Obama and Romney: Where they stand on the issues

In this April 25, 20112 file photo, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama speaks at the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa Field House, in Iowa City, Iowa.

CALVIN WOODWARD

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — A look at where Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Mitt Rom­ney stand on a selec­tion of issues:

ABORTION and BIRTH CONTROL:

Obama: Sup­ports abor­tion rights. Health care law requires con­tra­cep­tives to be avail­able for free for women enrolled in work­place health plans, includ­ing access to morning-after pill, which does not ter­mi­nate a preg­nancy but is con­sid­ered tan­ta­mount to an abor­tion pill by some reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tives. Sup­ported requir­ing girls 16 and under to get a pre­scrip­tion for the morning-after pill, avail­able with­out a pre­scrip­tion for older women.

Rom­ney: Opposes abor­tion rights. Pre­vi­ously sup­ported them. Says state law should guide abor­tion rights, and Roe v. Wade should be reversed by a future Supreme Court. But says Roe vs. Wade is law of the land until that hap­pens, and should not be chal­lenged by fed­eral leg­is­la­tion seek­ing to over­turn abor­tion rights affirmed by that court deci­sion. “So I would live within the law, within the Con­sti­tu­tion as I under­stand it, with­out cre­at­ing a con­sti­tu­tional cri­sis. But I do believe Roe v. Wade should be reversed to allow states to make that deci­sion.” Said he would end fed­eral aid to Planned Parenthood.

DEBT:

Obama: A fourth-straight year of trillion-dollar deficits is pro­jected. Fed­eral spend­ing is esti­mated at 23.5 per­cent of gross domes­tic prod­uct this year, up from about 20 per­cent in pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, and is fore­cast to decline to 21.8 per­cent by 2016. Won approval to raise debt limit to avoid default. Calls for tack­ling the debt with a mix of spend­ing cuts and rev­enue increases. Cen­tral to Obama’s plan is to let Bush-era tax cuts expire for cou­ples mak­ing more than $250,000. That would gen­er­ate more than $700 bil­lion over 10 years. Also, would set a 30 per­cent tax rate on tax­pay­ers mak­ing more than $1 mil­lion, increas­ing taxes for some but not all mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires. That would gen­er­ate about $47 bil­lion over 10 years. Reached agree­ment with con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans to cut $487 bil­lion in mil­i­tary spend­ing over a decade.

Rom­ney: Defended 2008 bailout of finan­cial insti­tu­tions as a nec­es­sary step to avoid the system’s col­lapse, opposed the bailout of Gen­eral Motors and Chrysler and said any such aid should not sin­gle out spe­cific com­pa­nies. Would cap fed­eral spend­ing at 20 per­cent of gross domes­tic prod­uct by end of first term. Stayed silent on the debt-ceiling deal dur­ing its nego­ti­a­tion, only announc­ing his oppo­si­tion to the final agree­ment shortly before law­mak­ers voted on it. Instead, endorsed GOP “cut, cap and bal­ance” bill that had no chance of enact­ment. Favors con­sti­tu­tional bal­anced bud­get amend­ment. Pro­poses broad but largely unspec­i­fied cuts in fed­eral spend­ing. Among the few details: 10 per­cent cut in fed­eral work­force, elim­i­na­tion of $1.6 bil­lion in Amtrak sub­si­dies and cuts of $600 mil­lion in sup­port for the arts and broadcasting.

ECONOMY:

Obama: Term marked by high unem­ploy­ment, a deep reces­sion that began in pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion and offi­cially ended within six months, and grad­ual recov­ery with per­sis­tently high job­less rates. Unem­ploy­ment rate jumped to 8.3 per­cent from 7.8 per­cent in Feb­ru­ary 2009, Obama’s first full month in office, and has remained above 8 per­cent ever since. The 38-month stretch of unem­ploy­ment above 8 per­cent is the longest on records dat­ing to 1948. But employ­ers have added 3.6 mil­lion jobs since job cre­ation turned steadily pos­i­tive in March 2010. Busi­nesses have added jobs for 25 straight months, push­ing down the unem­ploy­ment rate from 9.8 per­cent in March 2010 to 8.2 per­cent two years later. Responded to reces­sion with a roughly $800 bil­lion stim­u­lus plan that non­par­ti­san Con­gres­sional Bud­get Office esti­mated cut the unem­ploy­ment rate by 0.7 to 1.8 per­cent­age points. Con­tin­ued imple­men­ta­tion of Wall Street and auto indus­try bailouts begun under George W. Bush. Pro­poses tax breaks for U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duc­ing domes­ti­cally or repa­tri­at­ing jobs from abroad, and tax penal­ties for U.S. com­pa­nies out­sourc­ing jobs. Won approval of South Korea, Panama and Colom­bia free-trade pacts begun under pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, com­plet­ing the biggest round of trade lib­er­al­iza­tion since the North Amer­i­can Free Trade Agree­ment and other pacts of that era.

