DN EXPANDED PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TO THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES
Watch the complete broadcast in http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate
DN coverage of the remaining debates, and on election night:*
Tuesday, October 16 - Second Presidential Debate
Monday, October 22 - Third Presidential Debate
Tuesday, November 6 - Election Night
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Here the short version of the expanded Presi debate : Thursday, October 4, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_exclusive_third_party
As
President Obama and Mitt Romney squared off for the first time on
Wednesday night, Democracy Now! broke the sound barrier by pausing Obama
and Romney’s answers to get real-time responses from candidates Jill
Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. Stein
and Anderson joined Democracy Now! for a live special just miles away
from the Obama-Romney contest at the University of Denver. Many Obama
supporters have expressed surprise that Romney was able to put the
president on the defensive, while Obama failed to mention several of
Romney’s potential weak spots, including including his record at the
private equity firm Bain Capital, his vast personal wealth and offshore
investments, and his recent remark that 47 percent of Americans are
government dependents. Today, highlights from our "Expanding the Debate"
special with the voices of all four candidates, showcasing the
broadened perspectives on the critical issues beyond the
Democratic-Republican political spectrum.
Guests:
Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president.
Rocky Anderson, Justice Party candidate for president.
Related:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/10/5/expand_the_debate_this_is_what_democracy_sounds_like
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/3/ahead_of_first_obama_romney_debate
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/9/28/third_party_candidates_to_join_in_real_time_on_democracy_now_s_live_coverage_of_first_pres_debate
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/9/19/tune_in_thursday_mother_jones_reporter_david_corn_to_discuss_release_of_infamous_mitt_romney_video
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/19/romneys_dismissal_of_dependent_47_in
Links:
Editor's Picks:
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Extract from the above previous story: Jul 13
AMY GOODMAN:
You are Dr. Jill Stein, so
let’s talk about healthcare. As Romney
continues to vow to end so-called "Obamacare," the Republican-controlled
House passed a repeal of the measure, but the Democrats in the Senate
say they will not allow this to pass there. Speaking on the House floor,
House Majority Leader—House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Democratic
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi traded barbs over the law.
REP. ERIC CANTOR:
We are trying to end the era of Washington-controlled healthcare. We
believe, as do most of the American people, that it’s patient-centered
care is our goal. That’s where we need to start. We start along the path
towards that goal by repealing Obamacare.
REP. NANCY PELOSI:
American people want us to create jobs. That’s what we should be using
this time on the floor for, not on this useless bill to nowhere—bill to
nowhere, that does serious damage to the health and economic well-being
of America’s families.
AMY GOODMAN:
That’s Nancy Pelosi and Eric Cantor trading barbs on the House floor.
Dr. Jill Stein, interestingly, you are from Massachusetts, from
Lexington, so even as Mitt Romney attacks
President Obama over his
healthcare plan, it was very much modeled on Romney’s healthcare plan
when he was governor of your state of Massachusetts.
DR. JILL STEIN:
Exactly, yes, and we’ve had Romneycare, now Obamacare, in effect in
Massachusetts for five years. So, there’s a track record here. And, you
know, that track record is very problematic. Romneycare, Obamacare,
helped some people, and it hurt other people. It basically pits the very
poor against the near poor. And that’s not a solution.
And this
whole debate, I think, misses the point, which is that we can actually
solve this problem. There is also a track record of success: it’s called
Medicare. Instead of spending 30 percent of our healthcare dollar on
waste and wasteful insurance bureaucracy and paper pushing, we can take
that 30 percent, squeeze it down to 3 percent—that’s what the overhead
is in Medicare—and then use that incredible windfall to actually expand
healthcare and cover everyone. So, you know,
Medicare works.
People like
it. It’s been tampered with, and
we need to fix it and create an
improved Medicare, but it actually works, and we have the track record
all over the world, really, of just about every developed nation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, just dropping the "over 65" from Medicare?
