Romney vs. Obama Debate - Part II on Tuesday - let's score it!

[El Kabong]

What do you think Romney can do that Obama hasn't done? What is this five point plan you speak of?

Also, too. You don't think government is capable of doing anything better than the private sector. We've suffered a massive recession/economic collapse over the last few years and you expect government to solve this problem? How? And how can you believe that government should be able to solve the biggest economic collapse since the Depression in four years but they can't do anything else better than the private sector?

These questions also are to Mars Ax and anybody else attacking Obama and thinking Romney has all the answers.

The 5 Point Plan is: Energy Independence, Proper Education/Training, More Trade that's Beneficial to America, Cutting the Deficet, and Championing Small Business. There's a number of points he goes over to say how he will accomplish these things, but that's the jist of it. I would have listed them but I am not of the opinion that you're interested in facts.....if you were you wouldn't side with Obama like you do.

OK Mr. More Government....if Government can't solve this economic issue then why do you support a President who thinks Government has all the solutions? All Mitt Romney said he was going to do is to take the handcuffs off of small businesses, he's going to allow them to do business with less oppressive regulation. But hey maybe we need another Stimulus huh? I mean it worked SOOOOO well for us.

Romney has a plan, Obama doesn't.....or does he Kirkland, perhaps YOU can tell us what Obama won't? Perhaps you can tell us how Barack Obama plans to turn around this economy because I certainly didn't hear any ideas from him last night all I heard was him bitching about Romney's ideas.

[VictorCharlie]

Now for a preemptive assessment of how the debate looked, both sides, from the perspective of VC:

I concur but again I could only stomach 10 minutes before I called it a night. The moderator was again horrible, the questions were lousy and both of them are an embarrasment to our nation.

[El Kabong]

Romney 50%, Obama 46% Among Likely Voters

Well......well.......well....lookey what we have here. A nice LARGE sample size (over 2,000 people), LIKELY voters, and it doesn't look good for President Obama (rightfully so).

[Mars_ax]

Any "plan" that Romney/Ryan have already outlined for job growth, economic recovery, lowering the deficit and saving medicare & social security is better then what the "magic mulatto" has already tried and failed at.

In what ways?

*crickets*

Ermm.. is there some reason why you think I have to answer all your half-assed questions? I get it Kirkland, you're a BO supporter, good for you, now kindly fuck off.

[Kirkland Laing]

Any "plan" that Romney/Ryan have already outlined for job growth, economic recovery, lowering the deficit and saving medicare & social security is better then what the "magic mulatto" has already tried and failed at.

In what ways?

*crickets*

Ermm.. is there some reason why you think I have to answer all your half-assed questions? I get it Kirkland, you're a BO supporter, good for you, now kindly fuck off.

I was just wondering whether you actually knew anything about the things you're opining on or whether you were just ranting away.

[Kirkland Laing]

What do you think Romney can do that Obama hasn't done? What is this five point plan you speak of?

Also, too. You don't think government is capable of doing anything better than the private sector. We've suffered a massive recession/economic collapse over the last few years and you expect government to solve this problem? How? And how can you believe that government should be able to solve the biggest economic collapse since the Depression in four years but they can't do anything else better than the private sector?

These questions also are to Mars Ax and anybody else attacking Obama and thinking Romney has all the answers.

The 5 Point Plan is: Energy Independence, Proper Education/Training, More Trade that's Beneficial to America, Cutting the Deficet, and Championing Small Business. There's a number of points he goes over to say how he will accomplish these things, but that's the jist of it. I would have listed them but I am not of the opinion that you're interested in facts.....if you were you wouldn't side with Obama like you do.

OK Mr. More Government....if Government can't solve this economic issue then why do you support a President who thinks Government has all the solutions? All Mitt Romney said he was going to do is to take the handcuffs off of small businesses, he's going to allow them to do business with less oppressive regulation. But hey maybe we need another Stimulus huh? I mean it worked SOOOOO well for us.

Romney has a plan, Obama doesn't.....or does he Kirkland, perhaps YOU can tell us what Obama won't? Perhaps you can tell us how Barack Obama plans to turn around this economy because I certainly didn't hear any ideas from him last night all I heard was him bitching about Romney's ideas.

Ah, the five point plan.

"Energy independence"

This is a perfect example of the GOP using a bullshit argument to win votes from clueless people who think that America can solve its energy problem/reduce the price of gasoline by domestic drilling. . What point number one is really about is allowing drilling in enviromentally protected areas like northern Alaska. But even if you allow drilling in places the oil industry want to drill, it'll only increase oil production by about a million barrels a day and take ten years to get there. In the meantime America's oil consumption will go up five or million barrels. And oil is a global product with the price set by a cartel (OPEC) who would just cut production to keep the global price the same anyway even if America did manage to produce vast new oil supplies. So because the electorate is made up of a bunch of know-nothings the debate about energy in America is at second grade level.

