By Brian Stieglitz
Special to The Chronicle
For those who watched last week’s presidential debate, the turmoil of the political world was clearly evident. On both sides, candidates’ claims were filled with frustration, anger, and confusion. The Denver debate, moderated by Jim Lehrer, went beyond the average chaotic scene of presidential debates. At the close of the debate, there were clear opinions made about who won, most leaning towards challenger Mitt Romney. However, were all the statements made by Romney true? According to fact-checkers, Romney made some clearly misstated comments.
Not only were many of Romney’s comments factually and statistically incorrect, but when President Obama tried to confront him on his original policies, Romney simply denied them and provided no alibi. Politics isn’t a game of tag on the playground; if a candidate thinks he is being slandered he should not just deny it.
Not only did Romney continue to deny previously stated policies, but he also provided little to no detail on his elaborate plans such as his tax system. What loopholes, exactly, are going to be filled in the IRS tax code? Looks like plans for the future of the American people’s taxes is more of a wait-and-see kind of deal for Mitt.
Furthermore, it became evident that Mitt Romney had in fact abandoned his initial GOP plans that up until then had stood strong, and gone with a much more liberal approach. For example, Romney stated that his plan would absolutely not cut education funding; but if the cuts were to resemble his vice president nominee Paul Ryan’s budget, Romney would cut the department of education by over $115 billion over the next decade.
Romney cut corners and ignored the truth in order to come out looking great when he falsely accused Obama of putting $90 billion into wind and solar projects that could have “gone to teachers.” In actuality and attested by Romney’s campaign and an administration report, only $21 billion went into wind and solar energy, and the other billions of dollars went into a variety of branches such as working on the nation’s electric grid, job training, manufacturing tax credits, etc.
Furthermore, Romney boasted that he wants America to become energy efficient, as his energy plan would do, followed by saying how he would like to use clean coal. According to an Associated Press fact-check, Romney actually opposes curbs on energy demand and his plan itself is all about coal, oil and gas. Contrary to Romney’s opposition, once America is not as dependent on such fossil fuels an energy-efficient America may be possible.
Overall in the first presidential debate, Romney seemed to back down on his previous policies and agendas by denying Obama’s claims to them and distorting his original ideals.
What should America make of this? Either Romney lied about his policies or he actually backed out of his previous plans. As President Obama stated, “For 18 months he’s been running on his tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he’s saying that his big, bold idea is ‘never-mind.’ ”
And then this second article should be linked through to the first one because they are the same issue but opposing views.