On Oct. 3, Americans got to enjoy on of the most polarizing and wild presidential debates in recent memory; being full of barb trading, poor moderation and stretched facts.
This debate was the first of four scheduled throughout October and focused on domestic policy. Also, it was very number and, allegedly, fact heavy. President Obama was rather passive and spent most of the debate retaliating against the policy ideas of his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. Romney, however, was much more aggressive and focused on “facts,” and because of that, he’s catching flak over issues such as tax cuts, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and job creation.
One of the most discussed of this election is tax cuts and who gets them. During the debate, Obama criticized Romney’s plan to cut taxes by $5 trillion, stating that this would not help the economy because his opponent is planning to spend money in other areas such as defense. But Romney bluntly asserted the contrary: “I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut,” he said.
However, fact checkers from “The Washington Post,” “The New York Times,” and FactCheck.org all point out that Romney has proposed cutting tax rates roughly by 20 percent, which adds up to about $5 trillion.  The President also asserted that Romney’s tax plan would provide another tax break for millionaires while raising taxes on middle families by up to $2000 a year. PolitiFact.com, a nonpartisan watchdog website, gave this accusation a “mostly true” rating.
On the subject of Medicare, Romney said that Obama is planning on cutting Medicare benefits by $716 billion, which is somewhat true. The amount of $716 billion refers to cuts made to Medicare over 10 years to funds given to insurers and hospitals, according to PolitFact. However, this money was not already allocated to Medicare as Romney claimed. It would be more accurate to say that Obama plans to reduce Medicare, not cut its funds.
But it was with the Affordable Care Act that Romney made his biggest assertion and blunder. Romney denounced the policy that would “put in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” This is 99.9 percent false. While Obamacare would indeed create a board, its job under the law would be to keep Medicare spending within a particular range as a factor of the Gross Domestic Product rather than a fixed dollar amount, according to FactCheck.org. The board is prohibited from choosing benefits to be restricted in order to save money, making it incapable of making decisions regarding patient care.
While the President was mostly reactive during this debate, perhaps feebly so, he made a few stretched assertions himself. Right off the bat, Obama pointed out that under his leadership, the economy has grown by five million jobs in the last 30 months. While this is true, both Obama and Romney failed to point out that about the same number of jobs were lost during Obama’s first year in office.
Now that everything has been broken down for you, it is up to you to watch the other debates on Oct. 11, 16 and 22 to make your final decision before Nov. 6 when we vote for the electors that will choose the next president of the United States. Don’t just take the debates at face value; as you can see from the sources listed above, there is plenty of analysis out there. However, do not fall into the trap of taking partisan deductions as fact; look for contradictions, find the truth. This is the very essence of the First Amendment, which ensures the freedom of the press and an uninhibited flow of information to the general public. Never be satisfied with what you hear on television, online or read in print. Find the truth yourself and act upon it.