On Wednesday, October 4, 2012, it is estimated that 60 million viewers watched the debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney. As the debate unfolded, I, and probably a number of other folks, was both astonished and even bewildered as to what was transpiring during this 90 minute spectacle. Immediately after the debate, many pundits determined that Romney was the winner and that President Obama had basically a lackluster performance. To me, President Obama seemed to be unusually reserved and not really on top of his game. However, regardless of what the pundits are saying and perceptions of President Obama’s performance, the “jury is still out” on who won the debate and the final decision will be made on November 6, 2012.
It was obvious to me that the Romney game plan was to approach the debate in an aggressive and condescending manner levying attack after attack on the President. Romney’s performance should not surprise anyone considering the Republican presidential debates where Romney virtually destroyed the other candidates. The only time that Romney seemed to be knocked “off stride” was when Rick Perry pushed him to a point where the only card he had left to pay was a $10,000 bet to Perry. The most astonishing part of Romney’s performance was his blatant and myriad lies. In an article I published here on March 26, 2012, entitled, “Willard “Mitt” Romney, the Biggest Liar,” I stated, among other things, that “Romney will say anything to become President and is obviously infected by “foot in mouth disease.” He seems to distort or misrepresent the facts every time he opens his mouth and while many of us presume politicians will “stretch or embellish” the truth to suit their cause, Romney has made it a profession. Once a liar, always a liar, and savvy Americans will never elect this liar to the White House…..” During the debate with President Obama, I was flabbergasted at the extent and nature of the Romney lies. Here are a few.
Romney stated that, “We’ve got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country.” A Romney lie. The unemployment crisis is bad but Romney knows that there are 12.5 million unemployed not 23 million. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. Romney counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being “out of work.” What adds to Romney’s sensationalism is the fact that some of the 12.5 million unemployed people are part of that 47 percent Romney says he can’t do much for.
Another lie that Romney pushed in the debate was that, under Obama’s plan, there will be a board of experts who will decide what kind of medical treatment a patient can get: Obamacare “puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” As President Obama stated during the debate, Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors. With Romney, the facts just don’t matter.
Romney claimed that he is not cutting taxes for the wealthy and actually began the debate by reinventing his tax plan. Romney claimed that his tax plan isn’t a $5 trillion tax cut. Even though Romney has talked about his 20% tax cut over the past year, just the day before at a Campaign rally, his 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.”
Romney claimed his tax plan doesn’t raise taxes on the middle class. Mitt Romney used some strange arithmetic to claim that his plan doesn’t raise taxes on the middle class. However, the centrist Tax Policy Center found that, “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.”
Romney claimed that Obama would increase taxes on the top 3% of “small businesses.” Another lie. What Romney didn’t say is that he and the Republican Party have a exceptional definition of small business. Washington Monthly explored the Republican definition of small business stating, “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.”
Romney claimed that the subsidies for Big Oil go 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. The American people are paying Big Oil to deduct their operation costs-what a sweet deal.
Romney also claimed that if the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans, it will kill jobs. Forbes debunked this myth and concluded that, “the GOP memo 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 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.”
The last Republican President lied the American people into an unnecessary war with Iraq where over 4,000 Americans lost their life, and as previously stated, a savvy voting public will not elect another liar to the White House, especially one who has told more lies that truths, that’s just my take.
