The grand finale:
"WHAT ROLE SHOULD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAVE IN AMERICAN LIFE?"
Also, "EDUCATION, GOOD OR BAD?"
and then some other shit that went unmoderated.
"WHAT ROLE SHOULD THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAVE IN AMERICAN LIFE?"
OBAMA: The first role of the federal government is to keep the American people safe. That's its most basic function. And as commander-in-chief, that is something that I've worked on and thought about every single day that I've been in the Oval Office. The American people know where I stand on National Security. Al Qaeda knows. Bin Laden found out.
But I also believe that government has the capacity, the federal government has the capacity to help open up opportunity and create ladders of opportunity and to create frameworks where the American people can succeed.
Look, the genius of America is the free enterprise system and freedom and the fact that people can go out there and start a business, work on an idea, make their own decisions.
OBAMA: But as Abraham Lincoln understood, there are also some things we do better together. Government gets things done we simply can't do alone. Hoover Dam. The Highway System. Does anybody was a toll road from coast to coast? In the middle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said, let's help to finance the Transcontinental Railroad, let's start the National Academy of Sciences, let's start land grant colleges, because we want to give these gateways of opportunity for all Americans, because if all Americans are getting opportunity, we're all going to be better off.
That doesn't restrict people's freedom. That enhances it.
And so what I've tried to do as president is to apply those same principles.
And when it comes to education what I've said is we've got to reform schools that are not working. We use something called Race to the Top. Wasn't a top-down approach, Governor. What we've said is to states, we'll give you more money if you initiate reforms. And as a consequence, you had 46 states around the country who have made a real difference.
But what I've also said is let's hire another 100,000 math and science teachers to make sure we maintain our technological lead and our people are skilled and able to succeed. And hard-pressed states right now can't all do that. In fact we've seen layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers over the last several years, and Governor Romney doesn't think we need more teachers. I do, because I think that that is the kind of investment where the federal government can help.
It can't do it all, but it can make a difference. And as a consequence we'll have a better trained workforce and that will create jobs because companies want to locate in places where we've got a skilled workforce. The role of government is to accomplish what we cannot do alone. I find it disturbing that one party seeking control of the government has such a low opinion of not just how it functions, but of whether it should exist at all. You don't interview for a job by explaining why the company shouldn't be in business and how you'll sell it off.
LEHRER: Two minutes, Governor, on the role of government. Your view?
ROMNEY: Well, first, I love great schools. Massachusetts, our schools are ranked number one of all 50 states. And the key to great schools, great teachers.
So I reject the idea that I don't believe in great teachers or more teachers. Every school district, every state should make that decision on their own. The role of government: Look behind us. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The role of government is to promote and protect the principles of those documents.
ROMNEY: First, life and liberty. We have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of our people, and that means a military second to none. I do not believe in cutting our military. I believe in maintaining the strength of America's military.
Second, in that line that says we are endowed by our creator with our rights, I believe we must maintain our commitment to religious tolerance and freedom in this country. That statement also says that we are endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness as we choose. I interpret that as, one, making sure that those people who are less fortunate and can't care for themselves are cared by -- by one another.
We're a nation that believes that we're all children of the same god and we care for those that have difficulties, those that are elderly and have problems and challenges, those that are disabled. We care for them. And we -- we look for discovery and innovation, all these things desired out of the American heart to provide the pursuit of happiness for our citizens.
But we also believe in maintaining for individuals the right to pursue their dreams and not to have the government substitute itself for the rights of free individuals. And what we're seeing right now is, in my view, a -- a trickle-down government approach, which has government thinking it can do a better job than free people pursuing their dreams. And it's not working.
And the proof of that is 23 million people out of work. The proof of that is 1 out of 6 people in poverty. The proof of that is we've gone from 32 million on food stamps to 47 million on food stamps. The proof of that is that 50 percent of college graduates this year can't find work.
LEHRER: All right.
ROMNEY: We know that the path we're taking is not working. It's time for a new path.
LEHRER: All right. Let's go through some specifics in terms of what -- how each of you views the role of government. How do -- education. Does the federal government have a responsibility to improve the quality of public education in America?
