a more effective use of the savings.

“I also want to close those loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas.”

--Obama

“You said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.”

--Romney

Yet it is pretty small potatoes given the attention Democrats pay to it. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that ending the deduction for moving operations overseas would raise just $168 million over a decade.

In the federal government with an annual budget deficit of more than $1 trillion, that’s what you call a rounding error.

“And over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up -- it’s true -- but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.”

--Obama

“It’s tempting to think that provider initiatives are truly denting costs, but it’s hard for changes in provider behavior to influence costs before they occur,” said a recent article in Modern Healthcare magazine. “Instead, the drop in healthcare cost growth is primarily attributable to the Great Recession’s impact on employment, private health insurance, government revenues and budgets.”

Meanwhile, Romney blamed a rise in insurance premiums on the health care law. This is also overstated, since much of the health care law has not been implemented yet.

“If I’m president I will help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.”

--Romney

But, in fact, the number is even less impressive than it sounds. This pledge amounts to an average of 250,000 jobs a month, a far cry from the 500,000 jobs a month that Romney once claimed would be created in a “normal recovery.” In recent months, the economy has averaged about 150,000 jobs a month.

The Congressional Budget Office is required to consider the effects of the so-called “fiscal cliff” if a year-end budget deal is not reached, which many experts believe would push the country into a recession. But even with that caveat, the nonpartisan agency assumes 9.06 million jobs will be created between 2013 and 2017. (This is a revision downward; CBO had estimated 11 million in January.)

But Moody’s Analytics, in an August forecast, predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president. And Macroeconomic Advisors in April also predicted a gain of 12.3 million jobs.

In other words, this is a fairly safe bet by Romney, even if he has a somewhat fuzzy plan for action. We have often noted that presidents are often at the mercy — or are the beneficiary — of broad economic trends, and Romney’s pledge appears to be an effort to take advantage of that.

“The problem is that because the voucher wouldn’t necessarily keep up with health care inflation, it was estimated that this would cost the average senior about $6,000 a year. Now, in fairness, what Governor Romney has now said is he’ll maintain traditional Medicare alongside it .”

--Obama

The problem is this dollar figure—usually expressed as $6,400--is an estimate for an earlier version of Ryan’s plan. He’s since changed it significantly to address some of the loudest complaints. The new version of the plan includes the option for traditional Medicare, as well as a commitment that at least one health-care option would be fully covered by the government.

Indeed, the new plan is much more generous than the original version. The old plan had capped growth at the rate of inflation. Many experts believed that was too low and pushed more costs on beneficiaries.

In the updated Ryan plan, Medicare spending would be permitted to grow slightly faster than the nation’s economy — in fact, at the same growth rate as Obama’s budget for Medicare.

“I like the way we did it [health care] in Massachusetts…What were some differences? We didn’t raise taxes.”

--Romney

A June 2011 Boston Globe article said this about the cost of RomneyCare and how the state has paid for it:

“Over the five-year life of the new law, total cost has been $9 billion, with the federal government picking up nearly 64 percent of the cost, the state’s share is more than 18 percent, and the remaining 18 percent split by hospitals and insurers, who pass it along to their customers, to pay into the Health Safety Net fund, which reimburses providers for treating the uninsured. The federal share consists of the usual 50 percent reimbursement for Medicaid, supplemented by stimulus money and additional funds awarded the state for its innovative program to subsidize insurance of the working poor.”

So the federal government pays more for the Bay State’s healthcare program than the state itself does.

The Globe piece also noted that “there is no certainty the state can afford the program’s cost indefinitely if the underlying costs of health care continue to soar.”

The state has increased taxes to pay for its healthcare plan since Romney left office. For instance, it raised taxes on cigarettes and implemented a one-time assessment totalling $50 million on hospitals and insurers. --Josh Hicks

“In one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world. Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives.”

--Romney

The president’s 2013 budget called for elimination of tax breaks for oil subsidies, which the White House estimated at $4 billion per year. Dividing $90 billion -- the federal money that Romney claims went toward clean energy -- by $4 billion in breaks for the oil industry amounts to 22.5 years, not 50 years.

It’s also worth noting that the $90 billion was not “breaks,” but a combination of loans, loan guarantees and grants through the stimulus program, and they were spread out over several years rather than one, as Romney claimed.

Furthermore, not all of the money went to the “green energy world.” About $23 billion went toward “clean coal,” energy-efficiency upgrades, updating the electricity grid and environmental clean-up, largely for old nuclear weapons sites. -- Josh Hicks and Steven Mufson

“The president’s reelected you’ll see dramatic cuts to our military.”

--Romney

“Security” spending included not just the Defense Department but also the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs, foreign aid spending, intelligence and other areas. The goal was to allow some flexibility to avoid being locked into a specific number for defense spending.

The law also tasked a “supercommittee” with finding ways to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.2 trillion over 10 years. If the committee failed — which it did — then automatic cuts totaling $1.2 trillion also would be ordered in “security” and “nonsecurity” spending.

Now there is an impasse. An alternative plan passed the House in May on a party-line vote, with not a single Democrat voting for it. The bill would have halted the automatic cuts in defense spending for one year, while cutting in other areas. The Democratic-controlled Senate did not accept the bill. Democrats, by contrast, have proposed ending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy as a way to meet the deficit targets in the Budget Control Act, though no vote has been taken on a sequestration replacement plan.

Romney has not explained how he would end this stalemate.

“It puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.”

--Romney

Beginning in 2014, the 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, (made up of experts subject to Senate confirmation) is designed to help reduce the rate of growth in Medicare spending if it exceeds a certain target rate. The board would make recommendations to reduce costs.

Eventually, if the targets are not met, the board will submit a plan to the White House and Congress to achieve the necessary cuts. Congress could pass a different set of cuts or reject the IPAB recommendations with a three-fifths vote in the Senate.

In effect, the IPAB appears designed to mimic the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which was designed in the late 1980s by then Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.) with the backing of the Reagan administration. That commission was empowered to make politically difficult decisions of closing military bases, thus limiting the influence of lobbyists and in effect letting Congress off the hook of making the tough decisions themselves.

The health-care law explicitly says that the recommendations cannot lead to rationing of health care. Of course, “rationing” is in the eye of beholder, and one common complaint is that rationing is not defined. The law also limits recommendations that would change benefits, modify eligibility or increase Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing, such as deductibles, coinsurance and co-payments.

On the surface, the IPAB appears aimed at doing the same thing as the House Republican Medicare plan— reducing the runaway costs of Medicare, except on a faster track. (The GOP plan would not kick in until 2021, just a few years before the Medicare hospital fund begins to run dry.)

The dispute really centers on a philosophical divide between the parties. Democrats would rely on independent experts (such as doctors and consumer advocates) to recommend the cuts; Republicans would rely on the insurance marketplace to control costs.

“The approach that Governor Romney’s talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003, and we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years, we ended up moving from surplus to deficits, and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

--Obama

With such careful pruning and adjusting of language, a politician can easily shed one or two Pinocchios.

But another part of Obama’s statement is misleading. There’s no doubt that George W. Bush owns an unimpressive record on job creation. But as we have previously demonstrated, Obama comes in either last, second-to-last or in the bottom half among presidents since the Great Depression, depending on which way you look at the numbers.

Text of Presidential Debates

If you really love punishment, or you enjoy listening to lies and BS, you can find the full text of the Presidential debates here. here.