JIM LEHRER: There is a noise exception right now, though, as we welcome President Obama and Governor Romney.
(APPLAUSE)
Gentlemen, welcome to you both. 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: Well, thank you very much, Jim, for this opportunity. I want to thank Governor Romney and the University of Denver for your hospitality.
There are a lot of points I want to make tonight, but the most important one is that 20 years ago I became the luckiest man on Earth because Michelle Obama agreed to marry me.
And so I just want to wish, Sweetie, you happy anniversary and let you know that a year from now we will not be celebrating it in front of 40 million people.
(Translations: I’m about to use my 20 years of marriage to woo some of the votes, because I know you ladies eat up romantic stuff. What better stage than primetime Debate… Michelle you better love your man.)
(LAUGHTER)
You know, four years ago we went through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of jobs were lost, the auto industry wason the brink of collapse. The financial system had frozen up.
(Translation: Yall know this shit was fucked up way before I got here.)
And because of the resilience and the determination of the American people, we've begun to fight our way back. Over the last 30 months, we've seen 5 million jobs in the private sector created. The auto industry has come roaring back. And housing has begun to rise.
(Translation: Because America is the shit, we overcame that shit. In the last couple years we hired a bunch of people to the government, Eminem and my rapper partners got everyone to buy American cars again, and shit even some of them bought houses.)
But we all know that we've still got a lot of work to do. And so the question here tonight is not where we've been, but where we're going.
(Translation: This shit ain’t over people, get off your lazy asses and let’s go to work.)
Governor Romney has a perspective that says if we cut taxes, skewed towards the wealthy, and roll back regulations, that we'll be better off. I've got a different view.
(Translation: This white dude over here, he thinks we should let rich people get off and play freely with their buddies and we will make more money in this country. He got me twisted.)
I think we've got to invest in education and training. I think it's important for us to develop new sources of energy here in America, that we change our tax code to make sure that we're helping small businesses and companies that are investing here in the United States, that we take some of the money that we're saving as we wind down two wars to rebuild America and that we reduce our deficit in a balanced way that allows us to make these critical investments.
(Translation: Have you been to public school, it’s still screwed up, we need to help them. We need windmills and shit, these gas prices are crazy, I gotta talk to the accountants to get some of my homies under the tax regulations.. oh yeah we still bombing people but were trying to dead that shit, so we can use some of that money to fix our own shit.)
Now, it ultimately is going to be up to the voters, to you, which path we should take. Are we going to double-down on the top-down economic policies that helped to get us into this mess? Or do we embrace a new economic patriotism that says America does best when the middle class does best? And I'm looking forward to having that debate.
(Translation: Once again it’s up to the real people of this country to do the work, but you would much rather have me than that white dude over there. Peace)
LEHRER: Governor Romney, two minutes.
MITT ROMNEY: Thank you, Jim. It's an honor to be here with you, and I appreciate the chance to be with the president. I'm pleased to be at the University of Denver, appreciate their welcome, and also the presidential commission on these debates.
And congratulations to you, Mr. President, on your anniversary. I'm sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine here -- here with me. So I ...
(Translation: I’ma act like Im honored to be with you Barry, and thanks to that commission that kept Ron Paul and Gary Johnson out of these debates, but don’t pull that romance card on me Mr. President, You’re mine tonight.)
(LAUGHTER
Congratulations. (Translation:I hate happy married people)
This is obviously a very tender topic. I've had the occasion over the last couple of years of meeting people across the country. I was in Dayton, Ohio, and a woman grabbed my arm, and she said, "I've been out of work since May. Can you help me?"
(Translation: I know people are hurting across the country so I’ma tell you a little tale about a broke chick in Ohio who don’t like you Obama.)
Ann yesterday was at a rally in Denver, and a woman came up to her with a baby in her arms, and said, "Ann, my husband has had four jobs in three years, part-time jobs. He's lost his most recent job. And we've now just lost our home. Can you help us?"
(Translation: You making me look like Jesus, Obama. Even poor people in Colorado don’t like you…take this lady Ann and her husband for example.)
And the answer is, yes, we can help, but it's going to take a different path, not the one we've been on, not the one the president describes as a top-down, cut taxes for the rich. That's not what I'm going to do.
(Translation: Hell yeah I’m the man up in this piece bitch, but we ain’t going that socialism, forward direction Obama wants.)
My plan has five basic parts. One, get us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs. Number two, open up more trade, particularly in Latin America, crack down on China, if and when they cheat. Number three, make sure our people have the skills they need to succeed and the best schools in the world. We're a far way from that now. Number four, get us to a balanced budget.
