Obama vs. Romney: Where they stand on the issues
Obama
Abortion:
Pro-Choice: Supports policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. Supports Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.
Economy:
Obama has pledged to reform the tax code so that it is “simple, fair.” He endorses a middle class tax cut that will provide $1000 dollars of relief and eliminate income taxes for any retiree making less than $50,000 per year. He is against privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age.
Education:
Obama believes education is important and plans to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math because the quality of U.S. math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a college degree; a quarter of American students are not finishing high school.
Health Care:
Health care was one of the centerpieces of President Obama’s 2008 campaign, and with the backing of a Democrat-dominated Congress, his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was signed into law after a hard-fought battle with Republican legislators. The Act introduced comprehensive reforms on national health care legislations to expand coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.
Marriage Quality:
Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage. He is fundamentally supportive toward the LGBT community.
Romney
Abortion:
Pro-Life: Previously supported abortion, but now he opposes abortion unless the cases involve rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in mortal danger. Mitt Romney supports the Pence amendment that is aimed at eliminating all Title X grants for Planned Parenthood.
Economy:
Romney has pledged to initiate 10 major actions on his first day of presidency in order to boost the nations economy including: reducing the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent; eliminating Obama-era regulations and executive orders involving job creation and organized labor.
Education:
Romney believes education is important and plans to advocate wide-ranging reforms so that education would run at the state level and not the federal. Supports No Child Left Behind and advocates tying teachers’ compensations to their results instead of tenure
Healthcare:
Romney believes free enterprise is the way America works and we need to apply that to health care. He is a supporter of the universal healthcare, but implemented at the state level, not the federal level Obama’s healthcare plan is implemented at the federal level; if elected, Romney plans to dismantle Obama healthcare.
Marriage Equality:
Romney is against same sex marriage. He believes basic civil rights and certain appropriate benefits should be available to people in non-traditional relationships. He supports marriage as an institution between a man and a woman and believes our constitution and laws should reflect that.
The stances supplied in this article are courtesy of the 2012 Candidate Comparison, a non-partisan website following the 2012 presidential election. To view the presidential candidates’ stances in full, click here.
Click here to download this article in PDF format for a side-by-side comparison.