Education.

Romney’s budget plan could cut more than $115 billion from the Department of Education over the next 10 years, cutting K-12 and special education funding by nearly $5 billion and leaving nearly 10 million students with $1,000 less each in Pell Grant funding. He plans to voucherize America’s public education system while offering no plan to fix failing public schools. And how does this create jobs over the next four/eight years exactly?


Trade that's beneficial to A,erica.

What is this, trade agreements or posturing by bashing Cjina? If it's trade agreements then they benefit America by exporting jobs to Asia and benefit US corporations by them not having to pay US labour rates. Both parties make these agreements and so they're both anti-US jobs. How can you complain about Clinton signing NAFTA but Ronmey is suddenly creating jobs by signing NAFTA-like agreements?

It it's pretending to bash China __

When Obama took action against the Chinese dumping cheap tyres in America Romney called it "bad for our nation and our workers." Obama and McCain played the same anti-China card at the last election and they didn't mean it either. No US president is ever going to prevent US corporations -- the people who put them in the White House -- from making massive profits by manufacturing in China. If Romney wins he'll make one single gesture about Chinese dumping of goods -- Obama did tyres and Bush did steel -- and then that'll be it.

Cutting the deficit.

The only president in living memory who cut government spending is Obama. Romney's tax plan will add five trillion to the deficit/debt over the next ten years and he's also going to give the Pentagon an extra two trillion they didn't even ask for. How is this going to cut the debt? What Romney will do is do the tax cuts without ending any of the loopholes which will explode the deficit.

Small businesses.

There have been eighteen separate tax cuts for small businesses under Obama but it's not really helping them. What they need are more customers with money to spend. And what's all this new regulation that Obama has imposed? This is just more bollocks.

Basically it's just five talking points to fool the rubes and Romney clearly knows his market, doesn't he?

As far as having a plan neither guy has a plan. And that's because there's very little either guy can do. The biggest thing either of them could do is allow mass renegotiation of underwater/bad mortgages but the banks won't let either prez do that. Other than that we've just got to wait for the debt overhang to subside enough so that households start spending again (70% of the economy is consumer spending) but until they make a big hole in their debt households aren't going to spend like they used to :

[Mars_ax]

Ermm.. is there some reason why you think I have to answer all your half-assed questions? I get it Kirkland, you're a BO supporter, good for you, now kindly fuck off.

I was just wondering whether you actually knew anything about the things you're opining on or whether you were just ranting away.

I see, why don't you just keep on wondering.

[VictorCharlie]

"Education.

Romney’s budget plan could cut more than $115 billion from the Department of Education over the next 10 years, cutting K-12 and special education funding by nearly $5 billion and leaving nearly 10 million students with $1,000 less each in Pell Grant funding. He plans to voucherize America’s public education system while offering no plan to fix failing public schools. And how does this create jobs over the next four/eight years exactly?"

The DoE should be done away with. The federal government should have no role in education and the states should do a better job of creating their own revenue for education. You can champion spending all you want but we have had a meteoric rise in education spending but our standardized test scores have stagnated. Money is not the problem. I am skeptical of anyone actually doing a voucher program but it is exactly what we need. We need education decisions put in the most local hands. Parents, school boards and at the most the state education departments. Create competition and creativity in education systems and give parents vouchers so that they can choose for themselves where their children go to school. The Democrats are horribly wrong in this area. The rich will always make sure their kids go to a good school but a voucher system is the only way impoverished and middle class families can do this. If the Democratic party was actually for helping the middle class and poor they would support vouchers whole heartedly but instead they take big payoffs from teacher unions.

[El Kabong]

Oooh a graph....color me surprised

Kirkland just face the facts Barack Obama is a terrible President, he broke his promises, he missed out on his unemployment numbers by 9,000,000 jobs, 3,000,000 MORE women are living below the poverty line thanks to his policies, and he has the audacity to try and spin this whole "Binders of women" deal into his favor.

Energy Independence: I watched the debate and I was amused at Obama's explination of gas prices...it made me laugh. "The reason gas prices were so low was because the economy was so bad" so by Barry's rational gas is higher now because the economy is getting better and further on that same point if the economy does even better then I could pay $90 to fill up my car....hmmm he seems to understand how things work quite well. It's not about getting new refineries or increasing production, it's about how great the economy is and right now the economy must be kicking some major ass because it costs a lot to fill up a car.....not that you would know or care about that.

