US President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romneydiffered sharply Wednesday night over taxes, Medicare and, especially, the record of the last four years in a pointed but largely polite debate that highlighted the deep substantive divide between the two philosophical foes, LA times reports.
Romney portrayed Obama’s tenure as an unmitigated failure, citing continued high unemployment, a rise in dependence onfood stamps and other assistance programs, and disappointingly tepid economic growth. He said the president’s “trickle-down government” was “not the right answer for America. I’ll restore the vitality that gets America working again.”
“Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the American people who are struggling today,” Romney said. “It’s time for a new path,” he later added.
Obama spoke of entering office amid an economic crisis and suggested the progress the nation had made — modest private sector job growth, the recovery of the auto industry, a slow healing of the housing market — would be jeopardized by a Romney return to the approach that caused the hardship in the first place.
