Post Debate Slice n Dice
Posted: October 3, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: Presidential Debate 31 Comments
Wow. What a really weird debate. My dad the consummate Republican basically thought it was one of the worst debates he’d ever seen. I have to agree with him on that one. Here’s some post debate analysis, but of course, our own counts much more!!
Mitt Romney’s Five Biggest Lies of the First Half of the Presidential Debate
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.”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.”
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.”
“I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I like you too,” Romney said.
President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney spun one-sided stories in their first presidential debate, not necessarily bogus, but not the whole truth.
They made some flat-out flubs, too. The rise in health insurance premiums has not been the slowest in 50 years, as Obama stated. Far from it. And there are not 23 million unemployed, as Romney asserted.
Here’s a look at some of their claims and how they stack up with the facts:
OBAMA: “I’ve proposed a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. … The way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 in additional revenue.”
THE FACTS: In promising $4 trillion, Obama is already banking more than $2 trillion from legislation enacted along with Republicans last year that cut agency operating budgets and capped them for 10 years. He also claims more than $800 billion in war savings that would occur anyway. And he uses creative bookkeeping to hide spending on Medicare reimbursements to doctors. Take those “cuts” away and Obama’s $2.50/$1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases shifts significantly more in the direction of tax increases.
Obama’s February budget offered proposals that would cut deficits over the coming decade by $2 trillion instead of $4 trillion. Of that deficit reduction, tax increases accounted for $1.6 trillion. He promises relatively small spending cuts of $597 billion from big federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid. He also proposed higher spending on infrastructure projects.
—
ROMNEY: Obama’s health care plan “puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.”
THE FACTS: Romney is referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of experts that would have the power to force Medicare cuts if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to act. But Obama’s health care law explicitly prohibits the board from rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn’t have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.
Romney seems to be resurrecting the assertion that Obama’s law would lead to rationing, made famous by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s widely debunked allegation that it would create “death panels.”
The board has yet to be named, and its members would ultimately have to be confirmed by the Senate. Health care inflation has been modest in the last few years, so cuts would be unlikely for most of the rest of this decade.
Here are all of the NYT’s fact-checks from the first Obama-Romney debate. I find this one particularly interesting.
Mr. Romney promised to create 12 million jobs over the next four years if he is elected president. That is actually about as many jobs as the economy is already expected to create, according to some economic forecasters.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
So, the fact checking is starting already. I wish it would get more play than the spin and the visuals!
You’re asking a lot from out superficial media. But it’s the least they could do.
Boat load of fact checks intermixed with commentary from reporters and some independent voters at a debate watch party in Ohio. The debate watch party doesn’t agree with the media about who won, I don’t think.
NYT: Presidential Debate Fact-Check and Updates
Romney was really aggressive. I didn’t like that and I wouldn’t have liked it if Obama would’ve done it. But then, maybe it’s just wimpy me.
I also think the Big Bird moment and the Medicare vouchers thing will be the big story after tomorrow AM. Who really want’s those damned vouchers? Every time they talk about that I just listen to the cut off date and fill sorry for my kid sister who is a few years younger than me and doesn’t squeak in like me.
Romney was kind of hateful really and I don’t like that style one bit from anyone. It’s usually a tell that the person is blowing smoke.
Excellent work. The problem is, Obama allowed Romney’s lies to stick.
I mean, Romney, knowing that the public dislikes partisan gridlock, claimed that Obama was the problem — claimed that Obama was inflexible. And Obama, hoping to look tough, more or less went along with that characterization. Talk about historical revisionism! That’s like saying World War II started when Poland invaded Germany. Obama’s big problem over the past four years was trying to negotiate with people who refused to give an inch — and now the Republicans will find that their intransigence came at zero cost.
A miserable performance from Obama tonight. Just…BAD.
The deal is the President is in a bind with attacking back because they Republicans will play the angry black man card.
I want to watch Biden take on Ryan. That will be the street fight of the century.
The president played it way safe and he’s being put through the spin cycle because of that … even tweetie turned on him.
Fuck tweetie. He’s a fan boy and nothing else.
He’s been trotting out his Kennedy Nixon debate experience for two weeks now. He really wants to act like he’s his generations’ Walter Cronkite instead of Walter Winchell.
I watched the Kennedy-Nixon debate. Probably makes me as much an expert as tweetie.
Obama must be aggressive in the next debate even if it means being labeled the angry black man. He can’t have another performance as passive as tonight’s was. He has to go on the attack. The election is too close to play it safe.
I watched every one of the Kennedy Nixon debates too. I had to watch them for school, but I would have done it anyway.
I really don’t think they’ll play the Angry Black Man card against Obama, though. Not at this point. It’s quite clear that Obama is himself (and not as a strategy) cool as a cucumber , (except for when he’s peevish and wants to “Let himself be clear.”)
He has built enough political capital that he can actually afford to show emotion. It’s just not really in him. The thing that gets him fired up is that “call and response” thing he does with the audience. “I love you back!” Or making fun of Hillary being likable enough or whatever. That is what got him going. Not the fact that while he’s on the expresident circuit giving speeches and writing his fifteenth bestsrlling autobio we could be stuck with a President Paul Ryan and a decimation of so-called “entitlement” programs. This does not get him passionate.
I think this is a really self-destructive habit /-fulfilling prophecy on the D party side, to do things like anticipate the electorate will think Hillary will get played the Silly Wimminz card if she doesn’t vote for Iraq AUMF (which for the record I don’t think is why Hillary voted for it…I think it had more to do with being a senator from NY).
Also! I totally agree with Beata that Michelle looked really worried/off before the debate started and being curious as to what, if anything, we might learn that had to do with his sad sack performance tonight.
Obama has two large problems over the past four years. One is the one you mention and the other is not being able to sell his own successes, even when he has them to sell.
Romney showed the fire in his belly. The president was like meh!
The good news is that Romney gave the Obama campaign tons of lies that they can turn into attack ads.
If the media aggressively fact check him, like they did the RNC speech, it won’t be pretty either. I’m just not sure they’ll do it.
Romney backtracking already from what he said in the debate. Media better cover this shit.
TPM: Adviser Admits Romney Plan Won’t Cover Pre-Existing Conditions
I was just about to post that! Only people who have continuing coverage will have coverage for pre-existing conditions. That’s already the case.
That’s twice he’s done that now. One other thing on his Medicare voucher plan, he says he wants to make it so that if people want traditional Medicare they can get it but, if not, they can keep private insurance. That’s current law.
The difference would be voucherizing everything and paying only the voucher amount for Medicare coverage. That would cost more and hurt tons of people.
I hate the way they seem to think seniors will be fine with dismantling Medicare as long as they get theirs.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
This is certainly a different spin.
Romney Shines In Denver, Obama Camp Says So What
Remind me to only ever hire David Plouffe if I’m trying to lose. Gah.
Since he hasn’t lost before, you shouldn’t hire him.
I’ve always said Presidents Gephardt and Harkin were my favorites. 😉
Seriously! Yay! My favorite president is Hillary of course =)
Fact checking from ABC…
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/fact-checking-the-presidential-debate-in-denver/
On Charlie Rose tonight a discussion was held over how alike this debate was to the Kerry Bush debate with Kerry being the aggressor to Bush’s tired and indifferent aspect-also, that after a bounce, it made no difference in vote percentages.
Wait, so Kerry was considered the aggressor..? I know he was reporting for duty for all of two seconds but then the swift boat and he then he completely dropped the ball and didn’t play offense, defense, or anything. I remember the debates in terms of Kerry getting somewhat of the Gore treatment from the media and Bush continuing to get a pass.