1) POTUS on Libya, Romney's Rose Garden response, POTUS rebuttal
PRESIDENT OBAMA:Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job, but she works for me.I’m the President, and I’m always responsible.That’s why nobody is more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I do.The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the rose garden, and I told the American people and the world that we were going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror, and I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.And then a few days later I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families, and the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive.That’s not what we do.That’s not what I do as President, that’s not what I do as Commander-in-Chief.
MODERATOR:Governor, if you want to reply quickly to this please.
GOVERNOR ROMNEY:I think it’s interesting the President just said something which is that on the day after the attack he went to the Rose Garden and said this was an act of terror.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:That’s what I said.
GOVERNOR ROMNEY:You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an attack of terror.It was not a spontaneous demonstration?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:Please proceed.
GOVERNOR ROMNEY:I want to make sure we get that.It took the President 14 days before he called it an attack of terror.
MODERATOR:Let me call it an act of terror.He did call it an act of terror.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:Can you say that a little louder, Candy?
MODERATOR:
He did call it an act of terror.
2) POTUS immigration clip – (Romney’s advisor called Arizona’s plan a “model”)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I want to make sure we understand something. Governor Romney said he wasn’t referring to as Arizona a model for the nation. His top advisor is the one who designed the whole Arizona program, not just E-verify. It’s a bad policy and it won’t help us grow. Look, when we think about immigration, we have to understand, there are folks all around the world who still see America as the land of promise, and they provide us energy and they provide us innovation, and they start companies like Intel and Google, and we want to encourage that. Now, we’ve got to make sure that we do it in a smart way, in a comprehensive way, and we make the legal system better. But when we make this into a divisive political issue and when we don’t have bipartisan support -- I can deliver, governor, a whole bunch of Democrats to get comprehensive immigration reform done.
3) Romney "Binders of women" clip
GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Thank you, an important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all of the applicants seemed to be men, and I went to my staff and I said how come all of the people for these jobs are all men? And they said these are the people who have the qualifications. I said, gosh, can’t we find some women that are also qualified? And so we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said can you help us find folks? They brought us whole binders full of women.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:The governor says that he is not going to allow the top 5 percent I believe is what he said to have a tax cut, that it will all even out, that what he wants to do is give that tax cut to the middle class.Settled?
PRESIDENT OBAMA:No, it’s not settled.Look, the cost of lowering rates for everybody across the board 20 percent along with what healso wants to do in terms of eliminating the estate tax, along with what hewants to do in terms of corporate changes in the tax code, it costs about $5 trillion.Governor Romney then also wants to spend $2 trillion on additional military programs even though the military is not asking for them.That’s $7 trillion.He also wants to continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.That’s another trillion dollars.That’s $8 trillion.
Now, what he says is he’s going to make sure that this doesn’t add to the deficit, and he’s going to cut middle class taxes, but when he’s asked how are you going to do it, which deductions, which loopholes are yougoing to close?He can’t tell you.The fact that he only has to pay 14 percent on his taxes when a lot of you are paying much higher, he’s already taken that off the board.Capital gains are going to continue to be at a low rate, so we’re not going to get money that way.We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood interms of how he pays for that.
Now, Governor Romney was a very successful investor.If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said seven or eight trillion dollars, and we’re going to pay for it but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t have taken such a sketchy deal, and neither should you, the American people because the math doesn’t add up, and what’s at stake here is one of two things.Either, Candy, this blows up the deficit because, keep in mind, this is just to pay for the additional spending that he’s talking about, $7 or $8 trillion, that’s before we even get to the deficit we already have.Or alternatively it’s got to be paid for not only by closing deductions for wealthy individuals.That will pay for about 4 percent reduction in tax rates.You’re going to be paying for it.You’ll lose some deductions.And you can’t buy this sales pitch.Nobody who has looked at it that’s serious actually believes it adds up.
I was raised by a single mom who had to put herself through school while looking after two kids, and she worked hard every day and made a lot of sacrifices to make sure we got everything we needed. My grandmother, she started off as a secretary in a bank. She never got a college education, even though she was smart as a whip, and she worked her way up to become a vice president of a local bank, but she hit the glass ceiling. She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career. She didn’t complain. That’s not what you did in that generation. And this is one of the reasons why one of the first, the first bill I signed was something called the LILY space space LEDBETTER bill. It was named after an amazing woman who had been doing the same job as a man for years, found out she was getting paid less, and the Supreme Court said she couldn’t bring suit because she should have found out about it earlier, where she had no way of finding out about it. So we fixed that. And that’s an example of the kind of advocacy we need because women are increasingly the bread winners in the family. This is not just a women’s issue. This is a family issue, this is a middle class issue, and that’s why we’ve got to fight for it. It also means we have to make sure that young people like yourself are able to afford a college education. Earlier Governor Romney said he wants to make Pell grants and other education accessible for young people. Well, the truth of the matter is, that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve expanded Pell grants for millions of people, including millions of young women across the country. We did it by taking $60 billion that was going to banks and lenders as middlemen for the student loan program and we said, let’s just cut out the middleman, let’s give the money directly to students. As a consequence, we have seen millions of young people be able to afford college, and that’s going to make sure young women are going to be able to compete in the marketplace, but we have to enforce the laws, which is what we’re doing, and we have to make sure that in every walk of life we do not tolerate discrimination. That’s been one of the hallmarks of my administration. I’m going to continue to push on this issue for the next four years.
