Live blogging the first Presidential Debate

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Just starting.  My 13 year old says Romney looks smug.

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Mitt opens with his 5 point plan, which includes broad goals like "fix everything", but still no specifics.

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Jim Lehrer asks Obama about "trickle down" Economics, Obama answers a completely different question.

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Mitt seems to not comprehend that "tax cut" and "tax relief" are the same thing, and that either will add to the deficit.

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Mitt: "I will not raise taxes on middle income families"

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Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but does most small business create good paying jobs?

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sorry. Didn't mean to interupt

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Obama: "Romney has been running on his tax plan for 18 months, and now suddenly 5 weeks before the election his bold new idea is 'never mind". 

Awww snap.

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Romney struggling with tortured explanations of how small businesses pay the individual rate, so his tax cut for high incomes is really a break for businesses.  Oh, and it won't add to the deficit because his magic Mormon underwear says it won't.

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Mitt : I'll cut all programs based on a simple test - is it worth borrowing from China to fund it? 

On the chopping block: health care reform, PBS, etc.  But Military Spending increases substantially.

Priorities.

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Obama - "the oil industry gets 4 billion in corporate welfare- why wouldn't we want to look at that?"

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Discussion of Medicare and Social Security.  Mitt looks uncomfortable.

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Mitt has awesome plans, he mentions them all the time.  I wish he had a plan to tell us the specifics of his plans.

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Mitt desperately trying to not answer the question of whether he likes a voucher based replacement to Medicare.  Parsing all over the place.

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Mitt a firm believer in privatization and the power of the free market to provide excellent service at lower cost.  Y'know, because it's worked so good for healthcare in general.