The CNN website has a transcript of the debate, which probably reads more in favor of Obama than it may have looked for Romney.
Start from 21:18:34.
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21:18:34: OBAMA: Well, for 18 months he's been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is, "Never mind."
And the fact is that if you are lowering the rates the way you described, Governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high-income individuals to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It's -- it's math. It's arithmetic.
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Anyone notices that summarizes the Romney plan! Anyone knows the below summarizes the Obama Plan.
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Now, Governor Romney and I do share a deep interest in encouraging small-business growth. So at the same time that my tax plan has already lowered taxes for 98 percent of families, I also lowered taxes for small businesses 18 times. And what I want to do is continue the tax rates -- the tax cuts that we put into place for small businesses and families.
But I have said that for incomes over $250,000 a year, that we should go back to the rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president, when we created 23 million new jobs, went from deficit to surplus, and created a whole lot of millionaires to boot.
And the reason this is important is because by doing that, we cannot only reduce the deficit, we cannot only encourage job growth through small businesses, but we're also able to make the investments that are necessary in education or in energy.
And we do have a difference, though, when it comes to definitions of small business. Under -- under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up. Governor Romney says, well, those top 3 percent, they're the job creators, they'd be burdened.
But under Governor Romney's definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business. Now, I know Donald Trump doesn't like to think of himself as small anything, but -- but that's how you define small businesses if you're getting business income.
And that kind of approach, I believe, will not grow our economy, because the only way to pay for it without either burdening the middle class or blowing up our deficit is to make drastic cuts in things like education, making sure that we are continuing to invest in basic science and research, all the things that are helping America grow. And I think that would be a mistake.
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Romney will never rebut the concept that Trump makes out like a bandit under the Romney plan! Then the moderator lets the time be extended in favor of Romney!
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21
01: LEHRER: All right.
2103: ROMNEY: Jim, let me just come back on that -- on that point, which is these...
2104: LEHRER: Just for the -- just for record...
(CROSSTALK)
2107: ROMNEY: ... the small businesses we're talking about...
2109: LEHRER: Excuse me. Excuse me. Just so everybody understands, we're way over our first 15 minutes.
2110: ROMNEY: It's fun, isn't it?
2111: LEHRER: It's OK, it's great. No problem. Well, you all don't have -- you don't have a problem, I don't have a problem, because we're still on the economy. We're going to come back to taxes. I want move on to the deficit and a lot of other things, too.
OK, but go ahead, sir.
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2138: ROMNEY: You bet. Well, President, you're -- Mr. President, you're absolutely right, which is that, with regards to 97 percent of the businesses are not -- not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they're taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half -- half of all the people who work in small business. Those are the businesses that employ one-quarter of all the workers in America. And your plan is to take their tax rate from 35 percent to 40 percent.
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So Trump would be unhappy.
This below is not Donald Trump! Romney-Insanity can go from the top 3% to a struggling small business without noting the wide wealth difference between the two!
____________________________
Now, and -- and I've talked to a guy who has a very small business. He's in the electronics business in -- in St. Louis. He has four employees. He said he and his son calculated how much they pay in taxes, federal income tax, federal payroll tax, state income tax, state sales tax, state property tax, gasoline tax. It added up to well over 50 percent of what they earned. And your plan is to take the tax rate on successful small businesses from 35 percent to 40 percent. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has said that will cost 700,000 jobs.
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Trump would pay, but that fellow would not! The federal payroll tax is regressive. State Sales Taxes are regressive. State property taxes are regressive. Gasoline taxes are regressive. The top 3% don't even know those taxes exist. The fellow in the example is aware of those taxes! Romney Insanity does not appear to be capable of noticing that!
And then Romney brings up his "deductions elimination" framework, with no specifics!
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I don't want to cost jobs. My priority is jobs. And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way, get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions, to create more jobs, because there's nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes. That's by far the most effective and efficient way to get this budget balanced.
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21:22:58: OBAMA: Jim, I -- you may want to move onto another topic, but I -- I would just say this to the American people. If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for, $7 trillion -- just to give you a sense, over 10 years, that's more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney's plan may work for you.
