Comments about ‘Town hall format 'wild card' in second Mitt Romney/President Obama debate’

An important question needs to be asked of the candidates regarding economic recovery in my opinion. What is meant by the words "small business"? It is understood that a small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales -- smaller than a given size as measured by its employment, business receipts, or business assets.

However, whenever we hear Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan mention "small business" they seem to neglect over 95% of small businesses in their conversation. If we use "size" or "sales" as criteria, then we get something vastly different from what Romney/Paul appear to be talking about. In fact, one wonders if they include business with over 50-100 employees and executive compensation in excess of $1 million/year.

This is not mom and pop corner grocery store small business. When Romney talks about a small business, does he include Bain Capital? And if he does, is he talking about primarily helping these companies. Many small business owners may wonder where they fit it. It's confusing because a small business is often thought of as, well, small.

You're absolutely right Salsero, they should talk about the lessons of Solundra

@Salsero

With unemployment this high, does it really matter how small or big the business is? We need jobs. Not targeted tax cuts.

Did you see Hillary took one for "the team" what a joke! It's very sad that great people had to die in Libya before voters see how incompetent this Obama admin. Libya foreign policy disaster will be the end of Obama as well as Hillary Politically. The Dems had been waiting for an October surprise and fell asleep on 9/11...folks, you can't make this story up, it's unbelievable. Anyone that couldn't see that disaster coming don't deserve to be in office...

Someone needs to ask Obama why he hasn't cut the deficit in half, and why he's given billions of dollars to other countries to help their economy.

Hopefully, Mitt will provide some vision and details of the America he is talking about. I was hoping for more from him but he has been such a disappointment. Just another Republican like Bush's and Regan that will add billions more of debt for our children to pay off while giving his cronies another round of tax cuts.

Someone in the Town Hall needs to ask Mr. Obama:

-When are you closing Guantanamo?
-When can we expect your administration to be transparent?
-When will you start working with both Republicans and Democrats?
-When will you start posting proposed legislation online so the people can see it before it is voted on?
-When will you get unemployment under 6% as promised?
-When will your stimulus bills start stimulating?
-When will you push for comprehensive immigration reform?
-When will I see my medical expenses go down as a result of Obamacare?
-When will GM pay back all the money they borrowed from US?
-When will hope increase and Change begin?

Any other broken campaign promises I have missed? He made no less than 508 pledges on everything from taxing the rich to ending our dependence on foreign oil.

Last question, Mr. Obama:

Why should we reelect such a resounding failure instead of giving someone else a shot?

Romney will win again, and this is why: all he has to do is state the facts about Obama's record.

When America was down and unemployed, Obama's attention was focused on the government takeover of health care. Obamacare puts additional burdens on individuals and employers -- mandates, taxes, and regulations -- that make it impossible for them to plan for the future. It is killing our recovery.

When America had been attacked by terrorists in Libya, Obama immediately went to Vegas to do fund-raising. During the days that followed, he and his surrogates pushed a false narrative of what had happened, because the true facts would contradict what their campaign was saying about Obama's record against al-Qaeda, and his Middle East policy in general.

When America was looking for bipartisan cooperation to solve the nation's problems, Obama was polarizing Washington to a degree never before seen. His community-organizer tactics are dividing us, not unifying us.

Obama has not been honest with the American people, and his record shows it. All Romney has to do is to point out these things, and explain what he will do differently. It'll be an easy win.

One question I hope gets asked that relates to the ACA. The president said he would not raise taxes on anyone making under $200K. Yet, 75% of the mandated tax from Obamacare hits people making under $120k(according to the CBO). SO, Mr. President, why did you raise taxes on people making under $120K when you specifically said that you wouldn't?(this killed George HW Bush) Another question has to do with the memo sent from the white house to defense contractors telling them to not issue 60 day notices(contrary to law). And, that the taxpayer would cover any lawsuits that may follow. Sure doesn't sound like the president is in favor of the middle class.

Someone needs to ask Mitt why he's so Afraid to release his taxes, but Not afraid to lie, distort and vilify a sitting president at war.

His own father would be ashamed.

The rest of you radio fans who can copy and paste adequately, those questions have been answered here in these comments daily for months, I'm sorry your unable to accept that facts over radio comedians opinions.

