The debates are important, even if you are already a decided voter (if you're not a voter at all, well, we have nothing to say to you today). The debates are an important way to get the information from "the horses mouth", so to speak. Remembering of course that you have to check out even what you hear from the trusted horse. It's common knowledge a week later that Romney's side of the debate from last week was packed with lies or "fibs", if you prefer. (Allegedly, 27 or more myth/lies in 35 minutes (1)). It's important to be an informed voter, in a society where people stick to party-line voting, often you could be voting for someone who's not at all interested in your best interests. Party line voters vote for a party, and not a platform, no matter how much it might hurt them in the future, no matter what the party stands for today (for example, since the 1950's the Republican party is almost completely opposite on many topics); party line voters would benefit from being more informed as to the similarities and differences between the candidates. Not only that, but what the opposition plans to do for your future, if elected, should be a concern. Raise taxes, lower taxes. Cut funding to important programs, not cutting funding. Improving education. Not improving it. Healthcare. Restrictive healthcare. The issues go on and on.
This Vice Presidential debate will be important because some people, like us, are still waiting to hear about those tax cuts and loopholes the Romney/Ryan ticket said they were going to offer, then said they weren't going to offer. Not sure what they are saying this week. They seem to be going back on almost every platform they started off the year with.
What about topics like abortion? No, Romney says doesn't "know of any abortion-related legislation" he would pursue as president. Even though it's been part of campaigning for months leading up to the first Presidential Debates.
While he knows not of "abortion-related legislation", his party/campaign has said he plans on cutting Planned Parenthood funding, which is detrimental to many low income women for simple things like exams and pap smears. We've personally used Planned Parenthood in our younger days for affordable birth control (still paid a fee for it though), and yearly female exams to check for breast cancer, and other female cancers (still paid a fee on a sliding income-based scale). Men are even welcome for basic low-cost STD testing at Planned Parenthood clinics, an important service to maintaining a healthy society. Just because you cut the funding doesn't mean people will stop having sex. To think so would be idiotic.
The Romney/Ryan ticket has said more than once they plan to cut the funding for Planned Parenthood because some of the centres provide services like abortion. Cutting funding will in turn make it harder for women to get birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies, thereby increasingly unwanted pregnancies, which, with no abortion services, will lead to more unwanted babies/children to low-income women, and will equal more people using welfare services, meaning you will have to pay more. Oh, you don't want to, so you'll cut all the services to people in need? The "blood" from the infant deaths can be on your hands then. Making abortions harder to get will also revive "back-alley" abortions, which were common prior to Roe vs. Wade (1973), and caused many women to die, be ill, and sterile, for life.
But Romney has come out this week and said his platform does not include support abortion legislation (despite the walk back on the comments by his campaign (2)). So maybe Ryan will have more to say about that tomorrow night at the debates. It'll be interesting to see if they flip-flop on it overnight, but it's unlikely to even come up.
Then there's the 47%.
Maybe Ryan, who seems to have stuck to his 30% comment (3), will have something to say on behalf of Romney who said this week in an interview with Wolf Blitzer that he was "wrong" about the 47% (4); even though after the release of the infamous video, and weeks after, he "doubled down" and stood by his words. Now he says he was wrong, meaning people who supported the conflated accusation that people, 47% of them, who at some point in their life needed a government service (under-employed, retired people, disabled people, and military veterans among them) are lazy or refuse take responsibility for their life; if you supported that statement by Romney, he told you this last week that you were wrong.
But who knows, he might jump back to your side any day.
In countless interviews over the past few weeks were both Romney and Ryan have refused to talk about real plans for reducing the deficit, refused to supply real numbers and real descriptions of the loopholes he plans to close; Romney and Ryan want you to trust they can reduce the deficit while also giving you tax cuts, which they say they are both planning, and not planning, depending on the day. They want you to believe they can fix the deficit by increasing military spending, which is already 20% of the budget. Many professionals, from both sides of the political center line, speculate over the plausibility of all of it.
We'd like to hear more about everything the Romney/Ryan ticket has flipped-flopped on, just to see where they stand as Romney edges towards a more moderate platform, turning on everything that he's said he strongly stood for and has since become soft on.
So, we're watching the Vice Presidential Debate tomorrow night to hear concrete information about the Romney/Ryan plan to reduce the deficit, as well as other things dear to us in this election: namely human rights, education, and the environment; because no matter the outcome of the election, something will have a personal effect on us, though far less when compared to the impact it will have on other people. Like we've said in the past, our choice in the election has very little to do with us personally (the only way it effects us is whether or not we can get health insurance or not. Uninsured pre-exiting conditions under Romneycare are not eligible for his plan), rather it has more to do with people we care about.
Read our review on the First Presidential Debate here: 'Big Bird On The Brink of Extinction...and Other Debate Foibles' http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/10/big-bird-on-brink-of-extinctionand.html
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The transcript:
"Let me warn you, and let me warn the nation, against the smooth evasion that says 'Of course we believe these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die.
'We believe in all these things. But we do not like the way that the present administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them, we will do more of them, we will do them better and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything'"
Sources and Citation:
(1) At Last Night’s Debate: Romney Told 27 Myths In 38 Minutes, Igor Volsky, Think Progress, October 4, 2012 http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/
(2) Romney promises no abortion legislation will be part of presidential agenda, Associated Press, Washington Post, October 9, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-promises-no-abortion-legislation-will-be-part-of-presidential-agenda/2012/10/09/e318e74e-1273-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html
(3) Rep. Paul Ryan Claims 30% Of Americans "Want Welfare State", Michael Allen, Opposing Views, October 3, 2012, http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2012-election/video-rep-paul-ryan-claims-30-americans-want-welfare-state
(4) Mitt Romney CNN Interview: The 47% Comment Is 'Not What I Meant', Sam Stein, Huffington Post, October 9, 2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/mitt-romney-cnn-interview_n_1952708.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012
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