The Great Presidential Debate

[saxitoxin]

Romney definitely won, IMO. Not by a lot but it seemed pretty clear.

[Phatscotty]

Romney definitely won, IMO. Not by a lot but it seemed pretty clear.

Hell, even Van Jones and Bill Maher agree that Mitt Romney won.

[Woodruff]

Romney definitely won, IMO. Not by a lot but it seemed pretty clear.

A STUNNING statement coming from you. I'm so glad you could make a statement that held real thought.

Hell, even Van Jones and Bill Maher agree that Mitt Romney won.

That doesn't at all change my point.

[Neoteny]

Romney definitely won, IMO. Not by a lot but it seemed pretty clear.

This. He was a complete dick too. Whether that will help him is to be seen.

[Phatscotty]

Romney definitely won, IMO. Not by a lot but it seemed pretty clear.

This. He was a complete dick too. Whether that will help him is to be seen.

Lehrer was a dick to Romney, it' okay for him to be a dick back.

On the other hand, did you catch Obama literally winking at Lehrer a couple times?

[Neoteny]

Romney was steamrolling Lehrer from the start. I wouldn't necessarily call ol' Jimmy impartial, but he's not running for president, is he?

You grumpy that Obama was getting flirty on national TV? OR IS IT A LIBRUL CONSPIRACY

[Phatscotty]

Romney was steamrolling Lehrer from the start. I wouldn't necessarily call ol' Jimmy impartial, but he's not running for president, is he?

You grumpy that Obama was getting flirty on national TV? OR IS IT A LIBRUL CONSPIRACY

it was 2 on 1, and Romney still won. Why would I be grumpy?

Want to see grumpy? viewtopic.php?f=8&t=179207

[saxitoxin]

"ROMNEY WON THE DEBATE BECAUSE OF CITIZENS UNITED."

first

[Neoteny]

Romney was steamrolling Lehrer from the start. I wouldn't necessarily call ol' Jimmy impartial, but he's not running for president, is he?

You grumpy that Obama was getting flirty on national TV? OR IS IT A LIBRUL CONSPIRACY

it was 2 on 1, and Romney still won. Why would I be grumpy?

Want to see grumpy? viewtopic.php?f=8&t=179207

It's not two on one when the moderator is pushing for clarifications, nor is it two on one when one of the candidates winks at the moderator while saying "We're pretty much going to keep ignoring you."

[thegreekdog]

I did not watch the debate. Instead, I read the transcript this morning. I think Romney definitively "won" if anyone can win one of these types of things; I mostly think that because I thought he would be horrendous and Obama is a wonderful speaker.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/politics/ ... index.html

I thought it was interesting that the president did not know Romney's plans (or else purposefully stated them incorrectly). I wonder if that was a product of, generally, the challenger not revealing plans prior to this type of debate. For example, right at the beginning the president accused Romney of wanting a $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy. Romney's response, I thought, was really well done:

First of all, I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of a scale that you're talking about. My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am.

I like this a lot. Rhetoric, yes, but it was pretty good stuff.

Romney's tax plan is also pretty interesting and something I don't think I've ever heard from Republicans:

The second area, taxation, we agree, we ought to bring the tax rates down. And I do, both for corporations and for individuals. But in order for us not to lose revenue, have the government run out of money, I also lower deductions and credits and exemptions, so that we keep taking in the same money when you also account for growth.

Basically eliminating deductions, credits and exemptions will do a number of things I've been (politically, but not professionally) in favor of for a while. Those types of things tend to benefit the wealthy and certain companies over other companies.

I did not like the rhetoric of this statement:

What things would I cut from spending? Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they don't pass it: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I'll get rid of it.

What does that even mean? It means he's going to cut the stuff he wants to cut and keep "borrowing money from China" to pay for the stuff he wants to keep. So annoying.

Now, we all know that we've got to do more. And so I've put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. It's on a website. You can look at all the numbers, what cuts we make and what revenue we raise.

I need to get to this website.

The oil industry gets $4 billion a year in corporate welfare. Basically, they get deductions that those small businesses that Governor Romney refers to, they don't get.