But I think math, common sense, and our history shows us that's not a recipe for job growth. Look, we've tried this. We've tried both approaches. The approach that Governor Romney's talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003, and we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years, we ended up moving from surplus to deficits, and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Bill Clinton tried the approach that I'm talking about. We created 23 million new jobs. We went from deficit to surplus. And businesses did very well. So, in some ways, we've got some data on which approach is more likely to create jobs and opportunity for Americans and I believe that the economy works best when middle-class families are getting tax breaks so that they've got some money in their pockets, and those of us who have done extraordinarily well because of this magnificent country that we live in, that we can afford to do a little bit more to make sure we're not blowing up the deficit.
________________
So again the moderator caves in!
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21:24:40: ROMNEY: Jim, the president began this segment, so I think I get the last word.
(CROSSTALK)
21:24:42: LEHRER: Well, you're going to get the first word in the next segment.
21:24:48: ROMNEY: All right. Well, but he gets the first word of that segment. I get the last word (inaudible) I hope. Let me just make this comment.
(CROSSTALK)
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Now all of a sudden there are no tax cuts, and no deduction cuts(?)!
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21:24
ROMNEY: I think first of all, let me -- let me repeat -- let me repeat what I said. I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan. My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit. That's point one.
So you may keep referring to it as a $5 trillion tax cut, but that's not my plan.
Number two, let's look at history. My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working.
______________________
In other words, a $5 trillion tax cut, with the elimnation of nowhere specified deductions, is his plan!
Notice that the time frame is only about six minutes. Romney glosses over his very own tax plan--bringing up state and local regressive taxes that the business with four employees probably does notice--and claims that the top 3% seem to notice them a lot more than the employer. The plan is to lower rates, and eliminate unspecified deductions. No it is not!
Because that is the plan(?)!
And so Romney got credited with a "win," based on gibberish: Based on clear Romney-Insanity.
No analyst has bothered to take Romney's remarks into any kind of arithmetic assessment! Is it any wonder that Romney-Insanity can win!
"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Maybe someone can find aging Ross Perot staffer, provide the address for the Oval Office, and maybe even gas money: And re-invent "Info-Mercials!")
Start from 21:18:34.
_______________________
21:18:34: OBAMA: Well, for 18 months he's been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is, "Never mind."
And the fact is that if you are lowering the rates the way you described, Governor, then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high-income individuals to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It's -- it's math. It's arithmetic.
_______________________
Anyone notices that summarizes the Romney plan! Anyone knows the below summarizes the Obama Plan.
______________________
Now, Governor Romney and I do share a deep interest in encouraging small-business growth. So at the same time that my tax plan has already lowered taxes for 98 percent of families, I also lowered taxes for small businesses 18 times. And what I want to do is continue the tax rates -- the tax cuts that we put into place for small businesses and families.
But I have said that for incomes over $250,000 a year, that we should go back to the rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president, when we created 23 million new jobs, went from deficit to surplus, and created a whole lot of millionaires to boot.
And the reason this is important is because by doing that, we cannot only reduce the deficit, we cannot only encourage job growth through small businesses, but we're also able to make the investments that are necessary in education or in energy.
And we do have a difference, though, when it comes to definitions of small business. Under -- under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up. Governor Romney says, well, those top 3 percent, they're the job creators, they'd be burdened.
But under Governor Romney's definition, there are a whole bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are small businesses. Donald Trump is a small business. Now, I know Donald Trump doesn't like to think of himself as small anything, but -- but that's how you define small businesses if you're getting business income.
And that kind of approach, I believe, will not grow our economy, because the only way to pay for it without either burdening the middle class or blowing up our deficit is to make drastic cuts in things like education, making sure that we are continuing to invest in basic science and research, all the things that are helping America grow. And I think that would be a mistake.
__________________________
Romney will never rebut the concept that Trump makes out like a bandit under the Romney plan! Then the moderator lets the time be extended in favor of Romney!
__________________________
21
01: LEHRER: All right.21
03: ROMNEY: Jim, let me just come back on that -- on that point, which is these...21
04: LEHRER: Just for the -- just for record...(CROSSTALK)
21
07: ROMNEY: ... the small businesses we're talking about...21
09: LEHRER: Excuse me. Excuse me. Just so everybody understands, we're way over our first 15 minutes.21
10: ROMNEY: It's fun, isn't it?21
11: LEHRER: It's OK, it's great. No problem. Well, you all don't have -- you don't have a problem, I don't have a problem, because we're still on the economy. We're going to come back to taxes. I want move on to the deficit and a lot of other things, too.OK, but go ahead, sir.