ROMNEY: Well, the primary responsibility for education is -- is, of course, at the state and local level. But the federal government also can play a very important role. And I -- and I agree with Secretary Arne Duncan, he's -- some ideas he's put forward on Race to the Top, not all of them, but some of them I agree with and -- and congratulate him for pursuing that. The federal government can get local and -- and state schools to do a better job.
My own view, by the way, is I've added to that. I happen to believe, I want the kids that are getting federal dollars from IDEA or Title I -- these are disabled kids or -- or -- or poor kids or -- or lower-income kids, rather, I want them to be able to go to the school of their choice.
So all federal funds, instead of going to the -- to the state or to the school district, I'd have go, if you will, follow the child and let the parent and the child decide where to send their -- their -- their student.
LEHRER: How do you see the federal government's responsibility to, as I say, to improve the quality of public education in this country?
OBAMA: Well, i'm glad to hear the governor thinks the Federal government has some role to play somewhere. I'm hoping if a state tries something innovative that he'll still support it if we take a good idea national. He has a track record, maybe his only consistant one, of supporting plans right up until they get adopted.
LEHRER: Do you think you have a difference with your views and -- and those of Governor Romney on -- about education and the federal government?
OBAMA: Yes. No modern nation has ever risen to greatness without an educated populace. We must innovate to win the future, and education is our best investment in ourselves. You know, this is where budgets matter, because budgets reflect our principles and our choices. So when Governor Romney indicates that he wants to cut taxes and potentially benefit folks like me and him, and to pay for with significant cuts in federal support for education, that makes a difference.
You know, his -- his running mate, Congressman Ryan, put forward a budget that reflects many of the principles that Governor Romney's talked about. And it wasn't very detailed. This seems to be a trend. But -- but what it did do is to -- if you extrapolated how much money we're talking about, you'd look at cutting the education budget by up to 20 percent. I believe that's a wrong approach.
OBAMA: When it comes to community colleges, we are seeing great work done out there all over the country because we have the opportunity to train people for jobs that exist right now. And one of the things I suspect Governor Romney and I probably agree on is getting businesses to work with community colleges so that they're setting up their training programs...
LEHRER: Do you -- do you agree, Governor?
OBAMA: Let me just finish the point.
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: The -- where they're partnering so that they're designing training programs. And people who are going through them know that there's a job waiting for them if they complete it. That makes a big difference, but that requires some federal support.
Let me just say one final example. When it comes to making college affordable, whether it's two-year or four-year, one of the things that I did as president was we were sending $60 billion to banks and lenders as middlemen for the student loan program, even though the loans were guaranteed. So there was no risk for the banks or the lenders, but they were taking billions out of the system.
And we said, "Why not cut out the middleman?" And as a consequence, what we've been able to do is to provide millions more students assistance, lower or keep low interest rates on student loans. And this is an example of where our priorities make a difference.
So when Governor Romney tells a student that, you know, "you should borrow money from your parents to go to college," you know, a lot of kids, kids who probably attend University of Denver, just don't have that option.
We'd all love to have our dad's blind trust somehow invest in our company, but it's just not available for most of the country. But Governor Romney has said it's not his job to worry about those people, and I take him at his word.
But when I get up and go to work in the morning, I want to work to make sure that young people get that opportunity and they can walk through that classroom door. That is vitally important not just to those kids. It's how we're going to grow this economy over the long term.
LEHRER: We're running out of time, gentlemen.
(CROSSTALK)
LEHRER: Governor?
ROMNEY: Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts. All right, I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding and -- and grants that go to people going to college. I'm planning on (inaudible) to grow. So I'm not planning on making changes there.
But you make a very good point, which is that the place you put your money just makes a pretty clear indication of where your heart is. You put $90 billion into -- into green jobs. And I -- look, I'm all in favor of green energy. $90 billion, that would have -- that would have hired 2 million teachers. $90 billion.
And these businesses, many of them have gone out of business, I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.
Look, the right course for America's government, we were talking about the role of government, is not to become the economic player, picking winners and losers, telling people what kind of health treatment they can receive, taking over the health care system that has existed in this country for a long, long time and has produced the best health records in the world.