Rom­ney: Lower taxes, less reg­u­la­tion, bal­anced bud­get, more trade deals to spur growth. Replace job­less ben­e­fits with unem­ploy­ment sav­ings accounts. Pro­poses repeal of the (Dodd-Frank) law tough­en­ing financial-industry reg­u­la­tions after the melt­down in that sec­tor. Pro­poses chang­ing, but not repeal­ing, the (Sarbanes-Oxley) law tight­en­ing account­ing reg­u­la­tions in response to cor­po­rate scan­dals, to ease the account­abil­ity bur­den on smaller busi­nesses. “We don’t want to tell the world that Repub­li­cans are against all reg­u­la­tion. No, reg­u­la­tion is nec­es­sary to make a free mar­ket work. But it has to be updated and modern.”

EDUCATION:

Obama: Has approved waivers free­ing states from the most oner­ous require­ments of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law with their agree­ment to improve how they pre­pare and eval­u­ate stu­dents. “Race to the Top” com­pe­ti­tion has rewarded win­ning states with bil­lions of dol­lars for pur­su­ing edu­ca­tion poli­cies Obama sup­ports. Won approval for a col­lege tax credit worth up to $10,000 over four years and more money for Pell grants for low-income col­lege stu­dents. Wants Con­gress to agree to reduce fed­eral aid to col­leges that go too far in rais­ing tuition.

Rom­ney: Sup­ported the fed­eral account­abil­ity stan­dards of No Child Left Behind law. In 2007, said he was wrong ear­lier in career when he wanted the Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment shut because he came to see the value of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment in “hold­ing down the inter­ests of the teach­ers’ unions” and putting kids and par­ents first. Has said the stu­dent test­ing, charter-school incen­tives and teacher eval­u­a­tion stan­dards of Obama’s “Race to the Top” com­pe­ti­tion “make sense” although the fed­eral gov­ern­ment should have less con­trol of education.

ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT:

Obama: Ordered tem­po­rary mora­to­rium on deep-water drilling after the mas­sive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mex­ico but has pushed for more oil and gas drilling over­all. Approved drilling plan in Arc­tic Ocean opposed by envi­ron­men­tal­ists. Pro­poses Con­gress give oil mar­ket reg­u­la­tors more power to con­trol price manip­u­la­tion by spec­u­la­tors and stiffer fines for doing so.

Achieved his­toric increases in fuel econ­omy stan­dards for auto­mo­biles that will save money at the pump while rais­ing the cost of new vehi­cles. Achieved first-ever reg­u­la­tions on heat-trapping gases blamed for global warm­ing and on toxic mer­cury pol­lu­tion from power plants. Spent heav­ily on green energy and has embraced nuclear power as a clean source.

Failed to per­suade a Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gress to pass lim­its he promised on car­bon emis­sions. Shelved plan to toughen health stan­dards on lung-damaging smog. Rejected Key­stone XL oil pipeline from Canada but sup­ports fast-track approval of a seg­ment of it. Pro­poses end­ing sub­si­dies to oil indus­try but has failed to per­suade Con­gress to do so.

Rom­ney: Sup­ports open­ing the Atlantic and Pacific outer con­ti­nen­tal shelves to drilling, as well as West­ern lands, the Arc­tic National Wildlife Refuge and off­shore Alaska; and sup­ports exploita­tion of shale oil deposits. Wants to reduce obsta­cles to coal, nat­ural gas and nuclear energy devel­op­ment, and accel­er­ate drilling per­mits in areas where explo­ration has already been approved for devel­op­ers with good safety records.

Says green power has yet to become viable and the causes of cli­mate change are unknown. Pro­poses to remove car­bon diox­ide from list of pol­lu­tants con­trolled by Clean Air Act and amend clean water and air laws to ensure the cost of com­ply­ing with reg­u­la­tions is bal­anced against envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fit. Says cap and trade would “rocket energy prices.”

Blames high gas prices on Obama’s deci­sions to limit oil drilling in envi­ron­men­tally sen­si­tive areas and on overzeal­ous regulation.