Education: Teachers Unions are killing education, the DOE is killing education. We need private schools and ACCOUNTABILITY and I know what I'm talking about because people in my family were teachers.

Trade & China: So we're just supoposed to let them suppress the value of the yuan and put tarrifs on the goods we export and we're supposed to be cool with that?

Cutting the deficet: Obama has put us in a $6 Trillion hole....yeah so that's "less" than who exactly or are you going to attempt to blame that all on Bush....AGAIN? After 4 years you would figure Obama would OWN his failures.


"And that's because there's very little either guy can do"...time to read your own words and just butt out of the debate then instead of attempting (rather hilariously) to sway voters into thinking Obama has done some fucking bang up job. I live in the United States and I can tell you Obama isn't a good leader, he's done 0 for this country.

[Mars_ax]

"Education.

Romney’s budget plan could cut more than $115 billion from the Department of Education over the next 10 years, cutting K-12 and special education funding by nearly $5 billion and leaving nearly 10 million students with $1,000 less each in Pell Grant funding. He plans to voucherize America’s public education system while offering no plan to fix failing public schools. And how does this create jobs over the next four/eight years exactly?"

The DoE should be done away with. The federal government should have no role in education and the states should do a better job of creating their own revenue for education. You can champion spending all you want but we have had a meteoric rise in education spending but our standardized test scores have stagnated. Money is not the problem. I am skeptical of anyone actually doing a voucher program but it is exactly what we need. We need education decisions put in the most local hands. Parents, school boards and at the most the state education departments. Create competition and creativity in education systems and give parents vouchers so that they can choose for themselves where their children go to school. The Democrats are horribly wrong in this area. The rich will always make sure their kids go to a good school but a voucher system is the only way impoverished and middle class families can do this. If the Democratic party was actually for helping the middle class and poor they would support vouchers whole heartedly but instead they take big payoffs from teacher unions.

I'm not so sure Romney's plans include any budget cuts for education, I believe the final proposal will be very different from what you've posted. Just saying, you could be right, but let's see how the final draft looks before we criticize it.

[TitoFan]

Oooh a graph....color me surprised

Kirkland just face the facts Barack Obama is a terrible President, he broke his promises, he missed out on his unemployment numbers by 9,000,000 jobs, 3,000,000 MORE women are living below the poverty line thanks to his policies, and he has the audacity to try and spin this whole "Binders of women" deal into his favor.

Energy Independence: I watched the debate and I was amused at Obama's explination of gas prices...it made me laugh. "The reason gas prices were so low was because the economy was so bad" so by Barry's rational gas is higher now because the economy is getting better and further on that same point if the economy does even better then I could pay $90 to fill up my car....hmmm he seems to understand how things work quite well. It's not about getting new refineries or increasing production, it's about how great the economy is and right now the economy must be kicking some major ass because it costs a lot to fill up a car.....not that you would know or care about that.

Education: Teachers Unions are killing education, the DOE is killing education. We need private schools and ACCOUNTABILITY and I know what I'm talking about because people in my family were teachers.

Trade & China: So we're just supoposed to let them suppress the value of the yuan and put tarrifs on the goods we export and we're supposed to be cool with that?

Cutting the deficet: Obama has put us in a $6 Trillion hole....yeah so that's "less" than who exactly or are you going to attempt to blame that all on Bush....AGAIN? After 4 years you would figure Obama would OWN his failures.


"And that's because there's very little either guy can do"...time to read your own words and just butt out of the debate then instead of attempting (rather hilariously) to sway voters into thinking Obama has done some fucking bang up job. I live in the United States and I can tell you Obama isn't a good leader, he's done 0 for this country.

You're angry with Obama, and angry people rarely discuss issues in a rational manner. Example: I'm pro-Obama and anti-Romney... but I was lucid enough to concede that Romney did a better job in the first debate. Whereas you angrily denied that Obama had done a much better job in the second debate.

Another example: Your defense of Romney in the energy issue is downright ridiculous. Surely you're intelligent enough to know that the answer to America's (and most of the civilized world) energy problems isn't drilling the shit out whatever oil reserves happen to be left, without paying attention to renewable energy sources. "Energy independence", the buzzword everybody loves to throw around, doesn't mean continuing to irresponsibly exhaust the oil reserves within the control of the U.S. government and to hell with the next 10-20 years. If you disagree with that, then I consider you to be short-sighted, and never mind the argument... it's useless. Oil is a finite resource. Soon all we'll be doing is finding more ways to extract the very difficult-to-reach oil reserves, which by the way take millions of years to replenish. Not only that. You bash Obama for "denying drilling permits".... but conveniently choose to ignore the consequences of reckless drilling, such as the mega (and very costly) disaster BP created in the Gulf. Oh.... but you don't live there, do you.