(Translation: One, Gas cost too much for these broke people, we need to hire some of them to my friend’s big businesses, We need to trade with some of those Brown countries in South America whose economy is kicking our ass, and stop them damn Chinese from stealing all our jobs. Four we need to train some of you people that don’t have any skills, and then make sure we are bringing in more bread then we are spending.. don’t get high on your own supply.)
Number five, champion small business. It's small business that creates the jobs in America. And over the last four years, small- business people have decided that America may not be the place to open a new business, because new business startups are down to a 30-year low. I know what it takes to get small business growing again, to hire people.
(Translation: Some of y'all gotta open some business or something, cuz we can’t hire everyone.)
Now, I'm concerned that the path that we're on has just been unsuccessful. The president has a view very similar to the view he had when he ran four years, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more -- if you will, trickle-down government -- would work.
That's not the right answer for America. I'll restore the vitality that gets America working again. Thank you.
(Translation: Obviously this fool don’t know what the hell he is doing or people would have jobs…Government sumverment, Now America Hire me and I’ll get you a job.)
LEHRER: Mr. President, please respond directly to what the governor just said about trickle-down -- his trickle-down approach, as he said yours is.
(Translation:Ooooooooooooooh, You gonna let him diss your policies like that Mr. Pres?)
OBAMA: Well, let me talk specifically about what I think we need to do. First, we've got to improve our education system and we've made enormous progress drawing on ideas both from Democrats and Republicans that are already starting to show gains in some of the toughest to deal with schools. We've got a program called Race to the Top that has prompted reforms in 46 states around the country, raising standards, improving how we train teachers.
(Translation: It’s cool, I got this. We need to fix schools like I said, and we got rid of that Bush Plan and our plan works much better.)
So now I want to hire another 100,000 new math and science teachers, and create 2 million more slots in our community colleges so that people can get trained for the jobs that are out there right now. And I want to make sure that we keep tuition low for our young people.
(Translation: You ain’t the only one with Job idea’s Mitt, watch this. We gonna hire some new math teachers, science teachers, and send ya kids to college. That’s right, cheaper tuition too.)
When it comes to our tax code, Governor Romney and I both agree that our corporate tax rate is too high, so I want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25 percent. But I also want to close those loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. I want to provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States.
(Translation: Gov. Mitt and I agree, we got too many homies with corporations that are losing money they could give to our campaigns. Oh yeah we’re sorry about outsourcing Caddy’s to China, I’ma fix that this time.)
On energy, Governor Romney and I, we both agree that we've got to boost American energy production, and oil and natural gas production are higher than they've been in years. But I also believe that we've got to look at the energy sources of the future, like wind and solar and biofuels, and make those investments.
(Translation: Right now our energy plan is kicking ass and we ain’t using Oil that much anymore, but we got some new shit we gonna drop on y’all soon. Hot shit.)
So all of this is possible. Now, in order for us to do it, we do have to close our deficit, and one of the things I'm sure we'll be discussing tonight is, how do we deal with our tax code? And how do we make sure that we are reducing spending in a responsible way, but also, how do we have enough revenue to make those investments?
(Translation: Na we ain’t making that up. But we gotta clear up some confusing complicated tax shit y’all don’t understand and see if we got the bread to spend on those ideas.)
And this is where there's a difference, because Governor Romney's central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut -- on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts -- that's another trillion dollars -- and $2 trillion in additional military spending that the military hasn't asked for. That's $8 trillion. How we pay for that, reduce the deficit, and make the investments that we need to make, without dumping those costs onto middle-class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign.
(Translation: This dude wants to let the rich guys get off with more taxes, just like Bush, TRILLLLLIONs of dollars, not just some bullshit. How he gonna do all that shit he was talking and cut taxes? Huh?)
LEHRER: Both of you have spoken about a lot of different things, and we're going to try to get through them in as specific a way as we possibly can.
(Translation: Damn can y’all stay on topic, you making this shit hard on me.)
But, first, Governor Romney, do you have a question that you'd like to ask the president directly about something he just said?
(Translation: Can you believe the audacity of this dude Mitt? What you think?)
ROMNEY: Well, sure. I'd like to clear up the record and go through it piece by piece.
(Translation: Oh I’m about to get stupid in this piece.)
First of all, I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of a scale that you're talking about. My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am.
(Translation: I never said that shit, I don’t have a $5 Trillion dollar tax cut. You’re Tripping, I’m trying to help the middle class. Rich People are gonna be good no matter who is the President.)
The people who are having the hard time right now are middle- income Americans. Under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed. Middle- income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a -- this is a tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing.
(The people who are having a hard time right now are mom and pop shops, and people who work a 9-5. This guy is killing the working man, they ain’t got shit. The working man is getting taxed by the man, call it a pimp slap.)
Part two coming tomorrow.. gets messy
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