If last Wednesday’s presidential debate left you with more questions than answers, here’s your chance for the presidential candidates to address the issues that most matter to you.
The next presidential debate will be a town hall meeting format at Hofstra University in Long Island, where voters will ask President Obama and Mitt Romney about domestic and foreign policy.
Patch is asking you, our readers, to participate by submitting questions for the candidates.
All you have to do is post your question in the comments section below and we’ll send it to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission is partnering with Patch's parent company Aol, along with Google and Yahoo, to take questions from web users across the country.
Don’t wait until Nov. 6 to have a say in this year’s election. Share your thoughts in the comments!
Please ask both candidates: There are ongoing warlike conflicts and or standoffs which may boil over in the South China Sea, the Korean demilitarized zone, Russian Georgia, Syria, Cuba, Columbia, many fractionalized African States as well as Iraq and Afganistan. How do you weigh and apportion American interest in each case? What is the defining doctrine of foreign intervention for your term in office? Please be specific. Syria is rent by two factions yesterday Mr Romney said he would separate the terrorist rebels from the Americaphilic rebels and support the latter with extensive military weaponry. How will you do this Mr Romney? To both candidates how much military support for oppressed and endangered allies through the world are you willing to spend? How do you draw a line between endangering domestic support systems and foreign intervention? What is the role of America as superpower and a well armed nuclear power? Will America use the nuclear option to save military cost in young soldiers lives and American treasure?
President Obama's healthcare reform with pre-existing condition will not happen until 2014, I don't have the luxury of waiting to get the proper care that I need now, if President Obama cared for health care reform, why did he wait till now, why didn't he do something about this in 2008/2009?? I am so sick of Insurance Companies getting away with so much while they are making billions, taking their sweet old time paying back what they owe their loyal customers, instead of take, take, take! As for the doctor in pain clinic, he had a nerve to get me to sign a waiver for the laser shot that he highly recommended so that he is not responsible for the worse case scenario, unbelievable more reason for me to refuse it....
Which ones are true and which are LIES? (1 million views already!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgfzknYd20
This man is SO out of touch with reality....according to him, us average people are banking 250,000 a year. Shows you how in tune with "the people" he is. It is blatantly obvious, and by his own admission, that he is more interested in helping corporate America than us. What little bit he has revealed about his tax plan shows that the primary beneficiaries are the wealthy and big oil. They get tax breaks while the more numerous average joes pick up the financial slack. The man straight up said, he believes 47 percent of us are basically bums. Furthermore that its "NOT HIS JOB" to worry about those people. Are you kidding me??? You want to vote for a man who wrote off nearly half of the US population?? A man who essentially wants to further burden any family making under 250K a year?? I am neither Dem. OR Republican. However between these two the choice should be clear. To me it would seem the only people voting for Romney are: The wealthy, the ignorant, the racist, and bible thumpers who believe their religion belongs in Government. Separation of Church and State is a GOOD thing. Either way, seriously....wtf would you vote against yourself?
MR A.F. BUD....are you a shut in (a person who does not get out much) who locks his car door when he sees a brown man? Mr.Romney is a Mormon....just as scary, still blindly believes in an invisible man in the sky who watches/controls everything. My suggestion to you.....vote based on their policies. Get out of your house....better yet the SOUTH once in a while. Get over your bigotry. Vote for the good of the country and your neighbor and stow away your ignorance.
You know, the riff raff who vote Democratic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgfzknYd20 This covers a couple of the lies at the debate. Far from all of them.
If an insured patient undergoes extensive open heart surgery, as one of mine did July 24th at Morton Plant the actual paid charges for preliminary cath and the surgery has been about $40,000.00.The surgeon for this aneurysm repair, conduction tract ablation and valve replacement etc got $3,000.. So the uninsured patient is quoted five times the insurance company / Medicare price. Always. This is a good reason for universal health care. It seems to me the logic of finding 100 Indian doctors here for every American born bred and trained here being related to cheap care in India is obscure. The pay in India motivates Indians to come here.? Are you saying Indians are underpaid in India so they come here?. But the pay scale here for both the Indians and Americans is considered underpayment by Americans so they don't list in the phone book or open offices here? If this is what you mean, I agree in general. I have read innuendo many doctors avoid Massachusetts because of low fees there. The affordable care act acknowledges the extreme undesirability of primary care to American doctors. It has some provisions which mollify the problem of underpayment eg by 10-20%. But the 5 or 10 to 1 disparity of specialist to primary care income is unaddressed in any substantial way. . I have composed a fifty slide presentation on a current solution which I can present upon request. Happy to join the local discussion.
how much is your salary from the Obama Campaign? I bet you're one of the 1%.
