I love it that the only argument that the Democrats have is factually false! Check it out for yourself on www.factcheck.org. The Ryan plan does NOT impact medicare at all for anyone currently on or nearing the age to be on the program. They also never seem to consider the cost of anything. We should all have free everything, say the Democrats. But we all have to, and will, pay for it. Love the pick! Vote Romney/Ryan in November!

Great Choice. And Im glad he said this.
“No one disputes President Obama inherited a difficult situation -- and, in his first two years, with his party in complete control of Washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda,” Ryan said. “But that didn’t make things better. In fact, we find ourselves in a nation facing debt, doubt and despair.”

Pres. Obama can stop his excuses of what Bush left him, and now answer for why he has made things worse!!

With Obama, this entire country is headed in the wrong direction. If you want to see what a nation choked in debt faces, just look at Europe.

Has anyone ever done the quick math calculation of how long it would take to pay our $16 trillion debt off if we began immediately to quit increasing the debt and start paying it off at the rate of $1000 per second. The answer will astound you. ( assume, for this example, that the $16 trillion does not have interest tacked on to it. In reality, it does, but still, the calculation is pretty amazing ! )

Has anyone noticed who racked up this debt? GW and friends put two wars on charge cards and then left the rest of us to pay for it. So yes, President Obama has the right to point out the mess left for him. The GOP left a "landfill" of mess for Obama to clean up, declared they wouldn't lift a finger to help him and then has the audacity to say he isn't cleaning it up quickly enough.
I love Ryan as the pick for VP. It sends the complete message that the GOP is looking out for the 1% and the rest of us hard working middle class be damned. Women voters and anyone nearing retirement age won't vote for the RR ticket.

@Kate--you go girl. You are really right.70 year old Nana.

I am with you Kate.

As a woman, feminist, democrat and Obama 08 supporter, I am going to do the responsible thing and listen to what Romney/Ryan have to say instead of making up my mind today. I have been disappointed in Obama's failure to empower the American people to take care of themselves. I think it is crucial that we help one another but no one is helped by giving things away for free all the time. There's also way too much government control and our ability to choose anything is being taken away. Neither candidate is perfect but I need to hear both sides between now & November before I make a decision (and winning a dinner with a celebrity isn't going to convince me Mr. President).

+1, Kate! I agree that Paul Ryan is a wonderful VP choice. The Democrats will make hay with Mitt Romney's cynical, hard-line choice. Paul Ryan wants to give the elderly vouchers to go find their own private health insurance (this is after Republicans have repealed the Affordable Health Care Act, which prohibits excluding participants with prior health conditions, mind you). Ryan also wants the vouchers to go up in value at a fraction of the outrageous medical costs inflation rate, which is usually at least three times the inflation rate of other products and services. He's anxious to stick it to the poor and the elderly as he pursues ever more tax cuts for the rich.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Koch Bros. on steroids, and the choice between Pres. Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney will be clearer than before.

While Pres. Obama's wimpy attorney general, Eric Holder, hasn't indicted a single Bush war criminal or Wall Street corporate criminal, and Obama himself is clearly a coward himself in domestic matters, especially with Wall Street bankers funding his campaign, I will definitely hold my nose and vote for Obama over the alternative, which would be much, much worse.

Like it or not, Ryan's plan to transform Medicare/Medicaid funding into fixed federal block grants will have the following effects:

1.) It lets the national GOP continue to be irresponsible by cutting taxes for the wealthy, since the block grants will be fixed in cost, and independent of actual costs of delivering care.

2.) One of the legacies of GW Bush was the unfunded federal mandate, i.e. federal laws and standards which the feds expected states and localities to pay for out of their tax revenues. Since the block grants won't cover existing costs, nor allow for more people to be covered, states will have to look at increasing their income and sales taxes. But hey, the GOP can honestly claim it cut federal income taxes (for people like Romney).

3.) Block grants WILL be a form of rationing health care. By limiting who qualifies for Medicare/Medicaid, Ryan's plan will squeeze middle-income earners. Forget any "death tax," there will be an expanded "nursing care tax" which will mean that middle-income elders who need nursing care will have to become destitute to qualify for Medicaid, since Medicare limits how long it will pay for skilled nursing care. Forget about your kids inheriting ANYTHING unless you: die before you need skilled care; have a large enough fortune (like Romney) that you needn't worry about the cost of long-term care, or; you're so poor you don't have anything to leave the kids anyway.

I hate conservative fiscal and social policies...

Talk about the 70 million dollars Obama steal from Medicare to support ObamaCare.
Obama is the Chief of Thieves stealing from the Elderly.

The reality and shame is that no one on either side believe in our paid politicians. One side says vote for my bozo so he will encourage government employees to leave me alone and the other says vote my guy because he is robin hood and will rob from those nasty rich and give me some. In the end.... The government and power brokers that are in the shadows win and no matter who you vote for... They will just do more of the same and blame the other guy.

Troy, thank you. Yes, that same attorney general. I despise him. Still, when I consider the devastation that Romney/Ryan would wreak on the disappearing, struggling middle class and the working poor, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for the jerk who won't do a thing to rein in corporate criminals on Wall Street.

Jack F., Charles H. Ferguson in his book "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America" says,

"At first glance, the suggestion that both parties are colluding and under the influence of a single oligarchy seems absurd. There are red states and blue states; the two parties are viciously polarized. And there is real political conflict in America, especially on social issues . . . [Abortion, gay marriage] are very real, very important issues; and on these issues, each political party can credibly tell its base that defeat would mean real, painful losses.

"But that is exactly the point. It's a brilliant strategy. These social and 'values' conflicts serve excellently to divide and distract people who should, and perhaps otherwise would, be dangerously united in feeling that they were being raped by their CEOs, their bankers, their elected leaders, and the political establishment. Thus, each party can continue to command the grudging support of people who fear that if the other side won, they would lose something important, which leaves the two parties free to collude on the most important thing to both of them -- money."

No profanity in comments please.

David Leonard, thank you! I, too, reluctantly support Pres. Obama as the lesser of two evils. Obama coddles Wall Street but Romney IS Wall Street.

Ferguson said that Obama wasted a huge opportunity in 2009 to rein in the excesses of Wall Street criminality:

"Obama opposed serious reform of corporate governance, breaking up the largest banks, or closing legal loopholes . . . . There has been almost no significant action on the foreclosure crisis . . . . [Obama's] administration deliberately kept the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's budget to a mere $6 million, sharply limited its subpoena power, and scheduled its report to appear only after the 2010 midterm elections.

"Most tellingly, the new Justice Department's complete lack of interest in prosecuting banks and bankers soon became painfully obvious . . . . [A]s of early 2012 there still had not been a single crisis-related criminal prosecution, of either a firm or an individual senior financial executive, by the Obama administration -- literally zero. . . . But what is perhaps most revealing is that Obama continued in Bush's footsteps, even though he had an unprecedented opportunity to change course . . . . whatever Obama's personal motivations, America (and indeed the whole world) will pay dearly for a long time."