What Did You Think Of The Second Debate?

President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speak during the second presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Tuesday. (AP/Charles Dharapak)

Let us know what you thought of the debate! Post your comments below.

WBUR: Video of the debate
NPR: Transcript of the debate

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Jonlord76

Obama finally wiped his ass with romneys tie..Go get him Obama
Jibink

This was more debate-ish, at least they were on point. However this discussions are more about how the candidates “seem” as leaders, not about anything substantial…yet. Other than that I agree with jonlord76.
Dawn

Obama called Romney out for his lies. It’s about time! I would have to question the intelligence of ANYONE who votes for Romney after the various flip-flops.
Alexc bhs

nothing was accomplished by either by Obama or Romney but Obama Started Lying at the End
Michiganjf

If you are mainly concerned about the yearly deficit and the cumulative national debt, you may like to know how Democrats fare historically compared to Republicans… even how President Obama has fared.

I’ll start with this premise:

The U.S. economy, under President Obama, has performed better than almost every other advanced economy in the world, despite the mess he inherited from Bush… despite intentional Republican obstructionism… despite the suffering economies of other nations continually threatening the U.S recovery… despite the gutting of the American middle-class by short-sighted corporatism and policies destructive to the middle-class (I would argue primarily Republican policies)… etc., etc…

… and yet President Obama STILL has managed to bring the Bush deficit down from 1.7 trillion/yr to 1.1 trillion/yr (keep reading), despite reduced government revenues from the recession and the need for stimulus to stem the economic downturn.

But here are some facts regarding the debt and deficit, SUBSTANTIATED by links to the source material:

Of the 16 trillion we now owe, Bush added 5 trillion to the debt during his eight years… then the “final Bush year deficit” of 1.7 trillion per year has added another 5 trillion to the debt during Obama’s first term.

President Obama has REDUCED Bush’s 1.7 trillion yearly deficit by an average 300 billion/yr, EVERY YEAR HE HAS BEEN IN OFFICE, despite the reduced government revenues caused by the recession, and despite the need to stimulate economic and job growth from the Bush “job-loss spiral,” which was costing America 800,000 jobs a month at the time Obama took office.

Take a look at this AWESOME chart, remembering that the U.S operated under Bush’s final budget through 2009 (Google “Obama’s first budget” for plenty of proof that the first Obama budget took effect in 2010, not 2009 as some Republican’s want you to believe):

http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch…

LOOK AT HOW THE DEFICIT HAS GONE DOWN EACH YEAR UNDER OBAMA, FROM BUSH’S HORRENDOUS FINAL YEAR’S 1.7 TRILLION DEFICIT BUDGET!!!

I LOVE this web page because the guy who created it links to sources… but he also put in some teriffic data, including marginal top-bracket tax rates, party in control of both bodies of Congress and the Presidency, etc…

Look over the whole page and all the charts… this site is truly illuminating, WITH FULLY VERIFIABLE DATA!

ALL of the debt added during Obama’s term is due primarily to Bush taking Clinton’s budgetary surplus and turning it into an absurdly huge, 1.7 trillion/yr deficit… Obama STILL managed to reduce the absurd Bush deficit, DESPITE reduced government revenues and the need for stimulus, WHILE NEVER INCREASING TAXES!!!

Here’s an interesting editorial showing how some people read the Bush deficit situation BEFORE OBAMA”S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT, back in December of 2009:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02…

As you can see, Bush already had full credit for the awful deficit situation plaguing America, as well as the debt it was creating every year, BEFORE OBAMA’S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT!

Finally, to prove not only Bush, BUT ALL REPUBLICANS have screwed the debt and deficit whenever they get into the presidency, here’s another nice little chart showing debt under the last several presidents:

Carter (D) – started debt/GDP 35.8% ended debt/GDP 32.5%

Reagan (R) – started debt/GDP 32.5% ended debt/GDP 53.1%

Bush I (R) – started debt/GDP 51.1% ended debt/GDP 66.1%

Clinton (D) – started debt/GDP 66.1% ended debt/GDP 56.4%

Bush II (R) – started debt/GDP 56.4% ended debt/GDP 84.2% !!!!

Check this data for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…

This entire wiki page is Awesome and worth looking over carefully!!! It has LOTS of great info!

I know WIKI data can be faked, but it is correct and reliable over long term periods as it is revised and scrutinized by many…that is what makes WIKI work.

I have been linking to this Wiki page for years now, and this data has held up under more than three years of scrutiny!!!

Surprised?

I think most Americans would be, if only this VERY IMPORTANT data was covered more thoroughly by the mainstream media, which caters primarily to short attention spans and quickie talking points. Republicans have consistently gotten away with lying about who is REALLY responsible for the deficit!