GAY RIGHTS:

Obama: Once opposed fed­eral recog­ni­tion of same-sex mar­riage, later said his views were “evolv­ing” and has not taken a posi­tion on that since. Opposes con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment to ban it. Sup­ports civil unions and let­ting states decide about mar­riage. Switched posi­tions on Defense of Mar­riage Act, which denies fed­eral recog­ni­tion of same-sex mar­riages and gives states the right to refuse to rec­og­nize such mar­riages. Once a sup­porter of the law, in 2008 he said he favored its repeal. The law remains, but his Jus­tice Depart­ment no longer defends the statute’s con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity. Achieved repeal of the mil­i­tary ban on openly gay ser­vice members.

Rom­ney: Favors con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment to ban gay mar­riage, says pol­icy should be set fed­er­ally, not by states. “Mar­riage is not an activ­ity that goes on within the walls of a state.” But said he would not seek to restore a ban on openly gay ser­vice members.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama: Achieved land­mark over­haul putting U.S. on path to uni­ver­sal cov­er­age if the Supreme Court upholds the heath care law and its man­date for almost every­one to obtain insur­ance. Under the law, insur­ers will be banned from deny­ing cov­er­age to peo­ple with pre-existing ill­ness, tax cred­its for middle-income and low-income peo­ple will sub­si­dize pre­mi­ums, peo­ple with­out work-based insur­ance will have access to new mar­kets, small busi­ness gets help for offer­ing insur­ance and Med­ic­aid will be expanded, with the biggest changes start­ing in 2014. “Nobody is going to go broke just because they get sick. And Amer­i­cans will no longer be denied or dropped by their insur­ance com­pa­nies just when they need care the most. That’s what change is.”

Rom­ney: Promises to work for the repeal of the fed­eral health care law mod­eled largely after his uni­ver­sal health care achieve­ment in Mass­a­chu­setts because he says states, not Wash­ing­ton, should drive pol­icy on the unin­sured. Pro­poses to guar­an­tee that peo­ple who are “con­tin­u­ously cov­ered” for a cer­tain period be pro­tected against los­ing insur­ance if they get sick, leave their job and need another policy.

Would expand indi­vid­ual tax-advantaged med­ical sav­ings accounts and let the sav­ings be used for insur­ance pre­mi­ums as well as per­sonal med­ical costs. Would let insur­ance be sold across state lines to expand options, and restrict mal­prac­tice awards to restrain health care costs. Intro­duce “gen­er­ous” but unde­ter­mined sub­si­dies to help future retirees buy pri­vate insur­ance, or let them have the option of tra­di­tional Medicare, with a grad­u­ally increas­ing age to qual­ify for benefits.

IMMIGRATION:

Obama: Failed to deliver on a promised immi­gra­tion over­haul, with the defeat of leg­is­la­tion that would have cre­ated a path to cit­i­zen­ship for young ille­gal immi­grants enrolled in col­lege or enlisted in the armed forces. Says he is still com­mit­ted to it. Gov­ern­ment has deported a record num­ber of ille­gal immi­grants under Obama, nearly 400,000 in each of the last three years.

Rom­ney: Favors U.S.-Mexico bor­der fence, opposes edu­ca­tion ben­e­fits to ille­gal immi­grants. Opposes offer­ing legal sta­tus to ille­gal immi­grants who attend col­lege, but would do so for those who serve in the armed forces. Estab­lish an immigration-status ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem for employ­ers and pun­ish them if they hire non-citizens who do not prove their legal sta­tus. Pro­poses more visas for hold­ers of advanced degrees in math, sci­ence and engi­neer­ing who have U.S. job offers, and would award per­ma­nent res­i­dency to for­eign stu­dents who grad­u­ate from U.S. schools with a degree in those fields.

SOCIAL SECURITY:

Obama: Has not pro­posed a com­pre­hen­sive plan to address Social Security’s long-term finan­cial prob­lems. Dur­ing bud­get nego­ti­a­tions in 2011, pro­posed adopt­ing a new mea­sure­ment of infla­tion that would reduce annual increases in Social Secu­rity ben­e­fits. The pro­posal would reduce the long-term financ­ing short­fall by about 25 per­cent, accord­ing to the Social Secu­rity actuaries.

Rom­ney: Pro­tect the sta­tus quo for peo­ple 55 and over but, for the next gen­er­a­tions of retirees, raise the retire­ment age for full ben­e­fits by one or two years and reduce infla­tion increases in ben­e­fits for wealth­ier recipients.

