I am amazed at all of the spin & hype after the debate on who won and who lost!
Presidential Debate Images from: Boston.Com
First is the view from the neo-con commentators that Governor Romney won the debate by a large margin and that he was so masterful in his criticism of the President and his record over the last 4 years. The second is what issues were not discussed by either candidate and not even referenced to by the Mr. Lehrer the moderator.
Governor Romney said nothing about eliminating Government departments; He would only cut the government payroll by attrition. He decried over regulation and government intrusion but will do nothing to kill the “beast” that is out of control Federal Government.
He even stated he would increase the Federal Governments funding of education in order to improve education and hire more teachers. He doesn’t understand the Federal Government should have “No-Role” in education since that is the prerogative of the individual states and locales. The Department of Education has been an utter disaster as evidenced by our mediocre educational ranking among the top 28 industrialized nations.
This slide began in the early1970s and has continued since 1980 when the Department of Education was elevated to a cabinet post. Even though billions of dollars has been spent on the federal level education has suffered. Federal Interference in what should be an individual state responsibility. Both candidates say they want Federal funding for more teachers but fail to say what will happen when the initial funding for these teachers runs out and the states already overburdened with non-funded mandates will have to find a way to pay for them.
The Governor said he likes some of the provisions of the Dodd Frank bill which in my opinion was a Federal Government power grab of the financial industry to the benefit ofcrony capitalist bankers . The biggest causes of the financial debacle of the last decade was the gutting of the Glass-Steagall act implemented in 1933 which put up a wall between investment and commercial operations which protected deposits from capital market risk. This regulation was amended by the Gramm-Leach-Bilely Act of 1999 which allowed commercial banks to engage in risky investment products. All the reform that was needed was to reinstate the provisions of Glass-Steagall.
Neither candidate mentioned the destruction of our currency by the Federal Reserve and its now never ending quantitative easing nor did they even outline how we as a people will ever pay our 16 Trillion dollar national Debt.
The Constitution was only mentioned once by the governor in the part of the debate on the role of the Federal Government. The Governor went into quoting the declaration of independence and not the constitution. My answer to Mr. Lehrer’s question on what is the role of the Federal Government would have been short and simple:
“The role is limited to the 18 or so enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 of the constitution no more and no less!”
These topics would have been covered if the Libertarian Candidate Governor Gary Johnson was invited to participate in the debates and it explains the reason why both major parties fought to exclude him.
To my conservative friends to whom will read this posting who will undoubtedly say I am being unduly hard on Governor Romney all I can say is that I expected better from him.
Just my opinion D.B.