Romney is just a "Bush", but with a private enterprise background. He'll champion the "balls to the wall", reckless drilling for oil... any environmental or energy supply consequences be damned. "Screw the big, long term picture. We need to squeeze the shit out whatever oil we can get our hands on. And if we have to go to war for overseas oil, we'll do that too. Green energy? Fuck that. It doesn't fill my own personal interest pocket."

But I don't want to bore you with this environmental "crap". Suffice it to say that you would defend Romney regardless of what he says, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. You hate Obama... and you want him out. No amount of common sense to the contrary will sway your laser-focused mind.

[El Kabong]

You're angry with Obama, and angry people rarely discuss issues in a rational manner. Example: I'm pro-Obama and anti-Romney... but I was lucid enough to concede that Romney did a better job in the first debate. Whereas you angrily denied that Obama had done a much better job in the second debate.

Another example: Your defense of Romney in the energy issue is downright ridiculous. Surely you're intelligent enough to know that the answer to America's (and most of the civilized world) energy problems isn't drilling the shit out whatever oil reserves happen to be left, without paying attention to renewable energy sources. "Energy independence", the buzzword everybody loves to throw around, doesn't mean continuing to irresponsibly exhaust the oil reserves within the control of the U.S. government and to hell with the next 10-20 years. If you disagree with that, then I consider you to be short-sighted, and never mind the argument... it's useless. Oil is a finite resource. Soon all we'll be doing is finding more ways to extract the very difficult-to-reach oil reserves, which by the way take millions of years to replenish. Not only that. You bash Obama for "denying drilling permits".... but conveniently choose to ignore the consequences of reckless drilling, such as the mega (and very costly) disaster BP created in the Gulf. Oh.... but you don't live there, do you.

Romney is just a "Bush", but with a private enterprise background. He'll champion the "balls to the wall", reckless drilling for oil... any environmental or energy supply consequences be damned. "Screw the big, long term picture. We need to squeeze the shit out whatever oil we can get our hands on. And if we have to go to war for overseas oil, we'll do that too. Green energy? Fuck that. It doesn't fill my own personal interest pocket."

But I don't want to bore you with this environmental "crap". Suffice it to say that you would defend Romney regardless of what he says, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. You hate Obama... and you want him out. No amount of common sense to the contrary will sway your laser-focused mind.

1. Obama did better in the second debate than he did in the first BUT Romney still won it going away and why do I say that? I say that because Romney's camp isn't going after petty bullcrap attempting to rile the base on nothing of substance like the Obama campaign is. "Binders of Women" that's all you've got? Mitt Romney said "Binders of women" because the Massachusettes State Government didn't have an adequate amount of women working in the highest level so Romney asked for smart, qualified women to interview for positions in his cabinet and he got them. Obama attacking petty stuff like that just shows he's got 0 ideas, 0 plans for the future, and that America is better off without him. Romney has attacks of SUBSTANCE: Libya, the economy, the President's own failed/broken promises but not only that Romney provides us with solutions! He tells America what he will do to help get us headed in the right direction.

2. People have always said "We'll run out of oil by _____", they use it as some sort of boogey man to try and force feed solar & wind to the masses. We're not going to run out of oil. Also as for BP...why did they have to drill waaaay far out in the ocean in the first place? Ever thought of that? And if offshore drilling is sooooo bad then why did Obama finance offshore drilling in Brazil? Why help them to reap the benefits of their land when we don't use our own? America has to stop being such an oil prude...we demand other nations drill and refine, why don't we expect the same from our own nation "Green Energy" HA....these "Green Energy" companies should only be called green due to the massive amounts of cash Obama handed them $90 BILLION...let that sink in for a second.

3. Mitt Romney isn't George W. Bush, that comparison shows your irrational hatred of Mitt Romney. Plus your ideas that W "didn't give a damn about the environment" is unfounded. Global climate change is a hoax (scientists have admitted as much) and all the Kyoto Protocol was going to do is hamper the American economy to the point where we get taken down a peg in terms of our economic dominance.




Barack Obama isn't fit to lead this country, he never was. He has no idea what he's doing and it's too risky to give him 4 more years.

[Kirkland Laing]

"Education.

