By 
I don't know about you, but that first of three scheduled televised presidential debates Oct. 3 at the University of Denver was boring, boring, boring. Only the Talking TV Heads seemed to enjoy it. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney obviously out-pointed President Barack Obama over the 90-minute presentation, as the Talking Heads had previously predicted.See Related News Story on Election Channel:
It wasn't really a debate but more like repeated campaign slogans, promises and positions. I don't honestly think many of the estimated 100 million voters watching the show learned anything new about either candidate.
Both strayed numerous times from the agreed-upon domestic policy theme. Both tried to cram in a potpourri of information that really required much lengthier explanations on their own than either could achieve in two minutes.
I thought moderator Jim Leher, the veteran PBS commentator, lost control of the show almost from the first bell. He allowed the candidates repeatedly to go over their two-minute speech limit and had great difficulty trying to steer them back on the theme course.
And, of course, there were the lies. Okay, don't call them lies. Call them instead bent truths or half truths or to be more kindly, exaggerations. Both candidates were guilty of stating them throughout the evening. Among them:
Medicare
Romney repeated his campaign charge that Obama took $716 billion from Medicare to fund his Obamacare legislation, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. The legislation would reduce Medicare spending by $716 billion from 2013 to 2022, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates. But the spending reduction wouldn't affect services for seniors.
The trims would come mainly in lower annual payment increases to hospitals and other providers, higher premiums for the wealthy and lower payments to Medicare Advantage plans, the private plans that provide Medicare benefits.
Romney said flatly he would throw out Obamacare. By doing that, $716 billion would flow back into Medicare. Not so, says the Congressional Budget Office. Repealing Obamacare would raise the country's current $16 trillion deficit by $109 billion over the next 10 years.
JOBS
Obama claimed he created five million private-sector jobs over the last 30 months. But in those 30 months, thousands of federal, state and local government jobs were lost. Independent analysts maintain that if you add up the jobs numbers during Obama's full four-year term, the net on new private-sector jobs is only about 300,000.
To be fair to the President, the early job losses cannot all be placed on his shoulders. He had inherited, in his first two years, a horrific economic package from the Grand Radical Party's George W. Bush. In that period alone, 800,000 jobs were being lost per month.
TAXES
Obama said he would close a loophole that currently allowed American businesses get tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. Romney said that was a flat-out lie. On this item, Romney was correct. There is no deduction for moving a job overseas. What Obama has sought is to limit the ability of U.S. corporations to defer payment of federal taxes on overseas profits. He is not alone on this issue. Over the past 50 years, other U.S. presidents have tried unsuccessfully to pass legislation on this job topic.
DEFICIT REDUCTION
Obama charged Romney's economic plan would add $5 trillion to the deficit. Romney denied that charge. He said he wouldn't sign any legislation that adds a dollar to the deficit.
Obama said his own economic plan includes $4 trillion in deficit reduction. The president is also counting on about $800 billion in savings from ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
FINANCIAL REGULATION
Romney surprised Obama and the University of Denver audience by stating he would not totally repeal the Dodd-Frank Act which regulates financial institutions. But he did not specify what parts he would repeal, if elected president.
He also argued current regulations do not adequately define a qualified mortgage. He said that flaw was keeping many banks from lending. But there is no evidence of that being true, according to most financial analysts.
Instead, what is happening is that banks no longer have the ability to sell off their original loans in a private secondary mortgage market because that market has disappeared. Because of that situation, banks are reluctant to lend and hold on to their own paper.
EDUCATION
Romney said he wouldn't cut federal education spending but at the same time said he wants to restrict Pell Grants, the main source of federal financial aid to students seeking a college education.
Under Obama, Pells Grants have doubled to $36 billion in 2011 from $16 billion in 2008. The size of the grants increased along with the number of recipients, to nine million from about six million.
But wait, there's more. Coming at you Oct. 16 from the auditorium at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. This so-called debate will take the form of a town hall meeting. Audience members will ask the candidates questions on domestic and foreign issues.
Maybe that "debate" will be a little livelier than the first one. But don't bet on it.
