Comments about ‘My view: What young people want to hear at the debates’

Only a very inexperienced businessman tries to steal customers from his competition. Someone who has a little experience knows that he has to expand the market, and that NEW revenue will help him prosper. Obama is trying to steal revenue by taxing those who build businesses. Romney knows that he has to encourage businesssmen to hire more tax paying employees.

Even a non-businessman can see the folly of Obama's ideas and the practicality of Romney's.

Too many people don't think. They just blindly follow. Obama is blindly following principles that have enslaved billions. Romney is following principles that have freed millions.

The choice of leader is ours. The consequence of that choice will affect us, our children and our grandchildren.

Jake Parent: "...[I]t's time to put revenue increases on the table as well."

Mitt Romney has done this. (Hint: it's not the same thing as a tax increase.)

I don't want or need to hear anything at the debates. Actions speak louder than words. Barack Obama has increased our debt by $5 trillion, with a T. Does that mean in another four years we will borrow another $5T to pay for things like Obamacare and more stimuli to the economy? No thanks. The dollar is already going down the toilet. I don't need to hear anything from Obama. He has already proven himself incapable of managing hard-earned taxpayer money.

When I was 23, I thought that I new everything about politics and about the direction the country needed to take. I got over it.

The most interesting part of the debate was the righteous indignation that Romney expressed about Obamacare trimming $700 billion from Medicare. One would think that even if they disagree with the rest of the ACA, people in favor of smaller government would be glad Obamacare trims back Medicare. But not Mitt Romney—just as he is adamant that America can’t afford to guarantee basic health insurance to the young, he is adamant that older generations shouldn’t be called upon to make even the smallest sacrifice to the rich entitlements they enjoy.

Is this because Romney genuinely believes the current generation of elderly are entitled to rich benefits while future generations are stuck with the bill? Or is it because he knows the elderly vote while the millennial generation does not?

Obama wants to take away the benefits promised by the government to those who have already paid into a program. None of us were given the option to "opt out" of Medicare. None of us were told that if we had a better way, we could choose that instead of the government program. Yet, Obama insists that $700,000,000,000 be transferred from the funds that we have already paid to his program. He has not guaranteed that any of us would receive even one dime's worth of benefits for the money that we have already paid.

Romney knows that we were forced to pay into Medicare. He knows that we had no choice. He has told us that he would respect the fact that we had no choice and that he would let us decide, for ourselves, whether we would hold the government accountable for the promises that they had made to us, or whether we would choose another program to meet our future needs.

Obama forces us to do things his way and absolves the government of its responsibility towards us. Romney admits that the government has a responsibility and then allows us to choose.

Hi J Thompson,

You are mistaken on several accounts here. First, the amount of money your generation put into Medicare is a tiny fraction of the benefits you are getting out of it--your "investment" into government Medicare is giving your returns incredibly higher than what you could have received in the free market.

Second, you guys never paid the $700 billion into the program. The $700 billion is simply an unfunded future entitlement benefit that the government has promised you. You guys never paid for it.

Most fundamentally, the current state of affairs was caused by the people YOUR generation elected over the last several decades: they promised you huge entitlements. They spent too much and taxed too little. The result is huge government debt on the backs of your children and grandchildren.

Your attitude illustrates my point: the younger generations are getting hit with tens of trillions of dollars of debt, very high taxes, and low promises of future benefits. Why? Because of the irresponsibility, selfishness, and unwillingness to sacrifice of previous generations.

@Jthompson
You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the Ryan plan takes the same amount of money out of medicare. The difference between the Obama and Ryan plan however is that the Obama plan cuts waste and reimbursement to healthcare providers. The Ryan plan directly cuts benefits to people on medicare and similar waste items to the Obama plan. If you don't want your benefits cut you should vote for Obama.

The ideas of the left are totally unbelievable. They tell us that Obamacare will cut the waste out of healthcare by limiting what doctors earn and what funds hospitals will have to treat us!

I've spent some significant time in hospitals. None of my surgeries went according to plan. Under Obamacare, I would be DEAD because the doctors and the hospitals would not have been allowed to treat ME. They would have been restricted to the program dictated by political appointees who know so much more than doctors!

We have paid into Medicare for our future needs. We are not allowed by the government to opt out. We are forced to participate. Ryan's plan gives us an option. He allows us, if we are young enough to self-fund a portion of our future health-care needs, to do that.

Obamacare will kill those of us who don't conveniently fit their treatment plan.