6) POTUS response to Rommey's "binder of women's" / pay equity remarks
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Katherine, I want to point out that when Governor Romney’s campaign was asked about the LILYLEDBETTER bill, they said they would get back to us. There are other things that have a bearing on whether women succeed in the workplace. For example, their health care. A major difference in this campaign is that Governor Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making. I think that’s a mistake. In my health care bill I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured because this is not just a health issue, it’s an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family’s pocket. Governor Romney not only opposed it, he suggested that employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage. That’s not the kind of advocacy that women need. When Governor Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for not just contraceptive care, they rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings. That’s a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country, and it makes a difference in terms of how well and effectively women are able to work. When we talk about child care and the credits that we’re providing, that makes a difference in terms of whether they can go out there and earn a living for their family. These are not just women’s issues. These are family issues, these are economic issues, and one of the things that makes us grow as an economy is when everybody participates and women are getting the same fair deal as men are, and I’ve got two daughters, and I want to make sure that they have the same opportunities that anybody’s sons have. That’s a part of what I’m fighting for as President of the United States.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:Think of what the governor just said.He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $180.1.86.Why was that?Because the economy was on the verge of collapse.Because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression.As a consequence of some of the same policies that governor nor Romney is now promoting.So it’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies we might be back in the same mess. What I want to do is to create an economy that is strong and at the same time produce energy, and with respect to this pipeline that Governor Romney keeps on talking about, we’ve created, we’ve built enough pipeline to wrap around the entire earth once.So I’m all for pipelines, I’m all for oil production, what I’m not for is us ignoring the other half of the equation.So, for example, on wind energy, when Governor Romney says these are imaginary jobs, when you’ve got thousands of people right now in Iowa, right now in Colorado who are working, creating wind power with good paying manufacturing jobs, and the RepublicanSenator in Iowa is all for it, providing tax credits to help this work, andGovernor Romney says, I’m opposed.I would get rid of it.That’s not an energy strategy for the future, and we need to win that future, and I intend to win it as President of the United States.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:My philosophy on taxes has been simple, and that is, I want to give middle class families and folks who are striving to get in the middle class some relief because they have been hit hard over the last decade, over the last 15, over the last 20 years.So four years ago I stood on a stage just like this one, actually at a town hall, saying illustrated cut taxes for middle class FAK LIGS, and that’s what I have done, by $3600.I said I would cut taxes for small businesses, who are the drivers and en JINSZ of growth, and we’ve cut them 18 times, and I want to continue those tax cuts for middle class families and for small businesses.But what I’ve also said is if we’re serious about reducing the deficit, if this is genuinely a moral obligation to the next generation, then in addition to some tough spending cuts, we’ve also got to make sure that the wealthy do a little bit more.So what I’ve said is your firsts $250,000 worth of income, no change, and that means 98 percent of American families, 97 percent of small businesses, they will not see a tax increase.I’m ready to sign that bill right now.The only reason it’s not happening is because Governor Romney’s allies in Congress have held the 98 percent HOS age because they want tax breaks for the top 2 percent.But what I’ve also said is for above $250,000, we can go back to the tax rates we had when Bill Clinton was President.We created 23 million new jobs.That’s part of what took us from deficits to surplus.It will be good for our economy, and it will be good for job creation.
Now, Governor Romney has a different philosophy.He was on 60 Minutes just two weeks ago, and he was asked, is it fair for somebody like you making $20 million a year to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse or a, somebody making $50,000 a year, and he said yes, I think that’s fair.Not only that, he said I think that’s what grows the economy.I fundamentally disagree with that I think what grows the economy is when you get that tax credit that we put in place for your kids going to college.I think that grows the economy.I think what grows the economy is when we make sure small businesses are getting a tax credit for hiring veterans whofought for our country.That grows our economy.So we just have a different theory.And when Governor Romney stands here after a year of campaigning, when during a Republican primary he stood on stage and said I’m going to give tax cuts, he didn’t say tax rate cuts, he said tax cuts to everybody, including the top 1 percent, you should believe him because that’s been his history, and that’s exactly the kind of top-down economics that is not going to work if we want a strong middle class and an economy that’s thriving for everybody.
PRESIDENT OBAMA:Barry, I think a lot of this campaign maybe over the last four years has been devoted to this notion that I think government creates jobs, that that somehow is the answer.That’s not what I believe.I believe that the free enterprise system is the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known.I believe in self-reliance and individual initiative and risk takers being rewarded.But I also believe that everybody should have a fair shot and everybody should do their fair share and everybody should play by the same rules.Because that’s how our economy is grown.That’s how we built the world’s greatest middle class.And that is part of what’s at stake in this election.There’s a fundamentally different vision about how we move our country forward.I believe Governor Romney is a good man.Loves his family, cares about his faith.But I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country considered themselves victims, who refused personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about.Folks on Social Security who have worked all their lives, veterans who have sacrificed for this country, students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams but also this country’s dreams, soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now.People who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don’t make enough income, and I want to fight for them.That’s what I’ve been doing for the last four years because if they succeed, I believe the country succeeds.And when my grandfather fought in World War II and he came back and he got a GI bill and that allowed him to go to college, that wasn’t a handout.That was something that advanced the entire country.And I want to make sure that the next generation has those same opportunities.That’s why I’m asking for your vote and that’s why I’m asking for another four years.
MODERATOR:President Obama, Governor Romney, thank you for being here tonight.On that note, we have come to an end of this town hall debate.Our thanks to the participants for their time and to the people of Hofstra University for their hospitality.The next and final debate takes place Monday night in Boca Raton, Florida.Don’t forget to watch.Election day is three weeks from today.Don’t forget to vote.
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