Obama and Romney on the Issues

Student aid
Obama
-Supported an extension this summer of low interest rates on subsidized student loans.
-Ended banks’ role in federal student loans.
-Doubled funding for Pell Grants by increasing the maximum grant from $4,731 to $5,550, but reduced eligibility for the grants.

Romney
-Pledged to re-establish bank-based loans to the federal student loan market
-Supports the Ryan budget, which would cut Pell Grant spending by capping the maximum grant and reducing eligibility, among other cuts. Romney has not clearly taken a stance on this specific section of the budget, but has said he would not expand the amount of federal money to students paying for college or be willing to cancel student debt.

Immigration
Obama
-Supports the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for children brought into the country illegally.
-Issued an Executive Order this summer granting some undocumented immigrants a reprieve from potential deportation.

Romney
-Opposes the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for children brought into the country illegally.
-Supports implementation of a mandatory legal residence verification program for employees.
-Opposes in-state college tuition and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Foreign policy
Obama
-Supports a full withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by 2014.
-Opposes Iran’s nuclear program and a U.S. pre-emptive military strike against the Iranian regime.
-Supports tactical drone strikes against terrorist targets and oversaw the killing of Osama bn Laden.

Romney
-Promised to name China a currency manipulator.
-Opposes Iran’s nuclear program, and has proposed to impose tougher economic sanctions on the regime, to support the opposition movement and to leave a military option on the table.
-Opposes cuts to military spending through sequestration and would reverse previous defense spending cuts. He would set core defense spending at a minimum of four percent of GDP.

Abortion, women’s rights
Romney
-Pro-life.
-Believes life begins at conception, and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
-On his campaign website, says that “he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.”

Obama
-Pro-choice
-Signed Lilly Ledbetter legislation which made it easier for women to sue their employers over unequal pay
-Signed “Obamacare,” which forced employers to cover preventative care for women.

Economy and jobs
Romney
-Plans to cap spending at 20 percent of GDP.
-Plans to send a bill to Congress on his first day in office that would cut all non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent.
-Plans to make permanent, across-the-board cuts by 20 percent on marginal tax rates.
-Plans to administer worker retraining programs by giving block grants to states. – Supports states that pursue right-to-work laws.

Obama
-Plans to balance budget through a combination of revenue increases and spending decreases.
-Plans to eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource jobs.
-Plans to limit deductions and repeal tax cuts for families making over $250,000.
-Emphasizes the importance of community colleges in retraining the work force and invested $2 billion in them during his first term.
-Plans to create a network of manufacturing institutes which will unite businesses and research universities.

What Factcheck.org is saying
Romney
-Romney’s claims that he will be able to balance the budget in 8 to 10 years. But no non-partisan study could confirm that his revenue-neutral tax plan could be implemented without raising taxes on the middle class.
-His claim that President Obama had gone on an “apology tour” is false.
-Romney said repeatedly during the general campaign that he won’t cut taxes for the wealthy, but said during the GOP primaries that the top 1 percent would be among those to benefit from his tax plan.

Obama
-He accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut, but Romney has proposed offsetting tax rate cuts without adding to the deficit.
-Obama has falsely accused Mitt Romney of saying during the 2008 campaign that “we should ask Pakistan for permission” before going into that country to kill or capture terrorists.
-Obama falsely claimed that Romney once called Arizona’s “papers, please” immigration law a “model” for the nation. Romney had been referring to a different piece of Arizona legislation that required employers to check the immigration status of employees.

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