DR. JILL STEIN: Exactly, right. Let’s make it from the point of conception on, you know, that we’re basically covered cradle to grave. And—
AMY GOODMAN: How could the U.S. afford that?
DR. JILL STEIN:
Well, it actually is a money saver. And we know that because of that 30
percent waste, that is part and parcel for our privatized healthcare
system now, 30 percent of your healthcare dollar is paying for those
elaborate forms that you have to fill out, you know, every time your
insurance changes or every time you see a provider. There’s a mountain
of minutiae that goes into the tracking of payments. Instead of tracking
who’s using what and who pays for it, let’s just pay for healthcare,
and let’s cover it as a human right.
There are—
most other
developed nations around the world are using a Medicare-for-all,
single-payer-type system, providing better care with better outcomes at
half the cost of what we’re paying. So,
there’s a really good solution
here. It also stabilizes medical inflation, which is actually the
biggest driver of our skyrocketing healthcare costs. And on that
account,
economists estimate that moving to a Medicare-for-all system
will actually save us trillions of dollars over the coming decades. So
this is not a cost, this is actually a money saver.
AMY GOODMAN: The issue of the Supreme Court upholding Obama’s healthcare law, but not on the issue of expansion of Medicaid.
DR. JILL STEIN: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain the significance of this.
DR. JILL STEIN:
Well, that’s huge. It basically destroys what was most valuable in the
Affordable Care Act. And, in fact, if you look at Massachusetts, what
has really benefited people in Massachusetts who need healthcare is the
expansion of Medicaid, far and above anything that the Romneycare or
Obama—
AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean, the expansion of Medicaid? And what won’t happen now?
DR. JILL STEIN:
It means—exactly, it means that people who are basically at the poverty
level or some slight increase over the poverty level—I’m not sure
exactly where the cutoff is—but it means if you’re poor, you’re covered
under Medicaid, with Medicaid expanding to cover millions of people who
are not currently eligible. So, Romneycare expanded Medicaid
eligibility.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is the Supreme Court decision?
DR. JILL STEIN:
And the Supreme Court decision, basically it allows states to take it
or leave it on the Medicaid expansion. So it’s expected—there were some,
you know, 20-some states, a majority of states, actually, who were
suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act, so it’s expected that those
states are going to decline the expansion of Medicaid.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/7/13/green_new_deal_organizer_physician_jill
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One more Editor pick:
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TRANSCRIPT of expanded presidential debate to third party candidates
AMY GOODMAN:
With less than five weeks before the general election, President Obama
and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney squared off in their
first presidential debate Wednesday in Denver, Colorado. For 90 minutes,
the candidates faced off over taxes, unemployment, economic
regulations, Social Security, health care, education, partisan gridlock
and other domestic issues.
Romney repeatedly attacked Obama’s
record, often putting the president on the defensive. Many supporters of
Obama have expressed surprise that he never mentioned several of
Romney’s potential weak spots, including his record as the private
equity firm Bain Capital. Also his vast personal wealth and offshore
investments, and his recent remark that 47% of Americans are government
dependents. Some domestic issues went virtually unmentioned Wednesday
night, including immigration policy, global warming, gun control,
incarceration rates, and poverty.
Some key voices were shut out
the conversation, including those of third-party presidential
candidates. As Obama and Romney were facing off at the University of
Denver Wednesday night,
Democracy Now! was just miles away
airing a special three-hour broadcast expanding the debate. We broke the
sound barrier by pausing after President Obama’s and Romney’s answers
to get real-time responses from Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky
Anderson of the Justice the party. Dr. Stein is a physician from
Massachusetts.
Rocky Anderson is the former mayor of Salt Lake city. We
also invited Gary Johnson, the decline to join us. Today we bring you
highlights from our Expanding the Debate special. We begin with the
debate moderator Jim Lehrer.