The right answer for government is say, How do we make the private sector become more efficient and more effective? How do we get schools to be more competitive? Let's grade them. I propose we grade our schools so parents know which schools are succeeding and failing, so they can take their child to a -- to a school that he's being more successful.
I don't want to cut our commitment to education. I wanted to make it more effective and efficient. And by the way, I've had that experience. I don't just talk about it. I've been there. Massachusetts schools are ranked number one in the nation. This is not because I didn't have commitment to education. It's because I care about education for all of our kids.
LEHRER: All right, gentlemen...
(CROSSTALK)
LEHRER: Excuse me (inaudible). Excuse me, sir. We've got -- we've got -- barely have three minutes left. I'm not going to grade the two of you and say your answers have been too long or I've done a poor job.
LEHRER: But the fact is government -- the role of government and governing, we've lost a pod in other words. So we only have three -- three minutes left in the -- in the debate before we go to your closing statements. And so I want to ask finally here, and remember, we've got three minutes total time here -- and the question is this. Many of the legislative functions of the federal government right now are in a state of paralysis as a result of partisan gridlock. If elected, in your case, if re-elected, in your case, what would you do about that?
Governor?
ROMNEY: Jim, I had the great experience -- it didn't seem like it at the time -- of being elected in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. And that meant I figured out from day one I had to get along and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done. We drove our schools to be number one in the nation. We cut taxes 19 times.
LEHRER: But what would you do as president?
ROMNEY: We -- as president, I will sit on day one -- actually, the day after I get elected -- I'll sit down with leaders -- the Democratic leaders, as well as Republican leaders, and continue -- as we did in my state -- we met every Monday for a couple hours, talked about the issues and the challenges in the -- in the -- in our state in that case. We have to work on a collaborative basis, not because we're going to compromise our principle, but because there's common ground.
And the challenges America faces right now -- look, the reason I'm in this race is there are people that are really hurting today in this country. And we face -- this deficit could crush the future generations. What's happening in the Middle East, there are developments around the world that are of real concern.
LEHRER: All right.
ROMNEY: And Republicans and Democrats both love America. But we need to have leadership -- leadership in Washington that will actually bring people together and get the job done and could not care less if -- if it's a Republican or a Democrat. I've done it before. I'll do it again.
LEHRER: Mr. President?
OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think Governor Romney's going to have a busy first day, because he's also going to repeal Obamacare, which will not be very popular among Democrats as you're sitting down with them. And once the deficit hawks on the Republican side of the aisle see the numbers from repealing it all, they won't be very happy either. Because Obamacare saves money, just like it did in Massachusetts.
(LAUGHTER)
But, look, my philosophy has been, I will take ideas from anybody, Democrat or Republican, as long as they're advancing the cause of making middle-class families stronger and giving ladders of opportunity to the middle class. That's how we cut taxes for middle- class families and small businesses. That's how we cut a trillion dollars of spending that wasn't advancing that cause. That's how we signed three trade deals into law that are helping us to double our exports and sell more American products around the world. That's how we repealed "don't ask/don't tell." That's how we ended the war in Iraq, as I promised, and that's how we're going to wind down the war in Afghanistan. That's how we went after Al Qaeda and bin Laden.
So we've -- we've seen progress even under Republican control of the House of Representatives. But, ultimately, part of being principled, part of being a leader is, A, being able to describe exactly what it is that you intend to do, not just saying, "I'll sit down," but you have to have a plan.
Number two, what's important is occasionally you've got to say no, to -- to -- to folks both in your own party and in the other party. And, you know, yes, have we had some fights between me and the Republicans when -- when they fought back against us reining in the excesses of Wall Street? Absolutely, because that was a fight that needed to be had. But I've had plenty of fights against my own base, and we just haven't seen my opponent willing to stand up to his own base or even to Grover Norquist.
When -- when we were fighting about whether or not we were going to make sure that Americans had more security with their health insurance and they said no, yes, that was a fight that we needed to have. Policy differences can be talked through and the best parts become the final whole. But when one party paints me personally as some kind of radical for simply proposing a return to policies that produced measurable success...