Romney’s budget plan could cut more than $115 billion from the Department of Education over the next 10 years, cutting K-12 and special education funding by nearly $5 billion and leaving nearly 10 million students with $1,000 less each in Pell Grant funding. He plans to voucherize America’s public education system while offering no plan to fix failing public schools. And how does this create jobs over the next four/eight years exactly?"

The DoE should be done away with. The federal government should have no role in education and the states should do a better job of creating their own revenue for education. You can champion spending all you want but we have had a meteoric rise in education spending but our standardized test scores have stagnated. Money is not the problem. I am skeptical of anyone actually doing a voucher program but it is exactly what we need. We need education decisions put in the most local hands. Parents, school boards and at the most the state education departments. Create competition and creativity in education systems and give parents vouchers so that they can choose for themselves where their children go to school. The Democrats are horribly wrong in this area. The rich will always make sure their kids go to a good school but a voucher system is the only way impoverished and middle class families can do this. If the Democratic party was actually for helping the middle class and poor they would support vouchers whole heartedly but instead they take big payoffs from teacher unions.

Over the next century it's going to be the high infrastructure, high education countries that do the best. Cutting access to higher education is the single worst thing Romney could do but he's going to do it.

[El Kabong]

Over the next century it's going to be the high infrastructure, high education countries that do the best. Cutting access to higher education is the single worst thing Romney could do but he's going to do it.

You know who is REALLY cutting access to higher education



.....the colleges & universities are by price gouging

[Kirkland Laing]

Oooh a graph....color me surprised

Kirkland just face the facts Barack Obama is a terrible President, he broke his promises, he missed out on his unemployment numbers by 9,000,000 jobs, 3,000,000 MORE women are living below the poverty line thanks to his policies, and he has the audacity to try and spin this whole "Binders of women" deal into his favor.

Energy Independence: I watched the debate and I was amused at Obama's explination of gas prices...it made me laugh. "The reason gas prices were so low was because the economy was so bad" so by Barry's rational gas is higher now because the economy is getting better and further on that same point if the economy does even better then I could pay $90 to fill up my car....hmmm he seems to understand how things work quite well. It's not about getting new refineries or increasing production, it's about how great the economy is and right now the economy must be kicking some major ass because it costs a lot to fill up a car.....not that you would know or care about that.

Education: Teachers Unions are killing education, the DOE is killing education. We need private schools and ACCOUNTABILITY and I know what I'm talking about because people in my family were teachers.

Trade & China: So we're just supoposed to let them suppress the value of the yuan and put tarrifs on the goods we export and we're supposed to be cool with that?

Cutting the deficet: Obama has put us in a $6 Trillion hole....yeah so that's "less" than who exactly or are you going to attempt to blame that all on Bush....AGAIN? After 4 years you would figure Obama would OWN his failures.


"And that's because there's very little either guy can do"...time to read your own words and just butt out of the debate then instead of attempting (rather hilariously) to sway voters into thinking Obama has done some fucking bang up job. I live in the United States and I can tell you Obama isn't a good leader, he's done 0 for this country.

Lyle, exactly how many politicians can you name who kept the promises they made before they got elected?

In 2008 when Obama made various claims the economy was estimated to contract by 5% due to the meltdown. It actually contracted by double that over the next year. The economy was losing 800 000 jobs a month when he took office, it was in freefall and there was no way of knowing exactly how bad it was going to get. Also the banks had only disclosed about half of their bad loans/debt and this meant hundred of thousands more foreclosures of mortgages, severely depressing the economy. Neither of these two crucial things had been known when Obama made whatever promises he did back in 2008, so it's fair to take them into account now.

And Obama is dead right about why gas prices were low when he took office and why they're higher now. I know facts make you break out in hives but here's a graph to explain it to you :



When Obama took office in January 2009 the gasoline price was right at the bottom of that big dip. Now the economy improved so the price has recovered to almost the same level it was at before. And like I already pointed o0ut to you, building new refineries or increasing production won't have any effect on the gas price.

You can have as many private schools as you want but you need people to be able to afford them. For 95% of the country they're unaffordable. So you need to improve the system you have, and that means spending more money on it. Unions don't kill education. All the top countries in the world for education have much stronger teachers' unions than America does.

China will continue to do what they're doing and neither Obama noe Romney will do anything serious about it. Every candidate threatens China when he wants to get elected but then does fuck all in office. Again, US corporations put these guys in the White House so they're not going to do anything about China.

Don't have time to explain the deficit to you right now. I've explained it before but the facts have fallen out of the back of your brain. Maybe next week.

I'm not trying to sway anybody, I'm just showing you one guy will do a bad job of running the country and the other guy will do an even worse job.