JIM LEHRER:
Let’s start the economy, segment one, and let’s begin with jobs. What
are the major differences between the two of you about how you would go
about creating new jobs? You have two minutes. Each of you have two
minutes to start. A coin toss has determined, Mr. President, you go
first.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: answer skipped go to: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_exclusive_third_party
JIM LEHRER: Governor Romney, two minutes.
FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY: answer skipped go to: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_exclusive_third_party
AMYGOODMAN: As
Democracy Now! expands the debate, we put that question, "how would you create more jobs," to the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein.
DR. JILL STEIN: Thank you, and thank you so much for expanding this debate tonight, as you so often do, Amy, here on
Democracy Now!
So, first just want to acknowledge the crisis is not getting better. We
still very much still have a crisis in our economy. One out of two
Americans are in poverty or living at a low income and heading towards
poverty. About 25 million people are either jobless or working in jobs
that do not pay living wages. There are millions of people who’ve lost
their homes, approximately 8 million. There is no end in sight to the
foreclosure crisis. And we have an entire generation of students who are
effectively indentured servants, who are trapped in unforgiving loans
and do not have the jobs to pay them back with unemployment and
underemployment rate of about 50% among our young people.
So, we
very much need new solutions. What we hear, really, from both Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney are essentially a rehash of where we have been not
only for the past four years, but certainly for the eight years before
that. We’re hearing more about deregulating business and Wall Street, as
if we didn’t have enough problem from that already. We’re hearing more
about more tax breaks for the wealthy, and we’ve seen tax breaks
continue over the past many decades across all sectors of the tax code
to where the wealthy are not paying their fair share now. We’re hearing
more about energy, dirty energy.
So, we are calling for a Green
New Deal modeled after the New Deal that actually got us out of the
Great Depression. They created approximately 4 million jobs in as little
as two months. So, there is a lot that we can do if we put our mind to
it. We’re calling for jobs created at the level of our communities that
are nationally funded and which put decisions in the hands of the
community about which kinds of jobs they need both in the green economy
and meeting their social needs, that would be focused and controlled
locally, but funded at the national level.
AMY GOODMAN: Justice Party presidential candidate Rocky Anderson, how to create jobs?
ROCKY ANDERSON:
Well, President Obama would like us to ignore what is happening is past
four years. Granted, he came into a tough situation, but we have to
consider that during the last 43 months we have had more than 8%
unemployment. It is the only time in this nation’s history that we have
had a president that has presided even over three years of over 8%
unemployment. The fact is, that those 43 months of over 8% unemployment
during President Obama’s term is four months more than all of the months
of over 8% unemployment from 1948 until President Obama’s inauguration.
He talks about recovery, all the new jobs. The fact is, that in the
downturn, 60% of the jobs lost were mid skill and mid paying jobs, and
only 20% of the new jobs during the so-called recovery are of that
category; the mid skill and mid paying jobs.
Most of the jobs are
low-paying jobs, these new jobs he brags about are in retail sales and
food preparation. So, there are things that have been proven in our
history to work. We could have put in place, and it needs to be put in
immediately, a WPA Works Progress Administration kind of program where
we are investing in the future by building up our nation’s rapidly
deteriorating infrastructure, putting people to work. In the WPA project
they 8.5 million people to work. We could be putting 20 million to 25
million people to work and making that kind of investment in our
nation’s future.
We need to renegotiate the outrageous free trade
agreements and make sure they are fair trade so that we’re not
discriminating against those employers who want to hire the United
States workers and also we need to get a handle on health care costs,
because there are a tremendous competitive disadvantages because of the
cost of health care in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to
SOCIAL SECURITY.
During the official debate, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Obama and Romney
if there were any differences in their views on social security. This
is President Obama.
Skipped go to http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_exclusive_third_party
AMY GOODMAN: This is
Democracy Now!
expanding the debate with the third party presidential candidates Rocky
Anderson and Jill Stein. Jim Lehrer has just asked about Social
Security and the so-called entitlements. Dr. Jill Stein.
