Tamara Keith

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

As part of our ongoing elections coverage, we're talking stump speeches. Today on MORNING EDITION, we had a Republican political consultant listen to President Obama's remarks with a critical ear. Now, it's Mitt Romney's turn. Here's NPR's Tamara Keith with help from a Democratic operative.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Tad Devine is ready. He has a yellow legal pad next to his laptop as he watches Governor Romney's speech in Henderson, Nevada.

TAD DEVINE: OK. Here we go.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

During this disaster, President Obama and Governor Romney paused their campaigns, but there's still plenty of time before Election Day for another round of stump speeches - those partisan speeches for partisan crowds who don't give them a lot of scrutiny. So we decided to show the speeches to people who would be more critical - political operatives from the opposite party.

In this first of two parts, NPR's Tamara Keith brings us a look at a recent stump speech from President Obama.

As the election draws closer, the economy and jobs remain top issues in the presidential race.

President Obama points to the improvement in the labor market since he took office in the midst of a downward spiral.

Both he and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have five-point plans for improving the economy, although their strategies differ.

Last week, Morning Edition looked at possible cuts to the Defense Department as part of what's known as sequestration. Next, we examine the effect of across-the-board spending cuts on the rest of the federal budget. One analyst says right off the top expect a 15 percent reduction in the federal workforce.

Unless Congress acts, the Defense Department faces some $55 billion in cuts after the first of the year. The cuts are part of what's known as sequestration — automatic across the board spending cuts to both defense and nondefense government spending set in motion by last year's debt-ceiling fight.

Salaries for uniformed personnel are the one major thing that's protected. Otherwise, it's about a 10 percent cut to everything from Pentagon civilian staff to the acquisition of multimillion-dollar aircraft, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

This story is part of our occasional series Fiscal Cliff Notes.

If the Bush-era tax cuts are allowed to expire, the majority of Americans will see their taxes rise. Those who will see the largest increase are the wealthy.

Dr. Hamilton Lempert, an emergency room doctor in Cincinnati, works almost exclusively on overnight shifts.

An occasional series, Fiscal Cliff Notes breaks down the looming "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and deep automatic spending cuts set to hit around the first of year.

If you work, you've probably been getting this tax break: Since January 2011, the government has knocked 2 percentage points off the payroll tax.

For someone making $50,000 a year, the payroll tax holiday works out to about $20 a week.

"We definitely notice it," says Steve Warner of Winter Haven, Fla., while on vacation with his family recently in the nation's capital.

^{Note: We've asked NPR journalists to share their top five (or so) political Twitter accounts, and we're featuring the series on #FollowFriday. Here are recommendations from Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR), an NPR congressional reporter.}

An occasional series, Fiscal Cliff Notes breaks down the looming "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and deep automatic spending cuts set to hit around the first of year.

About 80 percent of Americans would see their taxes go up if all the tax cuts signed into law by President George W. Bush were to expire as scheduled at the end of this year. And nearly 100 percent of the highest income earners would have to pay more — including both the Obamas and the Romneys.

The Boston Globe reported new details Friday about Mitt Romney's lingering ties to his private equity firm, Bain Capital, after he left Boston to run the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

The Globe says Romney was "not merely an absentee owner" between 1999 and 2002, despite financial disclosure forms that say he "has not been involved in the operations" of Bain Capital "in any way," for more than a dozen years.