@Salsero

Romney has defined what he's talking about when he says, "small business." He's talking about those of us who file our small businesses taxes at the individual tax rate rather than the corporate tax rate. So, what Romney is saying, is that by lowering individual income tax across the board, those small businesses who file at the individual rate will pay less in tax and therefore be able to hire more people.

@Salsero:

Also, according to the SBA, small businesses do include companies that make over $1,000,000 in sales and have up to as many as 1,500 employees. You can make up to $21.5 million in annual receipts in the service industry, for example, and still be considered a "small business."

This is why fact checkers balked at Obama's statement in the first presidential debate regarding Donald Trump as being a small business. First of all, the likes of Donald Trump aren't who Romney was talking about, and second, Donald Trump's holdings don't qualify as a small business due to both employee count and annual revenue.

I hope this information helps.

RE: HVHeretic

"Not afraid to lie, distort and vilify a sitting president at war."

If we were to stretch facts and pretend that your statements were even close to being true, I guess we could excuse Romney for taking a page out of yours and every other leftists playbook relating to the treatment of GWB. As for your issue on tax returns, I think he has complied with the law. His investments are managed according to the standards required of someone seeking public office, and avoiding conflicts of interest. I certainly wouldn't do more then the law required, nor would I expect anyone else to do so. Why don't you concentrate on living your life just like your own father, and avoid projecting shame!

“Bain's billions of profits were not rewards for capitalist creation; they were mainly windfalls collected from gambling in markets that were rigged to rise.

Romney was not a businessman. He was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old fashioned way, out of inspiration, persperiation and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead he spent his 15 yrs. raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups” and then deliver them back to Wall Stree for resale, the faster the better.

That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn't be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value. But we have a rigged system, a regime of crony capitalism, where the tax code heavily favors debt and capital gains.."

(David Stockman, Reagan's budget director)

Questions for Mr. Romney:

Are there any specifics in your proposals to reduce the debt, finance the government and lead the nation?

Do you prefer a Theocracy or a Monarchy as the result of no redistribution of wealth?

Do you really believe that Corporations are people?

If you want to know what to expect in the debate, the candidates signed an agreement making it pretty clear what they will and will not do and say.

David Stockman continues:

"The Wall Street Journal examined 77 significant deals during Romney's tenure at Bain. Bain generated an impressive $2.5 billion in investor gains on $1.1 billion in investments. However, 10 out of the 77 deals accounted for 75% of the investor profits. Accordingly, 67 out of the 77 were lower than what a passive S & P indexer would've earned during that time frame. By contrast, 10 out of the 77 earned $1.8 billion on investments of $250 million. The startling fact, however, is that 4 of the 10 successes ended up in bankruptcy for an obvious reason: Bain got its money out at the top of the Greenspan boom in the late 1990's and these companies hit the wall in 2000-2002 downturn weighed down by the massive load of debt Bain had bequeathed them."

@FT

Maybe Obama can now identify what he really meant after four years of experience now.

"Just like Bush and Reagan who will add billions more of debt for our children to pay off"

First, I guess I would rather have billions added to the debt than the Trillions that Obama added. You know, the doubling of our national debt. You lefties blame Bush, take responsibility. I will be the first to admit, Bush was not the best. However, the millions, billions and trillions sent overseas to countries who are not even our allies, or the millions sent to Solyndra who is a key contributor of the Obama campaign, or the extravagant vacations we paid for, etc. etc. Come on really? Can't we just look at the past four years? All agree it was four years of failure. And look at our two candidates and say, one is a proven failure (Obama) and the other is a proven success (Romney). Let's give the latter a chance, he cannot do any worse. They pull a pitcher in a baseball game for a reason, it is time to go to the bullpen.

Truth Seeker,

I believe that seeking truth means never twisting facts to fit our agenda. Romney had nothing to do with running Bain at the time you site. Everywhere I look I am seeing words twisted and if I had not gone to primary source information starting a few years back, I might still be negative about Romney.

I have argued details in the past but the real bottom line is this; will the country retain more freedoms with Obama or Romney? There is only one answer if one does their homework honestly.

Re: Happy Valley Heretic Orem, UT
"Someone needs to ask Mitt why he's so Afraid to release his taxes, ...."

You don't think the IRS would be asking him questions if he was cheating on his taxes?

Someone should ask Obama why Hillary Clinton had to fall on her sword for him on the attack in Libya that cost four Americans their lives. And no, contrary to what they tried to sell us it had nothing to do with an anti-Islam film. Probably Bush's fault.