DR. JILL STEIN:
Yes, I think first it’s very important to point out that while we hear a
very different narrative from Barack Obama and the Democrats than we do
from that Romney, with Mitt Romney’s narrative being usually harsh,
scary, selfishness on steroids, and the Democratic narrative being warm
and fuzzy and we’re all in this together, let’s just wait for things to
get better. It is really important to look beyond the talk, to look at
the walk, to look at what’s actually being proposed.
And Geoffrey
sax at the University of Columbia has pointed out in his analysis of
the budget proposals that both Obama and Romney-Ryan, points out that
they are both aiming for essentially for the same targets.
They’re both
aiming for Social Security to be about 5% of GDP some years down the
line whether it’s four or eight years, and on Medicare, they are both
aiming for Medicare to be reduced to about 2.2% of GDP.
So, the
point is, while they have different scenarios, they both have the same
targets. Obama himself is also looking to cut non-security discretionary
expenditures, things that cover education and housing and job training,
also looking to cut that nearly in half according to his own budget
figures, down to about 1.8% of GDP from 3.2% where it is right now.
On
Social Security, Obama is already calling for some cuts, basically to
the cost of living reimbursements. So, heads up about what is going to
happen after the election. You will see the walk differ from the talk.
And on Medicare, yes, it is true that they are both proposing the same
changes. Again, a sign that things are not really differ between these
two corporate-sponsored candidates.
They’re both proposing about
$700 billion in Medicare cuts. We can fix this. For Social Security, we
simply need to raise the cap on Social Security. It will be perfectly
solvent when the rich are paying their fair share. And on Medicare, one
thing we can do right now is to fix Medicare Part D so that it’s no
longer a boondoggle, a giveaway for pharmaceutical companies and to
allow bargaining and negotiation to get bulk purchasing and bring down
the cost.
AMY GOODMAN: Rocky Anderson, two minutes.
ROCKY ANDERSON:
The solution to Medicare is to provide Medicare for everybody. To make
it a single payer system. You look around the world — Canada, Taiwan —
Taiwan did a study. They looked at all other nations’ systems and
incorporated the best elements. And they have a single payer, basically,
Medicare for all system.
We are paying more than double the
average of the rest of the industrialized world per-capita for our
health care costs. A large part of that is because we’re relying upon
the for-profit insurance industry to provide health care for most of the
people in this country. We need to get rid of that. We can control
costs.
And all of these systems — and by the way, there is not
another nation in the industrialized world that does it anywhere like we
do, that has the waste, that has the poor medical outcomes, and where
people are taking out bankruptcy by the hundreds of thousands. So that
is the solution for medicare. We can make it affordable, provide better
services, and we can do it for all. You just get the for-profit
insurance companies out of the way, and all of the burdensome paperwork
and the different billing systems and all the rest, that end up costing
over a third of what we pay for what’s supposed to go toward our medical
care.
As to Social Security, the Social Security payroll tax is
as regressive a tax known to mankind, because if you make one $110,000,
you don’t pay anything on the income over that amount. Everybody pays
the same thing up to that point. We need to lift the cap.
You
could reduce the percentage that workers pay. You could bring it down to
4% so that the middle class and the working poor come out ahead. You
lift the cap, and then you also have those who make their money through
investments pay their fair share as well. There’s no reason why working
people are paying toward social security and those who are living off
their investments get away, once again, without paying their fair share.
AMY GOODMAN: Back to moderator Jim Lehrer.
JIM LEHRER: Now, let’s move to health care where I know there is a clear difference, and that has to do with the
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT,
Obamacare. And it’s a two-minute new — new segment, and that means two
minutes each. And you go first, Governor Romney. You want it repealed.
You want the Affordable Care Act repealed.
Why?
FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY:
I sure do. Well, in part, it comes, again, from my experience. You
know, I was in New Hampshire. A woman came to me and she said, look, I
can’t afford insurance for myself or my son. I met a couple in Appleton,
Wisconsin, and they said, we’re thinking of dropping our insurance, we
can’t afford it.
And the number of small businesses I’ve gone to
that are saying they’re dropping insurance because they can’t afford it,
the cost of health care is just prohibitive. And — and we’ve got to
deal with cost.
And, unfortunately, when — when — when you look
at Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has said it will cost
$2,500 a year more than traditional insurance. So it’s adding to cost.
And as a matter of fact, when the president ran for office, he said
that, by this year, he would have brought down the cost of insurance for
each family by $2,500 a family. Instead, it’s gone up by that amount.
So it’s expensive. Expensive things hurt families. So that’s one reason I
don’t want it.
Second reason, it cuts $716 billion from Medicare to pay for it. I want to put that money back in Medicare for our seniors.
Number
three, it puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people
ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that
idea.
Fourth, there was a survey done of small businesses across
the country, said, what’s been the effect of Obamacare on your hiring
plans? And three-quarters of them said it makes us less likely to hire
people. I just don’t know how the president could have come into office,
facing 23 million people out of work, rising unemployment, an economic
crisis at the — at the kitchen table, and spend his energy and passion
for two years fighting for Obamacare instead of fighting for jobs for
the American people. It has killed jobs.
And the best course for
health care is to do what we did in my state: craft a plan at the state
level that fits the needs of the state. And then let’s focus on getting
the costs down for people, rather than raising it with the $2,500
additional premium.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, the argument against repeal?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well, four years ago, when I was running for office, I was traveling
around and having those same conversations that Governor Romney talks
about. And it wasn’t just that small businesses were seeing costs
skyrocket and they couldn’t get affordable coverage even if they wanted
to provide it to their employees. It wasn’t just that this was the
biggest driver of our federal deficit, our overall health care costs,
but it was families who were worried about going bankrupt if they got
sick, millions of families, all across the country.
If they had a
pre-existing condition, they might not be able to get coverage at all.
If they did have coverage, insurance companies might impose an arbitrary
limit. And so as a consequence, they’re paying their premiums, somebody
gets really sick, lo and behold, they don’t have enough money to pay
the bills, because the insurance companies say that they’ve hit the
limit.
So we did work on this, alongside working on jobs, because
this is part of making sure that middle-class families are secure in
this country. And let me tell you exactly what Obamacare did. Number
one, if you’ve got health insurance, it doesn’t mean a government
takeover. You keep your own insurance. You keep your own doctor. But it
does say insurance companies can’t jerk you around. They can’t impose
arbitrary lifetime limits. They have to let you keep your kid on their
insurance — your insurance plan until you’re 26 years old. And it also
says that you’re going to have to get rebates if insurance companies are
spending more on administrative costs and profits than they are on
actual care.
Number two, if you don’t have health insurance,
we’re essentially setting up a group plan that allows you to benefit
from group rates that are typically 18 percent lower than if you’re out
there trying to get insurance on the individual market.
Now, the last point I’d make before...
JIM LEHRER: Two minutes — two minutes is up, sir.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, I think — I had five seconds before you interrupted me, was ...
(LAUGHTER)
...
the irony is that we’ve seen this model work really well in
Massachusetts, because Governor Romney did a good thing, working with
Democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the identical model
and as a consequence people are covered there. It hasn’t destroyed
jobs. And as a consequence, we now have a system in which we have the
opportunity to start bringing down costs, as opposed to just leaving
millions of people out in the cold.
AMY GOODMAN: We are expanding the debate with the third-party candidates. Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party, health care.
ROCKY ANDERSON:
We’re talking here about Obamacare and Romneycare. I would call a
insurance companycare because they’re the ones who wrote it. They joined
up with a very conservative foundation years ago to develop this plan,
to make the American people buy this perverse product.
