Who is the real Romney and was Obama’s mind somewhere else?
Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.
That simply isn’t true. Mr. Romney wants to restore the Bush-era tax cut that expires at the end of this year and largely benefits the wealthy. He wants to end the estate tax and the gift tax, providing a huge benefit only to those with multimillion-dollar estates, at a cost of more than $1 trillion over a decade to the deficit. He wants to preserve the generous rates on capital gains that benefit himself personally and others at his economic level. And he wants to cut everyone’s tax rates by 20%, which again would be a gigantic boon to the wealthy.
None of these would cost the Treasury a dime, he insisted, because he would reduce deductions and loopholes. But, as always, he refused to enumerate a single deduction he would erase. “What I’ve said is I won’t put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit,” he said. “No economist can say Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.”
In fact, many economists have said exactly that, and, without details, Mr. Romney can’t simply refute them. But rather than forcefully challenging this fiction, Mr. Obama chose to be polite and professorial, as if hoping that strings of details could hold up against blatant nonsense. Viewers were not helped by a series of pedestrian questions from the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, who never jumped in to challenge either candidate on the facts.
When Mr. Romney accused the president of supporting a “trickle-down government,” Mr. Obama might have demanded to know what that means. He could then have pointed out that it is Mr. Romney whose economic plan is based on the discredited idea that high-end tax cuts trickle down to the middle class and poor.
Mr. Romney said he supported the idea of regulation but rejected the Dodd-Frank financial reform law because it was too generous to the big “New York banks.” This is an alternative-universe interpretation of a law that is deeply despised and opposed by the banks, but Mr. Obama missed several opportunities to point out how the law limits the corrosive practices, like derivatives trading, that led to the 2008 crash and puts in place vitally important consumer protections.
On health care, Mr. Romney pretended that he had an actual plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, and that it covered pre-existing conditions. He has no such plan, and his false claim finally roused the president to his only strong moment of the evening. The country doesn’t know the details, he said, of how Mr. Romney would replace Wall Street reform, or health care reform, or tax increases on the rich because Republicans don’t want people to understand the hard trade-offs involved in these decisions.
There are still two more presidential debates, and Mr. Obama has the facts on his side to expose the hollowness of his opponent. But first he has to decide to use them aggressively.
I agree 100% and then some. (That’s mainly because I am still entertaining the hope, perhaps naively, that in a second term Obama will put America’s own best interests first by calling and holding the Zionist state of Israel to account for its crimes).
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Observer:
October 4th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
One of the problems is the terror an assertive black man strikes in a certain part of the American soul. Reportedly, undecided voters watching the debate with meters in their hands reacted most negatively when Obama responded most strongly to Romney’s evasions–specifically in the segment where Romney seemed to disavow his own tax plan. Note, too, that Romney came close to calling Obama “boy,” comparing him to Romney’s own less than truthful sons.
herman king:
October 5th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Romney is a tool of Israel, Obama has dominant Negroid genes. No matter who wins we are screwed.
Rehmat:
October 5th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Noam Neusner, Dubya Bush’s former Jewish speechwriter, in an Op-Ed in Jewish daily Forward (August 29, 2012), claimed that ‘Mitt Romney is Real Tikkum Olam Candidate’. Therefore, he suggests that Jews who care for their Jewish values; individual freedom and prosperity (big banks and bailouts), should vote for GOP candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, whom Jewish editor Mark Ames of the Exile magazine calls The Curse of Joseph Smith.
Mitt Romney started his multi-billion Bain Capital in 1984 with blood money from right-wing Salvadorans. Both Romney and Obama are products of financial and pro-Israel interest groups.
Mitt Romney’s foreign policy is even more anti-American than his opponent Barack Obama, especially when it comes to the Muslim East. Romney’s foreign policy revolves round China, immigration, and his attempts to lure American Jews with near-racist talk about Arabs and belligerence against Iran. The Washington Post’s Zionist Jew columnist David Ignatius says: “Other than his support for Israel and rhetorical shots at Russia and China, it’s a mystery what Romney thinks about major international issues and where he would take the country“.
Bradley Burston, a Jewish journalist with Israeli daily Ha’aretz disagrees with both Neusner and Efune. Burston has different ‘Jewish values’. He wrote that several of Mitt Romney’s policies are against Jewish Tikum Olam. He cites examples, such as; to ban all abortions without exceptions, Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin has sought to break, denigrate, undermine and eliminate the very unions which have helped the local Jewish communities and generations of immigrant Jews, opposing same sex marriage, ridiculing global warming – and supporting the 1% rich fatcats.
Paul Craig Roberts, is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Zioconservative Wall Street Journal wrote on October 2, 2012: ““Billions of dollars have been spent on political propaganda, but not a single important issue has been addressed. The closest the campaign has come to a political issue is which candidate can grovel the lowest at the feet of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Romney won that contest. But for the rest, well, it is like two elementary school children sticking their tongues out at one another”.
http://rehmat1.com/2012/10/04/paul-roberts-president-like-cynthia-mckinney/
David King:
October 6th, 2012 at 1:48 am
I have a different opinion. How is this…?
The election is stage managed. Romney faltered too early in the election and so Obama was told to hand this debate to Romney.
It reminds me of a sporting event. When one team in a competition is too dominant; the association running the program losses the audience. Games are managed to maximise the involvement of the audience.
maryam:
October 6th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
@Herman King: Shame on you, you racist idiot. Please apologize for the “negroid” remark. Highly disgusting.
Peter D:
October 7th, 2012 at 10:52 am
“Obama has dominant Negroid genes”
He may look like a black man, but he’s presidented just like a white man so far.