TAXES:

Obama: Wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and ensure they pay 30 per­cent of their income at min­i­mum. Sup­ports extend­ing Bush-era tax cuts for every­one mak­ing under $200,000, or $250,000 for cou­ples. But in 2010, agreed to a two-year exten­sion of the lower rates for all. Wants to let the top tax rates go back up 3 to 4 points to 39.6 per­cent and 36 per­cent, and raise rates on cap­i­tal gains and div­i­dends for the wealthy. Health care law pro­vides for tax on highest-value health insur­ance plans. Together with Con­gress, built a first-term record of sig­nif­i­cant tax cuts for fam­i­lies and busi­ness, some temporary.

Rom­ney: Drop all tax rates by 20 per­cent, bring­ing the top rate, for exam­ple, down to 28 per­cent from 35 per­cent and the low­est rate to 8 per­cent instead of 10 per­cent. Cur­tail deduc­tions, cred­its and exemp­tions for the wealth­i­est. End Alter­na­tive Min­i­mum Tax for indi­vid­u­als, elim­i­nate cap­i­tal gains tax for fam­i­lies mak­ing below $200,000 and cut cor­po­rate tax to 25 per­cent from 35 per­cent. Does not spec­ify which tax breaks or pro­grams he would cur­tail to help cover costs. Dodged on extend­ing cut in pay­roll tax, say­ing he doesn’t like “tem­po­rary lit­tle Band-Aids” but also he’s not for rais­ing taxes “anywhere.”

TERRORISM:

Obama: Approved the raid that found and killed Osama bin Laden, set pol­icy that U.S. would no longer use harsh inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques, a prac­tice that had essen­tially ended later in George W. Bush’s pres­i­dency. Largely car­ried for­ward Bush’s key anti-terrorism poli­cies, includ­ing deten­tion of sus­pects at Guan­tanamo Bay despite promise to close the prison. Also has con­tin­ued with mil­i­tary com­mis­sions instead of civil­ian courts for detainees and invo­ca­tion of state secrets priv­i­lege in court. Expanded use of unmanned drone strikes against ter­ror­ist tar­gets in Pak­istan and Yemen.

Rom­ney: No con­sti­tu­tional rights for for­eign ter­ror­ism sus­pects. In 2007, refused to rule out use of water­board­ing to inter­ro­gate ter­ror­ist sus­pects. In 2011, his cam­paign said he does not con­sider water­board­ing to be torture.

WAR:

Obama: Ended the Iraq war he had opposed and inher­ited, increased the U.S. troop pres­ence in Afghanistan then began draw­ing down the force with a plan to have all out by the end of 2014. Approved use of U.S. air power in NATO-led cam­paign that helped Libyan oppo­si­tion top­ple Moam­mar Gadhafi’s gov­ern­ment. Major reduc­tions com­ing in the size of the Army and Marine Corps as part of agree­ment with con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans to cut $487 bil­lion in mil­i­tary spend­ing over a decade. Declined to repeat the Libya air power com­mit­ment for Syr­ian oppo­si­tion. Opposes a near-term mil­i­tary strike on Iran, either by the U.S. or by Israel, to sab­o­tage nuclear facil­i­ties that could be mis­used to pro­duce a nuclear weapon. Says the U.S. will never tol­er­ate a nuclear-armed Iran but nego­ti­a­tion and pres­sure through sanc­tions are the right way to pre­vent that out­come. Reserves the right to one day con­clude that only a mil­i­tary strike can stop Iran from get­ting the bomb.

Rom­ney: Has not spec­i­fied the troop num­bers behind his pledge to ensure the “force level nec­es­sary to secure our gains and com­plete our mis­sion suc­cess­fully” in Afghanistan. “This is not time for Amer­ica to cut and run.” Said Obama was wrong to begin reduc­ing troop lev­els as soon as he did. Would increase strength of armed forces, includ­ing num­ber of troops and war­ships, adding almost $100 bil­lion to the Pen­ta­gon bud­get in 2016. Has spo­ken in favor of covert action by the U.S. and regional allies in Syria but “the right course is not mil­i­tary” inter­ven­tion by the U.S. Crit­i­cizes Obama’s approach on Iran as too con­cil­ia­tory and asso­ciates him­self more closely with hard­line Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu. Has not explic­itly threat­ened a U.S. mil­i­tary strike, but in one Repub­li­can debate said that re-electing Obama would guar­an­tee an Iran­ian bomb and that elect­ing him would guar­an­tee Iran would not get a nuclear weapon. “Of course you take mil­i­tary action” if sanc­tions and inter­nal oppo­si­tion fail to dis­suade Tehran from mak­ing a nuclear weapon.

Posted by AP News on Apr 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.