Again, we
are the only country in the world that depends upon for-profit insurance
companies for the majority of our coverage for health care, for those
were lucky enough to have it. There are now over 50 million people
without basic health-care coverage in this country. The latest report
indicates that there will be over 30 million people without essential
health care coverage when Obamacare is fully implemented. That means
misery. It means extended disease. It means extended illness and
injuries, and it means the loss of lives.
Now, over 40,000 people
this country die every year because of the lack of health care. And I
talked earlier about the enormous rates of infant mortality and maternal
mortality. These are women and children dying because, primarily,
because they don’t have access to health care. There is still going to
be that major problem. Watch your premiums skyrocket. It’s already
happened since the beginning of this program, and it’s just going to get
far worse.
So, what we need is what the vast majority of
Americans said they wanted during the healthcare debate. There were some
70% or more people and the majority of doctors saying, we want a single
payer Medicare for all system.
President Obama and his
compatriots that were colluding with the insurance companies wouldn’t
even let the single payer Medicare for All proposal see the light of day
in congress. And then the President folded even on the idea of a public
option. It was an enormous betrayal of the public interest so that they
could please the for-profit insurance companies that has such a
stranglehold on our Congress and now on our White House.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Jill Stein, this is your profession, health care.
DR. JILL STEIN:
That’s right, it’s my profession and this is where I live. I live in
the state of Massachusetts. So, I’ve seen the Affordable Care Act. We
also call it Romneycare or Obamacare, take your pick. We have seen it
actually rollout.
And what we’ve seen is that the Affordable Care
Act actually in the flesh is neither affordable nor caring, because in
fact, it provides stripped-down plans which are fairly expensive unless
you are in a very low income, unless you are poor and you’re covered,
costs go up astoundingly. If you are making less than $20,000 a year as a
family, you’re covered. And it actually has expanded care for the very
poor, and that is a good thing.
But if you’re in the
$20,000-$40,000 bracket, so near poor and fairly poor, I think by many
standards, actually, your costs go up 5% of your income, which is just a
staggering amount of money, to add an additional 5% of your income to
your health care costs. And yet you are not covered. So, on average,
these plans cover about 75% of your costs — actually I think it is more
like 70% of your costs. Yet you are paying approximately 10% of your
income for them.
So, it’s not affordable for families. You’re not
fully covered. The proof of the pudding here is that when people get
sick in Massachusetts now, they go into medical bankruptcy just as much
as they did before we had the Affordable Care Act.
And it’s
certainly not affordable for government. Not for state government, not
for municipalities, not for small businesses. Costs are skyrocketing and
it’s cannibalizing all other aspects of budget.
The answer here
is Medicare for all which provides care for everyone, comprehensively.
You are in charge not your boss at work or not a profiteering CEO. You
get to call the shots. And, well kept secret is it actually saves as
trillions of dollars over the coming decade because it eliminates that
massive wasteful health insurance bureaucracy and it stabilizes medical
inflation. So, it is a win/win. It’s absolutely a sign of how hijacked
Washington and our state capitals are that we don’t have Medicare for
All right now.
AMY GOODMAN: During
the official debate, moderator Jim Lehrer asked President Obama and
Mitt Romney if there’s a fundamental difference between how they view
mission of the federal government. This is President Obama.
Skipped
JIM LEHRER: Two minutes, Governor, on the role of government. Your view?
FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY:
The
role of government: Look behind us. The Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence. The role of government is to promote and
protect the principles of those documents.
First, life and
liberty. We have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of
our people, and that means a military second to none. I do not believe
in cutting our military. I believe in maintaining the strength of
America’s military.
Second, in that line that says we are endowed
by our creator with our rights, I believe we must maintain our
commitment to religious tolerance and freedom in this country. That
statement also says that we are endowed by our creator with the right to
pursue happiness as we choose. I interpret that as, one, making sure
that those people who are less fortunate and can’t care for themselves
are cared by — by one another.
