I get up too early to have watched it but I popped the DVD in my machine at work and then listened to it (I know, Nixon won when you only listened), and I was trying to mainly listen hard to the first half hour or so.
So to me it sounded mostly like just retread.
Obama’s debate teacher in high school or Harvard Law taught him never to say “Uh”, so he still does the annoying “…And…”
Romney tried to shake the Etch-A-Sketch. Obama didn’t call him on any outright distortions, because they want to indulge in the same if necessary, and it sounds like complaining.
Romney still can’t survive his tax plan if anybody, Romney, Ryan, Obama, or the press cares to make it public. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I thought I heard in the prelims that Romney leaked he was going to stick to his 20% rate cut, but have a $17,000 cap on the mortgage deduction, which would be “cleverly” designed to grandfather in the vast majority of people (like Ryan’s Medicare plan is “cleverly” designed to grandfather in 55 and above), but will not fly when explained (see further below for the math on that), but maybe that’s why they’re trying to dribble it out.
I still have not, and probably won’t watch the actual thing.
Next round.
Romney 20% across the board tax cut with $17,000 cap for mortgage interest deduction:
Taxpayer A with wages of $100,000 and mortgage interest of $13,000 on a house worth $300,000.
Taxpayer B with wages of $2,000,000 and mortgage interest of $42,000 on a house worth $1,200,000.
Simplification factor:
Taxpayer B is relatively modest; he makes 20x the salary of Taxpayer A, but only lives in a house worth 4x.
Taxpayer A:
Makes $100,000
Currently effectively pays 15%.
His rate gets cut 20%, from 15% to 12%.
300 basis points.
His tax goes from $15,000 to $12,000, a savings of $3,000
HE KEEPS HIS WHOLE MORTGAGE DEDUCTION WILL SAY ROMNEY IF FORCED TO.
He saves $3,000.
A net savings of 3% of his salary
Taxpayer B
Makes $2,000,000
Currently effectively pays 35%
His rate gets cut 20%, from 35% to 28%
700 basis points
His tax goes from $700,000 to $560,000, saving him $140,000
His old mortgage deduction was $42,000, now he’s limited to $17,000.
So now he has to pay 28% on the $25,000 difference. That equals $7,000.
His new total tax is $567,000. His old tax was $700,000.
His net savings are $133,000, or 6.65% of his salary.
Rich Guy (Taxpayer B) gets 2x the tax break of Taxpayer A.
So Romney didn’t even try a haymaker, he just repeated the same line.
He scored on style points by not answering any questions.
I don’t get why the Dem pundocracy were sitting around in a circle this morning holding hands like threatened chimps.