Now, does anybody think that ExxonMobil needs some extra money, when they're making money every time you go to the pump? Why wouldn't we want to eliminate that? Why wouldn't we eliminate tax breaks for corporate jets? My attitude is, if you got a corporate jet, you can probably afford to pay full freight, not get a special break for it.

I can get behind these types of things, except the president just wants to take those tax breaks and give them to other companies that support him. The same with Romney. It's not an overall increase in revenue when you're giving tax breaks to solar companies (in Obama's case) or coal companies (in Romney's case).

So Romney calls Obama out on it:

to oil, to tax breaks, then companies going overseas. So let's go through them one by one. First of all, the Department of Energy has said the tax break for oil companies is $2.8 billion a year. And it's actually an accounting treatment, as you know, that's been in place for a hundred years. Now...

It's time to end it.

And 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. And you say Exxon and Mobil. Actually, this $2.8 billion goes largely to small companies, to drilling operators and so forth.

Good job on Romney.

After the tax debate there was all this rhetoric on seniors and Medicare/Medicaid and social security which just pissed me off. Talk about pandering.

I like this too:

Dodd-Frank was passed. And it includes within it a number of provisions that I think has some unintended consequences that are harmful to the economy. One is it designates a number of banks as too big to fail, and they're effectively guaranteed by the federal government. This is the biggest kiss that's been given to -- to New York banks I've ever seen. This is an enormous boon for them. There've been 122 community and small banks have closed since Dodd- Frank.

It basically calls out Dodd-Frank for the stuff I've been saying for the past few months.

And the president's response was merely "Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank." That's not what Romney said he wants to do. He wants to repeal Dodd-Frank and then replace it. I don't believe Romney, but, well, he said it and the president ignored it.

[Neoteny]

This is where Obama gets his 5 trillion number, btw. It is misleading, and I wish he'd stop.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... n-tax-cut/

[AndyDufresne]

I think all the presidential debates will be pretty stalemated. The vice-presidential debate is the only one in which I think someone will really win.


--Andy

[72o]

I am a pretty staunch conservative, and I thought Obama won.

The couple of times that he said, <paraphrasing> 'I want to tell the American people, if you believe that Romney can cut taxes and increase spending, and you won't have to pay for it, vote for him.' was fucking money. I laughed.

Romney did pretty much sound like an idiot to someone who values substance over flash. He kept saying he wants to cut tax rates to give money back to the businesses and individuals, but he wants to close loopholes so the revenue stays the same. To anyone who is not an imbecile, if the revenue stays the same, you haven't cut taxes or given any money back. It's not rocket science. A dollar is a dollar, regardless of how you try to spin it.

[thegreekdog]

I am a pretty staunch conservative, and I thought Obama won.

The couple of times that he said, <paraphrasing> 'I want to tell the American people, if you believe that Romney can cut taxes and increase spending, and you won't have to pay for it, vote for him.' was fucking money. I laughed.

Romney did pretty much sound like an idiot to someone who values substance over flash. He kept saying he wants to cut tax rates to give money back to the businesses and individuals, but he wants to close loopholes so the revenue stays the same. To anyone who is not an imbecile, if the revenue stays the same, you haven't cut taxes or given any money back. It's not rocket science. A dollar is a dollar, regardless of how you try to spin it.

When did Romney say that he was going to cut taxes and increase spending? I thought he said he was going to cut taxes and DEcrease spending.

You are correct that if the revenue stays the same, you have not cut taxes. However that is not what Romney said. He's going to cut tax revenue from certain individuals and businesses (i.e. certain individuals and businesses will pay less taxes) and he's going to increase tax revenue from certain other individuals and businesses (i.e. certain individuals and businesses will pay more taxes). For example, let's say Romney lowers the corporate tax rate by 1%, but then also does away with the deduction for interest (not going to happen, but let's say it does). All corporations pay less tax because the rate is reduced, but those corporations that take a deduction for interest expense will pay more tax because the deduction is removed.

[72o]

He said he wanted to lower taxes, but not decrease revenue "so the government wouldn't run out of money".

That's around 9 minutes something of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkrwUU_YApE