In this debate segment, President Obama and Governor Romney present their contrasting visions for job creation and economic strategy. Obama emphasizes investment in education, new energy sources, and tax reforms that support American businesses and reduce the deficit. Conversely, Romney outlines a five-part plan focusing on energy independence, trade expansion, skill development, budget balancing, and small business support as drivers for job growth.

Healthcare also emerges as a crucial issue during the debate. Obama defends the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare), stressing its provisions that prevent drastic financial consequences for families, and promising to lower healthcare costs through efficiency and innovation. Romney criticizes Obamacare for increasing taxes, cutting Medicare, and possibly causing people to lose existing insurance. He highlights his plan for a decentralized approach involving states and emphasizes the role of free market dynamics in reducing costs.

Main takeaways from the debate:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. Resilience [rɪˈzɪliəns] - (n.) - The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

"... because of the Resilience and the determination of the american people, we've begun to fight our way back."

2. Initiative [ɪˈnɪʃətɪv] - (n.) - A new plan or process to achieve something or solve a problem.

"We've got a program called race to the top that has prompted reforms in 46 states around the country..."

3. Partisan [ˈpɑːrtɪzən] - (adj.) - Prejudiced in favor of a particular cause; in politics, to strongly support one's party without considering other viewpoints.

"You pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through..."

4. Bipartisan [ˌbaɪˈpɑːrtɪzən] - (adj.) - Involving agreement or cooperation of two political parties that usually oppose each other's policies.

"This was a Bipartisan idea. In fact, it was a republican idea..."

5. Deficit [ˈdefɪsɪt] - (n.) - An excess of expenditure or liabilities over income or assets; a shortage.

"... But it was families who were worried about going bankrupt if they got sick."

6. Mandate [ˈmæn.deɪt] - (v./n.) - An official order to carry out a policy or course of action.

"... you don't have to have the government mandate that for that to occur."

7. Unelected [ˌʌnɪˈlɛktɪd] - (adj.) - Not elected by vote, typically referring to government officials who are appointed.

"Mister president, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land..."

8. Incentive [ɪnˈsentɪv] - (n.) - Something that motivates or encourages someone to do something.

"... performance pay for doing an excellent job, for keeping costs down."

9. Trickle-down [ˈtrɪkəl daʊn] - (adj.) - Relating to or being an economic theory that holds that financial benefits given to big businesses will indirectly help smaller businesses and consumers.

"... governor Romney has a Perspective that says if we cut taxes, skew towards the wealthy and roll back regulations, that we'll be better off."

10. Initiative [ɪˈnɪʃətɪv] - (n.) - A new plan or process to achieve something or solve a problem.

"... we've got a program called race to the top that has prompted reforms in 46 states around the country..."

The Debate of Our Time: Obama and Romney Face Off

Among other noisy, distracting things. So we may all concentrate on what the candidates have to say. There is a noise exception right now, though, as we welcome President Obama and Governor Romney. Jim. 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 is determined. Mister President, you go first.

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.

Four years ago, we went through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of jobs were lost. The auto industry was on the brink of collapse. The financial system had frozen up. 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. 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. Governor Romney has a Perspective that says if we cut taxes, skew towards the wealthy and roll back regulations, that we'll be better off. I've got a different view. 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.

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 help 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.

Governor Romney, two minutes, governor. 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 Mister president on your anniversary. I'm sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine. Here, here with me. So I. Congratulations.

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 Maya, can you help me? 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? 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. 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 far away from that now.

Number four, get us to a balanced budget. 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. 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 ago. 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.

Mister President. Please respond directly to what the governor just said about trickle down. His trickle down approach, as he said, yours is. 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. 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 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%. 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. 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.

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? 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 on to middle class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign.

Both of you have spoken about a lot of different things, and we're going to try to get through them in a specific a way as we possibly can. But first, Governor Romney, do you have a question that you'd like to ask the president directly about something he just said?

Well, sure. I'd like to clear up the record and go through piece by piece. First of all, I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of the 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. The people who are having a 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 tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing. At the same time, gasoline prices have doubled under the president, electric rates are up, food prices are up, healthcare costs have gone up by $2,500 a family. Middle income families are being crushed.

And so the question is how to get them going again. And I've described it, it's energy and trade, the right kind of training programs, balancing our budget and helping small business. Those are the cornerstones of my plan. But the president mentioned a couple of other ideas I'll just note.

First, education. I agree education is key, particularly the future of our economy. But our training programs right now, we got 47 of them housed in the federal government, reporting to eight different agencies. Overhead is overwhelming. We got to get those dollars back to the states and go to the workers so they can create their own pathways to getting the training they need for jobs that will really help them.

The second area, taxation. We agree we ought to bring the tax rates down, and I do, both for corporations and for individuals. But in order for us not to lose revenue and have the government run out of money, I also lower Deductions and credits and exemptions so that we keep taking in the same money when you also account for growth.

The third area, energy, is critical. And the president pointed out correctly that production of oil and gas in the US is up, but not due to his policies. In spite of his policies, Mister president, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land, not on government land, on government land. Your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half. If I'm president, I'll double them. Craft a plan at the state level that fits the needs of the state. And then let's focus on getting the cost down for people rather than raising it with a $2,500 additional premium. Mister President, the argument against repeal.