We’re a nation that believes that
we’re all children of the same god and we care for those that have
difficulties, those that are elderly and have problems and challenges,
those that are disabled. We care for them. And we — we look for
discovery and innovation, all these things desired out of the American
heart to provide the pursuit of happiness for our citizens.
But
we also believe in maintaining for individuals the right to pursue their
dreams and not to have the government substitute itself for the rights
of free individuals. And what we’re seeing right now is, in my view, a —
a trickle-down government approach, which has government thinking it
can do a better job than free people pursuing their dreams. And it’s not
working.
And the proof of that is 23 million people out of work.
The proof of that is 1 out of 6 people in poverty. The proof of that is
we’ve gone from 32 million on food stamps to 47 million on food stamps.
The proof of that is that 50 percent of college graduates this year
can’t find work. We know that the patch we’re taking is not working,
it’s time for a new path.
AMY GOODMAN: Rocky Anderson?
ROCKY ANDERSON:
Certainly, our government is supposed to keep us safe, but more and
more, United States citizens are worried about being safe from our
government. Our Government is spying on us. Even when there was illegal
spying under the Bush a ministration, what did the next president,
President Obama do? He said, let’s not worry about those who violated
federal laws when they spied on American citizens, let’s just move
forward and not look back.
No accountability for a certain class
of people. No sense of the rule of law controlling, no sense that we
have a one tiered system of justice. The Patriot Act needs to be
repealed. We need to follow due process. We have a president who is
targeting U.S. citizens for assassination. Where is the due process and
that or indefinite detention?
AMY GOODMAN: Jill Stein?
JILL STEIN:
Yes. So, we certainly do need to hold government accountable. And as
Rocky’s pointing out, the attack on our civil liberties has been
devastating. Under the Obama White House, which basically codified the
violations of George Bush, the attacks on our privacy rights, on First
Amendment rights, the criminalization of the right to protest, the
National Defense Authorization Act in which the President has claimed
the right to incarcerate us, basically, without charge or trial, and to
do that at his pleasure without having to justify that in any way.
So,
yes, there are very serious problems. Things are not working under
Democrats, under Republicans alike. We need a government that is of, by,
and for the people, not sponsored and working for big money.
AMY GOODMAN: Moderator Jim Lehrer.
JIM LEHRER:
That brings us to closing statements. It was a coin toss. Governor
Romney, you won the toss and you elected to go last, so you have a
closing two minutes, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: skipped
JIM LEHRER: Governor Romney, your two-minute closing.
FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY:
Thank you, Jim, and Mr. President. And thank you for tuning in this evening.
This
is a — this is an important election and I’m concerned about America.
I’m concerned about the direction America has been taking over the last
four years. I — I know this is bigger than an election about the two of
us as individuals. It’s bigger than our respective parties. It’s an
election about the course of America. What kind of America do you want
to have for yourself and for your children.
And there really are
two very different paths that we began speaking about this evening, and
over the course of this month we’re going to have two more presidential
debates and a vice presidential debate. We’re talk about those two
paths. But they lead in very different directions. And it’s not just
looking to our words that you have to take in evidence of where they go.
You can look at the record.
There’s no question in my mind that
if the president were to be re-elected you’ll continue to see a
middle-class squeeze with incomes going down and prices going up. I’ll
get incomes up again. You’ll see chronic unemployment. We’ve had 43
straight months with unemployment above 8 percent.
If I’m
president I will create — help create 12 million new jobs in this
country with rising incomes. If the president’s re-elected, Obamacare
will be fully installed. In my view that’s going to mean a whole
different way of life for people who counted on the insurance plan they
had in the past. Many will lose it. You’re going to see health premiums
go up by some $2,500 per family.
If I’m elected we won’t have
Obama. We’ll put in place the kind of principles that I put in place in
my own state and allow each state to craft their own programs to get
people insured and we’ll focus on getting the cost of health care down.