LEHRER: All right.
OBAMA: ...standing up to that kind of mischaracterization sometimes involves moving forward where you can and enacting the things that the American people can't wait on. Bipartisanship is the ideal, but bipartisanship alone doesn't create jobs. Progams do, and sometimes they get passed by one side and sometimes the other. Though in the last 4 years, it's been mostly one side passing things and one side filibustering it all. That's something we struggle with as we work every day to do good by the American people.
LEHRER: That brings us to closing statements. It was a coin toss. Governor Romney, you won the toss and you elected to go last, so you have a closing two minutes, Mr. President.
OBAMA: Well, Jim, I want to thank you, and I want to thank Governor Romney, because I think was a terrific debate, and I very much appreciate it. And I want to thank the University of Denver.
You know, four years ago, we were going through a major crisis. And yet my faith and confidence in the American future is undiminished. And the reason is because of its people, because of the woman I met in North Carolina who decided at 55 to go back to school because she wanted to inspire her daughter and now has a job from that new training that she's gotten; because a company in Minnesota who was willing to give up salaries and perks for their executives to make sure that they didn't lay off workers during a recession.
The auto workers that you meet in Toledo or Detroit take such pride in building the best cars in the world, not just because of a paycheck, but because it gives them that sense of pride, that they're helping to build America. And so the question now is how do we build on those strengths. And everything that I've tried to do, and everything that I'm now proposing for the next four years in terms of improving our education system or developing American energy or making sure that we're closing loopholes for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and focusing on small businesses and companies that are creating jobs here in the United States, or closing our deficit in a responsible, balanced way that allows us to invest in our future.
All those things are designed to make sure that the American people, their genius, their grit, their determination, is -- is channeled and -- and they have an opportunity to succeed. And everybody's getting a fair shot. And everybody's getting a fair share -- everybody's doing a fair share, and everybody's playing by the same rules.
You know, four years ago, I said that I'm not a perfect man and I wouldn't be a perfect president. And that's probably a promise that Governor Romney thinks I've kept. But I also promised that I'd fight every single day on behalf of the American people, the middle class, and all those who were striving to get into the middle class. I've kept that promise and if you'll vote for me, then I promise I'll fight just as hard in a second term.
LEHRER: Governor Romney, your two-minute closing.
ROMNEY: Thank you, Jim, and Mr. President. And thank you for tuning in this evening.
This is a -- this is an important election and I'm concerned about America. I'm concerned about the direction America has been taking over the last four years.
I -- I know this is bigger than an election about the two of us as individuals. It's bigger than our respective parties. It's an election about the course of America. What kind of America do you want to have for yourself and for your children.
And there really are two very different paths that we began speaking about this evening, and over the course of this month we're going to have two more presidential debates and a vice presidential debate. We're talk about those two paths.
But they lead in very different directions. And it's not just looking to our words that you have to take in evidence of where they go. You can look at the record.
There's no question in my mind that if the president were to be reelected you'll continue to see a middle-class squeeze with incomes going down and prices going up.
I'll get incomes up again.
You'll see chronic unemployment. We've had 43 straight months with unemployment above 8 percent.
If I'm president I will create -- help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.
If the president's reelected, Obamacare will be fully installed. In my view that's going to mean a whole different way of life for people who counted on the insurance plan they had in the past. Many will lose it. You're going to see health premiums go up by some $2,500 per family.
If I'm elected we won't have Obama. We'll put in place the kind of principles that I put in place in my own state and allow each state to craft their own programs to get people insured and we'll focus on getting the cost of health care down.
If the president were to be reelected you're going to see a $716 billion cut to Medicare.
You'll have 4 million people who will lose Medicare Advantage. You'll have hospital and providers that'll no longer accept Medicare patients.
I'll restore that $716 billion to Medicare.
And finally, military. The president's reelected you'll see dramatic cuts to our military. The secretary of defense has said these would be even devastating.
I will not cut our commitment to our military. I will keep America strong and get America's middle class working again.
Thank you, Jim.
LEHRER: Thank you, Governor. Thank you, Mr. President.