Last night’s debate was a dogfight. WHILE NEITHER WERE all that specific about the agenda they would follow if elected, a clear difference emerged. Mitt Romney would follow the conservative Republican philosophy. He insisted he could reduce income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax, keep low tax rates on interest, capital gains and dividends and still reduce the deficit and balance the budget. AS THE FACT-CHECKERS will show over the next few days, Gov. Romney’s more-from-less math is phony. Even if all of the current deductions were repealed — which is a political non-starter — the tax reductions he proposes would reduce federal income and increase the deficit. The deficit would be larger yet if Romney could persuade Congress to increase military spending by billions, as he says he would try to do.
Mitt Romney snarled at President Obama’s record and bit at his ankles over the economy over and over again. One almost expected the audience to supply his punch lines for him before the 90 minutes was up, they were so predictable.
Obama barked right back, taking the governor to task for his flip-flopping actions and statements on health care, abortion rights, gun control, and tax policies.
When both were pulled from the pit, President Obama’s handlers gave him the victor’s bone.
Washington hands will agree.
The president handled himself with confidence and clarity. Romney repeated his claim that he “knew how to create jobs; how to fix the economy” so many times that the statement lost whatever appeal it may first have had.
The president made several strong points. He pointed out that a great many women depend on the health care services provided through Planned Parenthood and that Romney is opposed to the program and would end it if elected. While governor of Massachusetts, Romney was a strong advocate of Planned Parenthood, including its provision of abortions, but now is just as strong in his opposition.
Obama also took credit for federal legislation requiring equal pay for equal work that was passed early in his administration with the signing of the Lily Ledbetter Act, the first law the president signed when he took office in 2009.
Romney said that as governor he had sent state workers out to recruit women for his cabinet when the first slate proposed was all male. This incidence of affirmative action on his part stands in contrast to his current opposition to affirmative action in universities and other government-supported agencies and institutions.
Romney attacked the president for a “weak” response to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya; Obama fiercely defended his administration’s actions and swore that he would find the terrorists responsible for the four deaths and “bring them to justice.”
He repeated his belief that lowering taxes and reducing government regulation would provide the stimulation the economy needed to create jobs and fill government coffers.
President Obama would stay in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and use the power of government to seek the common good — or as Obama likes to put it, everyone should get a fair shot.
With those values in mind, President Obama repeated that he wants the income tax deduction for the wealthy to expire at the end of the year but would keep taxes the same on the middle class — which he defines as families with incomes of less than $250,000 a year.
He said the money the nation will save by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be devoted to helping more young people win college degrees and rebuilding the nation’s highways, bridges and update other infrastructure that has been neglected in the recession. Those initiatives, he said, would create jobs and make the nation stronger. Modest goals; but achievable.
It remains to be seen how the debate will affect the polls and the election. The guess from this keyboard is that the president will gain a bit now and that his lead will grow as voters grasp how fundamental the differences between the two men and their political parties truly are.
— Emerson Lynn,jr.
