Campaign trail:
President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney duke it out, accusing each other of vagueness.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla.— Heading into the campaign’s final weeks, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is increasing his criticism of President Barack Obama’s plans for a second term, accusing the Democrat of failing to tell Americans what he would do with four more years.
The Obama campaign is aggressively disputing the notion, claiming it’s Romney who hasn’t provided specific details to voters.
At campaign events, in a new ad and fundraising appeal out Saturday, Romney is setting up the closing weeks as a choice between what he says is a “small” campaign that’s offering little new policy and his own ambitious plan to fundamentally change America’s tax code and entitlement programs.
The new Romney ad criticizes the president’s policies on debt, health care, taxes, energy and Medicare, arguing that Obama is simply offering more of the same. The campaign did not say where the spot would air. The fundraising appeal hits Obama for raising taxes and increasing the debt by $ 5.5 trillion, repeating the lack- of-agenda criticism.
“Although President Obama won’t lay out his plan for a second term, we already know what it will be — a repeat of the last four years. We can’t afford four more years of crushing debt and wasteful spending,” Romney says in the letter, adding he has a clear plan to put America on a path to prosperity.
Both Obama and Romney retreated from the campaign trail Saturday to bone up on foreign policy, leaving the work of courting voters to their running mates.
Ryan on the road
Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan on Saturday continued the no- agenda theme against Obama at campaign stops near Pittsburgh and in Belmont, Ohio.
“He’s not even telling you what he plans on doing,” Ryan told a rainsoaked crowd of about 1,100 people in Ohio.
Obama’s campaign disputes the notion that the president hasn’t outlined a detailed second- term agenda, pointing to his calls for immigration reform, ending tax breaks for upper income earners, fully implementing his health care overhaul and ending the war in Afghanistan.
In a statement sent after Romney’s Friday night event, Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner ticked through a series of policy items, calling them “just part of President Obama’s agenda for a second term.”
Obama, at the Democratic National Convention, called for creating 1 million manufacturing jobs over the next four years with amix of corporate tax rate cuts and innovation and training programs.
President’s goals
He has set a goal of cutting the growth of college tuition in half over the next 10 years. He also has called for Congress to pass proposals hemade last year that include includes tax credits for companies that hire new workers and funding for local municipalities to hire more teachers, police officers and firefighters.
As for why Republicans would back the same proposals they have already voted against, Obama has told supporters he expects his reelection would “break the fever” on Capitol Hill that led to gridlock.
Vice President Joe Biden made a diagnosis of his own on Saturday, saying Ryan had caught “Romnesia,” the word Obama used the day before to describe what he calls Romney’s changing polices.
“That man is contagious,” Biden said of Romney, to cheers during a stop in St. Augustine, Fla. “Congressman Ryan caught it as well.”
Biden said the Wisconsin congressman is now giving a new explanation for cuts in the budget he oversaw and passed in the House.
The president’s aides are particularly irked by the questions about Obama’s second- term agenda, because they say it’s Romney who has failed to provide details.
They point to his refusal to provide specifics about his tax plan or outline what he would replace the president’s health care overhaul with if he makes good on his promise to repeal the federal law.