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 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% lower than if you're out there trying to get insurance on the individual market. Now, the last point I'd make before two minutes is up, sir. No, I think I had 5 seconds before you interrupted me was, 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. Your 5 seconds went away a long time ago. All right, governor, governor, tell the president directly why you think what he just said is wrong about Obama.

Well, I did with my first statement, but I'll go on. Please elaborate. I'll elaborate exactly right. First of all, I like the way we did it in Massachusetts. I like the fact that in my state we had Republicans and Democrats come together and work together. What you did instead was to push through a plan without a single republican vote. As a matter of fact, when Massachusetts did something quite extraordinary, elected a republican senator to stop Obamacare, you pushed it through anyway, so entirely on a partisan basis.

Instead of bringing America together and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through what we did in a legislature, 87% Democrat. We worked together 200 legislators in my legislature, only two voted against the plan by the time we were finished. What were some differences?

We didn't raise taxes. You've raised them by a trillion dollars under Obamacare. We didn't cut Medicare. Of course, we don't have Medicare, but we didn't cut Medicare by $716 billion. We didn't put in place a board that can tell people ultimately what treatments they're going to receive. We didn't also do something that I think a number of people across this country recognize, which is put it, put people in a position where they're going to lose the insurance they had and they wanted.

Right now, the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year. And likewise, a study by McKinsey and company of american businesses said 30% of them are anticipating dropping people from coverage. So for those reasons, for the tax, for Medicare, for this board, and for people losing their insurance, this is why the american people don't want Medicare, don't want Obamacare. It's why Republicans said, do not do this. And the Republicans had the plan.

They put a plan out. They put out a plan, a Bipartisan plan. It was swept aside. I think something this big, this important, has to be done on a Bipartisan basis. And we have to have a president who can reach across the aisle and fashion important legislation with the input from both parties.

Governor Romney said, this has to be done on a Bipartisan basis. This was a Bipartisan idea. In fact, it was a republican idea. And Governor Romney, at the beginning of this debate, wrote and said what we did in Massachusetts could be a model for the nation. And I agree that the democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate. But the fact of the matter is we use the same advisors and they say it's the same plan.

When Governor Romney talks about this board, for example, unelected board that we've created, what this is is a group of healthcare experts, doctors, etcetera, to figure out how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall. Because there are two ways of dealing with our health care crisis. One is to simply leave a whole bunch of people uninsured and let them fend for themselves, to let businesses figure out how long they can continue to pay premiums until finally they just give up and their workers are no longer getting insured.

And that's been the trend line. Or alternatively, we can figure out how do we make the cost of care more effective. And there are ways of doing it. So at Cleveland Clinic, one of the best healthcare systems in the world, they actually provide great care, cheaper than average. And the reason they do is because they do some smart things. They say, if a patient's coming in, let's get all the doctors together at once, do one test. Instead of having the patient run around with ten tests, let's make sure that we're providing preventive care.

So we're catching the onset of something like diabetes. Let's pay providers on the basis of performance as opposed to on the basis of how many procedures they've engaged in now. So what this board does is basically identifies best practices and says, let's use the purchasing power of Medicare and Medicaid to help to institutionalize all these good things that we do. And the fact of the matter is that when Obamacare is fully implemented, we're going to be in a position to show that costs are going down. And over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up. It's true, but they've gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.

So we're already beginning to see progress. In the meantime, folks out there with insurance, you're already getting a rebate. Let me make one last point. Governor Romney says we should replace it. I'm just going to repeal it. But we can replace it with something. But the problem is he hasn't described what exactly we'd replace it with, other than saying we're going to leave it to the states.

But the fact of the matter is that some of the prescriptions that he's offered, like letting you buy insurance across state lines, there's no indication that that somehow is going to help somebody who's got a pre existing condition be able to finally buy insurance. In fact, it's estimated that by repealing Obamacare, you're looking at 50 million people losing health insurance at a time when it's vitally important.

Let's let the governor explain what you would do if Obamacare is repealed. How would you replace it? Well, actually, it's a lengthy description, but number one, preexisting conditions are covered under my plan. Number two, young people are able to stay on their family plan that's already offered in the private marketplace. You don't have to have the government mandate that for that to occur.

But let's come back to something the president and I agree on, which is the key task we have in health care, is to get the cost down so it's more affordable for families. And then he has, as a model for doing that, a board of people at the government, an unelected, board appointed board, who are going to decide what kind of treatment you ought to have. In my opinion, the government is not effective in bringing down the cost of almost anything.

As a matter of fact, free people and free enterprises trying to find ways to do things better are able to be more effective in bringing down the cost than the government will ever be. Your example of the Cleveland clinic is, by case in point, along with several others I could describe, this is the private market. These are small. These are enterprises competing with each other, learning how to do better and better jobs.

I used to consult to businesses, excuse me, to hospitals and to healthcare providers. I was astonished at the creativity and innovation that exists in the american people. In order to bring the cost of healthcare down, we don't need to have a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have. We instead need to put insurance plans, providers, hospitals, doctors, on target such that they have an incentive, as you say, performance pay for doing an excellent job, for keeping costs down. And that's happening.

Intermountain healthcare does it superbly well. Mayo Clinic is doing it superbly well. Cleveland Clinic, others. But the right answer is not to have the federal government take over healthcare and start mandating to the providers across America, telling a patient and a doctor what kind of treatment they can have. That's the wrong way to go. The private market and individual responsibility always work best.

Politics, Economics, Leadership, Healthcare Debate, US Elections, Obama vs Romney