http://news.yahoo.com/romney-hits-obama-looming-fiscal-cliff-015703878--finance.html



U.S. Republican presidential nominee …

BELMONT, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama on Saturday of standing by while a looming budgetary calamity unfolds in Washington as he sought to regain his footing after a tough week on the campaign trail.

Romney leaped into the debate over the "fiscal cliff," the potential for an end-of-the-year uproar when some $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts kick in unless Obama and Congress reach a deficit-reduction deal to avert them. Bush-era tax cuts also expire at year's end.

The Washington debate mirrors the campaign battle between Obama and Romney. Democrats want to make up the shortfall by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans while Republicans favor spending cuts.

"Political gridlock threatens to plunge us back into recession, but instead of seeking bipartisan solutions, President Obama is passively allowing us to go over a fiscal cliff," Romney said in his weekly podcast.

The White House said in releasing a breakdown of the cuts on Friday that it was congressional Republicans who are standing in the way of a deal because they refuse to accept a more balanced approach.

The White House and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, including Romney's vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan, agreed on the automatic cuts under an August 2011 deal.

Romney, who has vowed to build up the U.S. military if elected on November 6, has singled out for criticism the $54 billion in defense cuts that would kick in at year's end. He says this is no time to shrink the Pentagon's budget.

"What kind of commander-in-chief forces Americans to choose between massive tax hikes that will undermine the economy and massive cuts to our military that will undermine national security?" said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

Romney is ending a rough week during which he fell behind Obama in the polls and came under criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for making a campaign issue of the deaths of four Americans killed by Muslim protesters at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The candidate took the day off on the campaign trail on Saturday. He spent part of the afternoon watching one of his grandson's soccer games. Romney travels to Colorado and California on Sunday.

-------------------------------------------------------------------



here is your problem-less then 10% of americans feel congress doing a good job.that means 90% want a better government. both parties still refuse to work together .my advice is to stop the blame game and lying and start putting america before politics...

http://news.yahoo.com/romney-outline-govern-070837846--election.html

Associated Press/Charles Dharapak - Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney boards his campaign charter plane in Kansas City, Mo., after a refueling as he travels to Los …more

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney will seek this week to explain more about what he would do as president, a strategy shift intended to change the trajectory of a race that President Barack Obama appears to be winning.

Seven weeks before the election, campaign aides say Romney plans to release a new batch of TV ads, re-focus his campaign appearances on his five-point economic plan and make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country.

The shift comes as Republicans openly fret about the state of their nominee's campaign and press Romney to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern. It also comes as polls show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at the Boston-based campaign.

The new ads will highlight Romney's plan to create 12 million jobs, cut the deficit and allow the nation to become energy independent. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, will focus on the debt and deficit in a series of campaign appearances. It's all aimed at giving voters a clearer picture of what Romney would do as president, advisers said.

With the new push, Romney is looking to put behind him a turbulent week that saw him stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East. And he's spent hours preparing for debates, mindful that they may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.

Romney advisers spent the weekend in Boston hashing out a plan to right his struggling campaign. On Monday, top advisers planned to explain how the campaign would change tact as the candidate himself began a major push to Hispanic voters.

The new ads — one called "The Romney Plan," the other attacking Obama as bad for middle-class families — show Romney doubling down on his core rationale for running: the notion that he can fix the nation's dour economy given his decades of work in the private sector.

The push comes after a new poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that Romney had lost his longstanding edge to Obama on who voters say is most likely to restore the economy and create jobs.

The new strategy represents an attempt to change the dynamics of the race in the few weeks before the first debate on Oct. 3.

That was starting with a speech Monday to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, where Romney planned to outline his long-known specific plans for spending cuts, Medicaid and reducing the federal workforce.

The strategy shift comes as some Republicans worry Romney may be starting to let the campaign get away from him, while others push him to explain more clearly what he would do as president.

Republican concern that Romney's campaign was making mistake after mistake was followed by reports of an organization in disarray. Trouble began with Clint Eastwood's rambling conversation with a chair on the final night of the Republican convention, right before Romney's keynote address omitted the war in Afghanistan or a thanks to the troops serving there.

The intervening weeks have been scattered. Romney ducked battleground states as he hunkered down in Vermont for debate preparation, then spent days defending his decision to omit war from the speech. Polls showed the Democratic convention gave Obama a boost.

Then violence erupted in Egypt and Libya, prompting Romney to put out a statement criticizing the Obama administration before it was known that an American ambassador had died in the attacks. Romney doubled down on his criticism in a press conference the next day.

That drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike. Several in his party, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, have urged Romney to give a major foreign affairs speech laying out his critique of Obama.

Romney's team had planned to try to shift the tide by working harder and spending more on TV. The campaign released a flight of ads for different states during the week of the Democratic convention, but later replaced almost all of them with the same ad attacking Obama's record on China. That was just last week; the new pair of ads comes Monday.

The new push follows a Sunday story on the Politico website detailing infighting among Romney's senior staffers. Campaign advisers worked to downplay those tensions, and to insist the campaign is still on track.

"Obama's entire foreign policy is in flames. The economy is terrible. Let's get a little distance from the convention," top strategist Stuart Stevens wrote in an email Sunday morning.

In Los Angeles, Romney was opening a fresh appeal to Latino voters on Monday, looking to narrow Obama's advantage with them in key battleground states.

http://news.yahoo.com/romney-derides-obama-supporters-hidden-camera-speech-230955040.html?_esi=1By Patricia Zengerle | Reuters – 15 hrs ago



U.S. Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney addresses the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, California, September 17, 2012. REUTERS/Jim YoungEnlarge Photo

U.S. Republican presidential nominee …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney dismissed supporters of President Barack Obama - almost half of U.S. voters - as people who live off government handouts and do not "care for their lives," in a potentially damaging video.

"There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them," Romney said in a hidden-camera video of his remarks at a private fundraiser earlier this year posted on Monday on the left-wing Mother Jones magazine's website.

"My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents," he said in remarks convincing donors to write checks for his campaign.

The tape was released in the middle of a difficult time for Romney, as his campaign team on Monday fought off a report of disarray in his inner circle. The former private-equity executive promised to retool his message with more specifics on policies.

Democrats leaped to try to take advantage of Romney's comments. "It's hard to serve as president for all Americans when you've disdainfully written off half the nation," Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, said in a statement.

Romney's campaign said the Republican is concerned about Americans who are poor and unemployed. "Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy," Gail Gitcho, Romney's campaign communications director, said in a statement issued in response to a request for comment.

Mother Jones did not say when or where the video was taken, to protect the identity of the person who recorded it. It did say Romney's remarks had been made at some point after he clinched the Republican presidential nomination in April.

Romney also used his remarks to discuss with the donors his strategy for appealing to undecided or independent voters by stressing disappointment with Obama's policies.

"Those people that we have to get, they want to believe they did the right thing, but he just wasn't up to the task. They love the phrase that he's 'over his head,'" Romney said in the video.

The Democratic National Committee also distributed separately a clip from the video in which Romney jokes that he would fare better in the election if he were Latino. Romney's father was born in Mexico.

"Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this," Romney said in the video tape.

Democratic strategists view Obama's large lead among Hispanic voters as possibly the key to his winning the election on November 6 and Romney has been working to increase his support among them