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.htmlI 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:
Mittens wrote: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:
Mittens wrote: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:
Mittens wrote: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.
Barack HUSSEIN Obama wrote: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.
Barack HUSSEIN Obama wrote: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:
Mittens wrote: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...
Barack HUSSEIN Obama wrote:It's time to end it.
Mittens wrote: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:
Mittens wrote: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.