___________________________
21
38: ROMNEY: You bet. Well, President, you're -- Mr. President, you're absolutely right, which is that, with regards to 97 percent of the businesses are not -- not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they're taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half -- half of all the people who work in small business. Those are the businesses that employ one-quarter of all the workers in America. And your plan is to take their tax rate from 35 percent to 40 percent.____________________________
So Trump would be unhappy.
This below is not Donald Trump! Romney-Insanity can go from the top 3% to a struggling small business without noting the wide wealth difference between the two!
____________________________
Now, and -- and I've talked to a guy who has a very small business. He's in the electronics business in -- in St. Louis. He has four employees. He said he and his son calculated how much they pay in taxes, federal income tax, federal payroll tax, state income tax, state sales tax, state property tax, gasoline tax. It added up to well over 50 percent of what they earned. And your plan is to take the tax rate on successful small businesses from 35 percent to 40 percent. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has said that will cost 700,000 jobs.
___________________________
Trump would pay, but that fellow would not! The federal payroll tax is regressive. State Sales Taxes are regressive. State property taxes are regressive. Gasoline taxes are regressive. The top 3% don't even know those taxes exist. The fellow in the example is aware of those taxes! Romney Insanity does not appear to be capable of noticing that!
And then Romney brings up his "deductions elimination" framework, with no specifics!
______________________
I don't want to cost jobs. My priority is jobs. And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way, get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions, to create more jobs, because there's nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes. That's by far the most effective and efficient way to get this budget balanced.
_________________________________
21:22:58: OBAMA: Jim, I -- you may want to move onto another topic, but I -- I would just say this to the American people. If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for, $7 trillion -- just to give you a sense, over 10 years, that's more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney's plan may work for you.
But I think math, common sense, and our history shows us that's not a recipe for job growth. Look, we've tried this. We've tried both approaches. The approach that Governor Romney's talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003, and we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years, we ended up moving from surplus to deficits, and it all culminated in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Bill Clinton tried the approach that I'm talking about. We created 23 million new jobs. We went from deficit to surplus. And businesses did very well. So, in some ways, we've got some data on which approach is more likely to create jobs and opportunity for Americans and I believe that the economy works best when middle-class families are getting tax breaks so that they've got some money in their pockets, and those of us who have done extraordinarily well because of this magnificent country that we live in, that we can afford to do a little bit more to make sure we're not blowing up the deficit.
________________
So again the moderator caves in!
_________________
21:24:40: ROMNEY: Jim, the president began this segment, so I think I get the last word.
(CROSSTALK)
21:24:42: LEHRER: Well, you're going to get the first word in the next segment.
21:24:48: ROMNEY: All right. Well, but he gets the first word of that segment. I get the last word (inaudible) I hope. Let me just make this comment.
(CROSSTALK)
_______________
Now all of a sudden there are no tax cuts, and no deduction cuts(?)!
_______________
21:24
ROMNEY: I think first of all, let me -- let me repeat -- let me repeat what I said. I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan. My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit. That's point one.So you may keep referring to it as a $5 trillion tax cut, but that's not my plan.
Number two, let's look at history. My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working.
______________________
In other words, a $5 trillion tax cut, with the elimnation of nowhere specified deductions, is his plan!
Notice that the time frame is only about six minutes. Romney glosses over his very own tax plan--bringing up state and local regressive taxes that the business with four employees probably does notice--and claims that the top 3% seem to notice them a lot more than the employer. The plan is to lower rates, and eliminate unspecified deductions. No it is not!
Because that is the plan(?)!
And so Romney got credited with a "win," based on gibberish: Based on clear Romney-Insanity.
No analyst has bothered to take Romney's remarks into any kind of arithmetic assessment! Is it any wonder that Romney-Insanity can win!
"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Maybe someone can find aging Ross Perot staffer, provide the address for the Oval Office, and maybe even gas money: And re-invent "Info-Mercials!")
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