The first presidential debate between the President of America Barack Obama and the rival Republican Mitt Romney had gone decently well after they both had declared their promises. They could not be entirely fake but you may expect a bit of optimism beyond reality in their debate.
Romney to cut deficit: Romney said that Obamacare was also his priority and the he might cease subsidizing the PBS to rake up more funds, clear up deficit and make the government more efficient. However, the Fact is that this could not be entirely true from what Romney has to say yet. He has said that it would take 8-10 years to balance the sheets but no plans have been disclosed on how he wants to achieve them. Furthermore he has promised to increase Pentagon spending and restoring more than $700 billion in cuts that Democrats made in Medicare over the coming decade, both of which work against his goal. How he had planned to achieve it without his plan of increasing the taxes is still shrouded in mystery.
He pledged that the size of the government would be reduced to 20% of the current economy by the end of first term. It would be a great financial advantage if this could be achieved since the current government amounts to more than 23% of the economy of the nation. The Romney campaign estimates that would require cuts of $500 billion from the 2016 budget alone. Another of his promises includes reduction in tax rates by 20 per cent for which he plans to pay for them by eliminating tax breaks for the wealthiest and through economic growth.
This would require that several domestic programs are hampered even the deeper ones. According to an estimate as much as 1/3 of the domestic budget would have to be cut within a short span of four years, which is not feasible with the Congress. Cuts to domestic agencies would have to be particularly deep.
However, the his promises quote only a few modest examples like a cut in the subsidies to PBS and Amtrak. Repealing the president Obama's big health care law, would be unnecessary as the law is intended to cut the deficit.
OBAMA: "Gov. Romney's central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut - on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts, that's another trillion dollars - and $2 trillion in additional military spending that the military hasn't asked for. That's $8 trillion. How we pay for that, reduce the deficit, and make the investments that we need to make, without dumping those costs onto middle-class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign." These are Obama's own words.
THE FACTS: As we see earlier, Obama questions how the figures add up as he most probably could be talking about the 10 year tax plan of Mr Romney. Obama should have not thought of Romney's complete plan.
Reduction in tax rates by 20%, no estate tax and alternative minimum tax, says Romney. Sounds nice but the Washington research group, Tax Policy Center said that such a decision could cause a loss of $465 billion by the end of 2015, coming to over $ 5 trillion in 10 years.
Romney also bolstered his pledge to reduce tax after saying that he would pay for the tax cuts by reducing or eliminating tax credits, deductions and exemptions. In his words, paraphrased, Mitt Romney promises nothing more than a current system does, except that the tax code is simpler and also more efficient.
However, the upper hand in the debate seems to be Obama's after he questioned which tax breaks he could remove to pay for the lower rates. Romney's pledges however have no plans chalked out on this yet.
(AW- Anil)
