The Moment of Truth in the VP Debate

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Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:18 am

Last night’s debate confirmed the many differences between Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan on policy, reaffirmed the differences in character. The debate also told us a lot about the alleged liberal media.

When, CNN declares that the debate was a tie, one wonders if their pundits were watching the same debate. Simply put, Joe Biden exposed Ryan’s lies and had a great time doing it. What Ryan lacked in substance he made up for in smirks, between drinking lots and lots of water.

While pundits like to argue that style prevails over substance to us little people, the fact remains that Biden schooled Ryan in both areas.

Joe Biden was himself, compared while Ryan was more was more akin to a wind up Koch doll, parroting the same old failed ideas, with a twist of contemporary lies and spin.

If there was a single exchange that defined the winner of this debate, it was the 47% exchange.

Ryan gave the opening when he poured some classic Republican projection about how Mitt Romney is misquoted. Of course, it was the perfect opportunity for Joe Biden to remind us of Mitt Romney’s own words as captured on video.

The exchanged reminded us whose presidency would, in reality, work for the 100%.

While Ryan was busy talking up Mitt Romney’s tax deductible charitable donations, Joe Biden defended the 47% percent who were maligned by Romney. He said it all when he said that talk is cheap show us the policy.

Rather than showing us the policy, Ryan chose to respond with the tired Republican lie that Democrats had control of Congress for two years.

This exchanged showed differences in priorities. Ryan’s reference to Romney’s charitable donations reinforces the very point of Mitt Romney’s 47% comments. In their eyes, the 47% are takers. There’s no need for policies that would improve their job opportunities, access to education, or yes, access to healthcare. The Romney/Ryan “solution” for the 47% is a reliance on the tax-deductible generosity of the privileged.

Ryan missed an opportunity to explain what, if any, policies the Romney/Ryan ticket has to convert, in their language, the 47% takers into makers. In doing so, he reinforced Romney’s dismissal of the 47%. He reminded everyone who was watching, who a Romney Presidency would really work for.

When he did discuss policy, Ryan dodged and weaved his way through justifications of the voucher program he and Ryan want as a poor substitute for Medicare. He avoided specifics on tax deductions and avoided the math whenever possible. When it came to Medicare Ryan was more interested in repeating the debunked lie of cuts to Medicare to pay for Obamacare. This is despite the fact that the President of the AARP went on the record talking about the benefits of Obamacare to people on Medicare.

The insurance companies by the affordable care act will be prevented from throwing people off once they are on it and have a serious illness. You can keep your child up until 26 on your insurance. It closes the donut hole which are those very expensive prescription drugs, if it’s very significant. And it extends the life of the Medicare trust fund another 8 years.

Ryan also dodged the fact that he calls for cuts to Medicare.

In direct contrast, Joe Biden took every available opportunity to talk about policies that would benefit everyone.

We also saw a contrast in two men. Ryan dodged and weaved, while the Vice President responded to questions with direct answers. Ryan kept his mask on, while Joe Biden told true, personal stories.

Video:

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Transcript: Courtesy of ABC

RYAN: He talks about Detroit. Mitt Romney’s a car guy. They keep misquoting him, but let me tell you about the Mitt Romney I know. This is a guy who I was talking to a family in Northborough, Massachusetts the other day, Sheryl and Mark Nixon. Their kids were hit in a car crash, four of them. Two of them, Rob and Reed, were paralyzed. The Romneys didn’t know them. They went to the same church; they never met before.

Mitt asked if he could come over on Christmas. He brought his boys, his wife, and gifts. Later on, he said, “I know you’re struggling, Mark. Don’t worry about their college. I’ll pay for it.”

When Mark told me this story, because, you know what, Mitt Romney doesn’t tell these stories. The Nixons told this story. When he told me this story, he said it wasn’t the help, the cash help. It’s that he gave his time, and he has consistently.

This is a man who gave 30 percent of his income to charity, more than the two of us combined. Mitt Romney’s a good man. He cares about 100 percent of Americans in this country. And with respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: But I always say what I mean. And so does Romney.

RYAN: We want everybody to succeed. We want to get people out of poverty, in the middle class, onto a life of self-sufficiently. We believe in opportunity and upward mobility. That’s what we’re going to push for in a Romney administration.

BIDEN: The idea — if you heard that — that little soliloquy on 47 percent and you think he just made a mistake, then I think you’re — I — I think — I got a bridge to sell you.

Look, I don’t doubt his personal generosity. And I understand what it’s like. When I was a little younger than the congressman, my wife was in an accident, killed my daughter and my wife, and my two sons survived. I have sat in the homes of many people who’ve gone through what I get through, because the one thing you can give people solace is to know if they know you’ve been through it, that they can make it. So I don’t doubt his personal commitment to individuals. But you know what? I know he had no commitment to the automobile industry. He just — he said, let it go bankrupt, period. Let it drop out. All this talk — we saved a million jobs. Two hundred thousand people are working today.
And I’ve never met two guys who’re more down on America across the board. We’re told everything’s going bad. There are 5.2 million new jobs, private-sector jobs. We need more, but 5.2 million — if they’d get out of the way, if they’d get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent, if they get out of the way and pass the — pass the jobs bill, if they get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down, but they never missed a mortgage payment, just get out of the way.
Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.
And, by the way, they talk about this Great Recession if it fell out of the sky, like, “Oh, my goodness, where did it come from?” It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card, to at the same time put a prescription drug benefit on the credit card, a trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy. I was there. I voted against them. I said, no, we can’t afford that.
And now, all of a sudden, these guys are so seized with the concern about the debt that they created.
RYAN: Let’s not forget that they came in with one-party control. When Barack Obama was elected, his party controlled everything. They had the ability to do everything of their choosing. And look at where we are right now.
They passed the stimulus. The idea that we could borrow $831 billion, spend it on all of these special interest groups, and that it would work out just fine, that unemployment would never get to 8 percent — it went up above 8 percent for 43 months. They said that, right now, if we just passed this stimulus, the economy would grow at 4 percent. It’s growing at 1.3.