(1) What are your plans for tax reform? (2) What are your plans for entitlement reform? (3) What are your plans for overall spending reforms? Mr. President: (A) Why in the world did you push through Obamacare before focusing on jobs and housing? If urgent, why the 3 yr delay in starting? (B) Why didn't Obamacare focus more on controlling costs vs insurance reforms? E.g, malpractice reforms (reduce costly defensive medicine), consumer incentive for everyone, a ban on cost shifting (medicare/medicaid only pay 80% of COST so hospitals need to transfer the 20% cost to private insurers-Maryland banned this?) (C) Healthcare is 18% of our economy and impacts 100%. Looking back, was it handled properly or rammed through sloppily. (D) When the BP oil leak happened, why all the delays in (a) stopping leak, (b) preventing spreading, (c) cleaning and (d) helping those effected. Boats were sitting idle waiting for permission for several days while some seemed to like watching BP squirm. (E) Did the US tell the Europeans to hold off crisis until after election? (F) Any comment?: "Naturally, the administration would prefer that this not happen. So they’ve offered to pay the legal costs of any firm that doesn’t send out the notices."http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/04/obama-administration-pressures-contractors-not-to-warn-workers-of-impending-layoffs.html (G) Happy with the 7.8% numbers when over half PART-TIME?
To compete, the US needs to reform its tax code, spending and regulations. Basically, implement more efficient and smarter regulations. Remember how the feds required the use of MBTE, and now all those companies are being sued? The Fed gov't subsidized industrial farming and sugar despite the obesity problem in US. Another example, what "policies" or "deregulations" occurred under Bush that caused the "great recession"? Glass Steagal was repealed under Clinton. Greenspan pushed big investors into MSBs under Clinton. Fannie/Freddie were on steroids in 90s. Do you remember Al Gore's focus before global warming? It was cutting red tape. Telling gov't agencies the private sector was "customer". However, I share your concern about the environment and hope both candidates support smart efficient measures. I also believe our labor unions need to be reformed. Less focus on expanding membership and more focus on workers (safety and compensation). To much resistance to productivity and innovation.
"Romney's idea for capping individuals’ tax deductions at $17,000 would impose a burden that would fall hardest on the wealthiest taxpayers, who make the most use of the breaks." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-03/romney-17-000-deduction-cap-first-of-three-part-proposal.html I think ironic that we were all focused on Romney's, Buffet's and other wealthy folks low tax rates just a few weeks ago. The reason the wealthy pay such low rates is because of our outdated/bloated tax code. Imagine those making over $1 million paying a flat rate of 20% vs 14%, etc. Also, remember the original purpose of the Alternative Min Tax - It was to make sure "rich" paid min? Now loaded with loopholes so hits middle class. We need tax reform to broaden tax base and simplify. That will remove a huge amount of uncertainty that is negatively impacting the economy. Businesses cannot make long term decisions (including hiring) with such uncertainty about tax policy and fiscal policy. The President needs to propose his own tax and spending reforms asap to help us move forward. The senate has failed to provide a budge in YEARS! We need short and long term plans from our gov't.
Just consider the Dodd Frank law. We certainly need regulations but that is a monstrosity that is still been written, analyzed etc and in the end will be diluted since so massive and complicated. Targeted new regs would have worked. Some jobs are returning to US, but we need tax reform to bring the huge amount of money sitting overseas back to the US. And we need to remove the cloud of uncertainty over businesses and individuals. We know massive changes to taxes and spending are needed. The delay is killing the economy.
So, we had a severe fiscal crisis but resolved/healed. However, companies and the economy should have sprung back like a rubber band since anyone at any company knew of the intense fear and over firing. Instead, DESPITE 4 trillion in stimulus from Congress and Fed, its a shockingly feeble recovery. Why? Jobs should have been the No. 1 focus from day 1. If the engine is not running on all cylinders, not working well. Instead the administration created way too much uncertainty with Obamacare, regulations, lack of any fiscal plan, etc. What is killing this economy is the massive amount of uncertainty. They just don't get it. Why in the world did they focus on health insurance reform instead of jobs and housing or simply controlling costs? Why was it rammed through? In the end, I'm mildly better than the month long bottom of the fiscal crisis. Other than that, never been worse or more concerned for my kids.
Democracies in general only encourage mob rule and I have not see one function well.
2. Same as in Question 1 except South American countries
Because we don't have enough oil. The amount of oil we have is less than 1% of the world's oil, and wouldn't be enough to truly keep up sustained for any real length of time. Gasoline is higher than it used to be, but our legislation is still keeping the price depressed. We are not paying the $8-$11 dollars a gallon other countries are paying.