I’ve heard this data covered on ON POINT, one of my favorite radio shows, and on MS-NBC… Rachel Maddow even covered it last night, but the coverage is simply NOT sufficient to get to enough of the public.

�
The fact is, we have a terrific president who has done EXTREMELY WELL for America and Americans, EVEN WITH REGARD TO THE DEBT AND DEFICIT!!!
- Kathy
  
  Amen! This DOES needs to go out widely and should be all over the internet and mainstream media. It’s amazing that it has generated only 5 “likes.” I’ve researched this myself and found the same result. No Republican has balance a budget in decades. Every one of them added significantly to the deficit, and the first one to “lead” it over a trillion dollars was Reagan. They are such skilled “disinformationists” that they could snooker the public again and win this election. That would be a tragedy.
http://wallwatcher.wordpress.com/ Annamaria Profit

Between Mitt’s pit-bull, disrespectful interactive style and the meticulous
styling, he’s primed to appeal to the male impulse to dominate–but it’s
working against him in my neck of the woods–women do not want a pit
bull in the white house–at least not independent women who are
accustomed to making their OWN decisions!! And–a pit bull who lies like
a rug?? NO WAY!! BAD DOG MITT!!! SIT!
- Alexc bhs
  
  yea well respect for you as a women but romney was getting hammered but and so he started hammering obama back
  - Annamaria Profit
    
    Alex, Romney has been a pit bull from the get go! All aggression and no finesse or respect based on multiple ad hominem attacks. If Romney had any integrity at all, it would come through in his body language, and his responses. Between the lies, misrepresentations of the facts, and his contempt for a sitting US President and other Allies and world leaders, I see his candidacy as a really bad choice for America. However, I do recognize his aggressive strategy as an appeal to the male population–like Monday night wrestling, or a nasty hockey match.
    
    (ad hominem (also called personal abuse or personal attacks)
    usually involves insulting or belittling one’s opponents in order to
    attack their claims or invalidate their arguments, but can also involve
    pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the
    opponent’s argument.)
Michiganjf

Romney’s “binders full of women” comment does indeed say something about how he sees women in the workplace, as does his comment about working women needing to hurry home, fix dinner, and take care of the kids.

However, that “binders full of women” comment ALSO says something about how Romney sees American workers in general… not as people, but as pages from a report, to be used or discarded at will, as his discretion sees fit.

THIS IS WHAT HAS DESTROYED EARNINGS FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS!!

A CEO sees a number on a page, like how much the company will save if it cuts pay or fails to raise salaries, say for all cashiers in a store like STAPLES.

Cashiers make up a vast number of the workforce in a company like STAPLES, so the dollar amount on the page will be HUGE if you cut their pay, and the CEO gets a “big woodie” from that “BOTTOM LINE” number, knowing how it will affect the value of his stock options that year.

He then sees a number showing how much he’ll save if he cuts pay for a handfull of corporate headquarters jobs instead… the number is relatively small, compared to the savings of cutting pay for those thousands of cashiers, so he goes with the big number that gave him a “woodie,” and leaves pay for the people at corporate alone this quarter, especially as he actually SEES those corporate workers in person every day, as he walks to his upstairs office.

Now, imagine this same dynamic happenning over and over again, quarter after quarter, for years on end.

… pretty soon, you’ve got a MASSIVE disparity between the vast numbers of workers who ACTUALLY work hard every day in the stores, and those who get paid much more, simply because they’re walking through doors at corporate headquarters instead of walking into a brick and mortar retail outlet.

I see this in MY company, where I’ve seen AN ENTRY LEVEL, NO SPECIAL SKILLS REQUIRED job at corporate pay TWICE what a full-time worker of twenty years gets paid at the store level.

The ONLY reason this has happened, across America over time, is because people like Romney DON’T consider fairness, or how American business needs a healthy middle-class FOR THE COMPANY’S OWN LONG-TERM HEALTH… instead, all the Romney types consider is what will be good for thier own pay compensation and that of investors, NEXT QUARTER!

This thinking has KILLED THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS, the original “goose that laid the golden egg” for American business, and the disappearing wealth of the middle-class IS WHAT HAS REALLY DESTROYED JOB GROWTH IN OUR COUNTRY!!!!
James M. Kilpatrick

Why is it we don’t hear China, Russia, the Europeans shouting to the high heavans about Iran becoming Nuke. Is it because these countries know that thislast in the line so called nuclear power will have, compared to these countries or Isreal, no real power. And if suspected of supplying that Iran will be obliterated? So let this known that they will. Will someone come out of the closet and be real. This question needs to be put to both of these presidential candidates who do nothing but talk out of both sides of their boths.