Official 2012 Presidental Election Discussion

Exactly what "lies" did Romney tell?

While I do support Obama over Romney, I think it was pretty clear who won that debate. When all is said and done, I don't think it'll have that much of an effect on the election, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Romney polling better in the coming days.

They both 'lied', that's what politicians generally do.

His tax plan. How he said his "plan" won't lower the tax burden on the rich and won't raise the burden on the middle and lower class, when it clearly will. He's been pushing for millionaire tax cuts, the same ones that George Bush gave. How are those gonna get paid for? Someone's gotta pay for it. The only thing that's gonna "trickle down" is the higher tax rate for the middle and lower classes. He kept saying all these "plans" he has, but he didn't talk in detail about a single one of them. If he thinks his plans are so good, and they'll help the country out so much, why didn't he talk about them? His plan to create 12 million jobs. Sounds good. The words "12 million jobs" probably look good on paper. But until he tells us how he's gonna do it, it's just that. Words on a paper. He FINALLY mentioned the troops, and the defense budget. Which is WAY overdrawn. He lied about the Medicare plan his buddy Paul Ryan sponsored. About how it WILL turn Medicare into a voucher-program. Flat out lied when he said that Paul Ryan said nothing about a voucher program.

Look. We must have clearly watched a different debate. Because if you couldn't see just how badly Romney flip-flopped on every single issue that was debated about tonight, then I don't know what to tell you.

Source: PoliticusUSA.com


1). Mitt Romney claims he is not cutting taxes for the wealthy

Romney actually began the debate completely reinventing his tax plan. Romney claimed that his tax plan isn’t a $5 trillion tax cut. However, yesterday his own running mate Paul Ryan touted Romney’s 20% tax cut across the board.

Ryan said, “And so what we’re saying is, we’re going to lower tax rates for everybody across the board by 20%, and we can pay for that without losing revenue by closing loopholes for people at the top end of the income scale. Everybody gets lower tax rates as a result. And you can keep these preferences for middle class taxpayers and have 20% lower tax rates.”

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2). Romney claimed his tax plan doesn’t raise taxes on the middle class

Mitt Romney used some funny math to claim that his plan doesn’t raise taxes on middle class. However, the Tax Policy Center found that Romney’s plan, “The report by the centrist Tax Policy Center found that Romney’s tax cuts would boost after-tax income by an average of 4.1 percent for those earning more than $1 million a year, while reducing by an average of 1.2 percent the after-tax income of individuals earning less than $200,000.”

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3). Romney claimed that Obama would increase taxes on the top 3% of “small businesses.”

Romney used some dubious statistics to claim that Obama would raise taxes on small businesses. What Romney didn’t tell the voters is that he and the Republican Party have a unique definition of small business. Washington Monthly explored the GOP definition of small business, “Many of those 750,000 small businesses aren’t small at all. Some, like Bechtel Corporation, are positively enormous. The Democratic and Republican figures come from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But numerous think tanks and government organizations have examined the data and come to similar conclusions: First, that letting the Bush tax cuts on the top two brackets of “small-business” income would impact a tiny percentage of those businesses; and second, that many of the “small businesses” that would be impacted are actually giant companies — which explains why such a tiny fraction of them can account for half of small business income.”

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4). Romney says oil subsidies go to small companies

Romney tried to sell the subsidies for Big Oil as going to small natural gas and coal companies. The truth is that $2.8 billion in subsidies go to the five biggest oil companies. Big Oil is also allowed to write off all of their drilling costs.

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5). Romney said getting rid of the Bush tax cuts will kill jobs

Mitt Romney claimed that if the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans, it will kill jobs. Forbes debunked this myth and concluded that, “But the GOP meme suggesting that tax cuts equals jobs while, conversely, tax increases on the so-called “job creators” mean less work for the rest of us, simply does not survive any reasonable scrutiny. Putting more money in the pockets of the wealthy may create a few jobs for the foreign bankers who get to count the extra money funneled into into the off-shore accounts of the rich, but there is nothing in the way of actual data to support the notion that putting more money into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans will inure to the benefit of those looking for work.”

Obama is not a great debater. Unfortunately these debates are more about show than it is about the facts, and Romney looked better up there tonight. Right now it seems like a handicap for Obama to be without his teleprompter.

I actually think Paul Ryan is going to "beat" Biden even if his points generally lack substance, just like we saw this evening. Perception is everything in these debates, and while Ryan comes across as pretty smooth (especially if you don't listen to a word he says), Biden can be a little rough around the edges and sometimes talks himself into tough situations.

I do expect Obama to be much more well-prepared for the next debate, too, but he really has to go on the offensive if he wants to earn any popularity points back with the casual voter.

That's not true necessarily. Massive cuts to spending would do significantly more than taxing the rich does.

Regardless, I'm not going to break down what Romney said. I watched like 10 minutes of the debate because, quite frankly, I know that both of these guys are completely full of crapand the only interest I have is in their awkward attempts to "box" the other one by playing the blame game.

This election truly is the Giant Douche vs. the Turd Sandwich.




If you're just catching on now that Romney is a worst flip-flopper than John Kerry, then I don't think you've been paying very close attention.

I had to get up and leave the floor when Romney was speaking at the Republican National Convention because I couldn't stand his bullshit. A woman from Texas tried to stop me and asked, "Don't you want to stop Obama?" and I answered, "Not if it means supporting this guy."

I believe that Romney and Obama are closer to one another than any other previous race. At least in the others, we had (at least the perception) that both candidates weren't complete war-mongerers.