If
the president were to be re-elected you’re going to see a $716 billion
cut to Medicare. You’ll have 4 million people who will lose Medicare
Advantage. You’ll have hospital and providers that’ll no longer accept
Medicare patients. I’ll restore that $716 billion to Medicare.
And
finally, military. The president’s re-elected you’ll see dramatic cuts
to our military. The secretary of defense has said these would be even
devastating. I will not cut our commitment to our military. I will keep
America strong and get America’s middle class working again.
AMY GOODMAN: We continue now with final statements, first Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
JILL STEIN:
We clearly are in a crisis now. People are losing their jobs, their
homes, decent wages, affordable health care and higher education. Our
civil liberties are under attack in the climate is in meltdown. Yet, the
wealthy few are making out better than ever, making out like bandits.
Richer than ever. While the political establishment that got us into
this mess to start with actually is making it worse.
Both Democrats
and Republicans are making it worse and posing austerity on the
everyday people of this country while they continue to squander
trillions on wars for oil, Wall Street bailouts and tax breaks for the
wealthy.
The American people are at the breaking point, and we
can use this election to turn that breaking point into a tipping point,
to take back our democracy and the peaceful, just, green future we
deserve. We’re at the breaking point not only for people, but the
planet, for the economy, and for our democracy. So, it’s very important
that we have a real change in course. And we can change that course, and
my campaign provides a way to do that.
Across the country we’re
on the ballot for 85% of the voters. We will be on the ballot, and we
will allow you to go to the polls and actually vote for real change, not
to give a mandate for four more years of the same by voting for either
corporate and Wall Street-sponsored candidates, but instead to stand up
for the solutions that we deserve and that the American people are
clamoring for and that are within our reach.
Jobs for everyone,
to end unemployment, to transition to a green economy that can put an
end to climate change through the green new deal, health care as a human
rights for everyone through Medicare for all, public higher education
that is free which pays for itself seven times over, and by ending
student debt, bailing out the student, not the banks once again. And
downsizing the military, bringing our troops home, cutting back to year
2000 level and respecting immigrant rights as human rights and reforming
NAFTA and the free trade agreements that created this crises to start
with.
AMY GOODMAN: Rocky Anderson, your final statement.
ROCKY ANDERSON:
This race is about our most fundamental values, about who the American
people are and who we are becoming. It is about whether we will work
together for equality of opportunity, equality under the law, liberty
and justice — economic justice, social justice, environmental justice
for all. Or whether we will, in the face of gross inequalities of
opportunity, simply leave everybody to fend for themselves as in a bad
Ayn Rand novel or Mitt Romney speech.
This race is also about
whether our nation will continue down the road toward totalitarianism
with an imperial presidency that has been made so much worse under both
the Bush and the Obama administrations, which have shown utter contempt
for the rule of law, due process, and the restrictions under the War
Powers Clause of the United State Constitution.
We must say no to
any more assassinations of U.S. citizens. We must say no to indefinite
detention without any semblance of due process, and to the continued
drone killings that have made our nation so much less secure. So, let
your voices be heard loudly from the voting booth as you are guided by
your most deeply held values.
AMY GOODMAN:
The Justice Party’s presidential candidate Rocky Anderson and Green
Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, as they participated in the presidential
debate last night in real time at real podiums, albeit outside the
gates of the official debate on
Democracy Now!’s special
broadcast Expanding the Debate.
TO SEE OUR WHOLE THREE HOUR BROADCAST,
GO TO OUR WEBSITE DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG AND TO GET A COPY AS WELL. This is
what democracy sounds like.
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/10/5/expand_the_debate_this_is_what_democracy_sounds_like
SEE ALSO:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/expand_the_debate_this_is_what_democracy_sounds_like_20121004/
Posted on Oct 4, 2012 By
Amy Goodman
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