Debate wrap up

Well the first presidential debate is in the books and it was full of items that can be disected by pundits, experts, spinmeisters, etc........and apparently they have as the post debate reports and commentary is fully underway.

My take from last nights debate was mainly the two glaring things that stood out to me:

1) Mitt Romney basically said "debate rules and facts be damned, I'm plowing ahead regardless"

2) Obama was fairly passive and nonconfrontational.

Lets go to the first item, which is the lack of facts put forth by Mitt Romney. The "fact checking" organizations and media outlets are chiming in on the way Romney played loose with the facts.

Here is a sampling with links to the falsehoods from Romney:

ROLLINGSTONE Magazine listed the top 5 Romney lies:

1. "I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut." Romney flatly lied about the cost of his proposal to cut income-tax rates across the board by another 20 percent (undercutting even the low rates of the Bush tax cuts). Independent economists at the Tax Policy Center have shown that the price tag for those cuts is $360 billion in the first year, a cost that extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.

2. "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table (like the carried interest loophole or the 15 percent capital gains rate.) The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers and a net tax increase for lower- and or middle-income taxpayers." Moreover, some of Romney's tax cuts are micro-targeted at American dynasties, particularly his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which would reduce his own sons' tax burden by tens of millions of dollars.

3. "We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."

4. Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. 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.

5. "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-first-debate-mitt-romneys-five-biggest-lies-20121004#ixzz28LmBR5td

We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

• Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.
• Romney again promised to “not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans” and also to “lower taxes on middle-income families,” but didn’t say how he could possibly accomplish that without also increasing the deficit.
• Obama oversold his health care law, claiming that health care premiums have “gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.” That’s true of health care spending, but not premiums. And the health care law had little to do with the slowdown in overall spending.
• Romney claimed a new board established by the Affordable Care Act is “going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” Not true. The board only recommends cost-saving measures for Medicare, and is legally forbidden to ration care or reduce benefits.
• Obama said 5 million private-sector jobs had been created in the past 30 months. Perhaps so, but that counts jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t add to the official monthly tallies until next year. For now, the official tally is a bit over 4.6 million.
• Romney accused Obama of doubling the federal deficit. Not true. The annual deficit was already running at $1.2 trillion when Obama took office.
• Obama again said he’d raise taxes on upper-income persons only to the “rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president.” Actually, many high-income persons would pay more than they did then, because of new taxes in Obama’s health care law.
• Romney claimed that middle-income Americans have “seen their income come down by $4,300.” That’s too high. Census figures show the decline in median household income during Obama’s first three years was $2,492, even after adjusting for inflation.
• Obama again touted his “$4 trillion” deficit reduction plan, which includes $1 trillion from winding down wars that are coming to an end in any event.

Romney sometimes came off as a serial exaggerator. He said “up to” 20 million might lose health insurance under the new law, citing a Congressional Budget Office study that actually put the likely number who would lose employer-sponsored coverage at between 3 million and 5 million. He said 23 million Americans are “out of work” when the actual number of jobless is much lower. He claimed half of all college grads this year can’t find work, when, in fact, an AP story said half either were jobless or underemployed. And he again said Obama “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, a figure that actually reflects a 10-year target for slowing Medicare spending, which will continue to grow.

http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/

Now lets look at a good write on how Obama let Romney get away with his lies & the frustration it has caused across progressive circles:

Romney lied brazenly about everything—notably on taxes—yet over and over again an honest but listless and meandering Obama failed to effectively challenge him.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/03/obama-allowed-mitt-romney-to-get-away-with-lies-in-debate-showdown.html

Presidential Debate: Mitt Romney Shines By Pushing Lies, Obama Misses Mark By Not Calling Him Out

Much like the criticism Sen. Obama faced back when he was debating Hillary Clinton, some will argue that Obama was far too gracious in dealing with his overly abrasive challenger.
Issues of style are one thing, but Obama failing to challenge Romney on some of his more blatant lies was particularly problematic.

This includes the repeated accusation that Obama wants to make $716 billion in cuts to Medicare despite it often being highlighted in the media that Romney’s own running mate has the same amount of cuts in his own plan. Unfortunately, Romney repeated this falsehood several times throughout the debate without a direct challenge from the President.

http://newsone.com/2053227/the-presidential-debate-2/