Romney, Obama Play Defense on 60 Minutes

New Obama ad slams Mitt on taxes
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 24, 2012 7:43 AM CDT
Updated Sep 24, 2012 7:51 AM CDT
Romney, Obama Play Defense on 60 Minutes
In this Sept. 16, 2012 image provided by CBS, Mitt Romney, right, talks with “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley in Boston.   (AP Photo/CBS)

President Obama is unleashing the latest attack on Mitt Romney's taxes, following the candidates' dueling appearances on 60 Minutes last night, referencing his 47% comments as well as questions over his own tax rate. "Maybe instead of attacking others on taxes, he should come clean on his," intones the ad, which the AP notes begins airing today in Ohio. Highlights from 60 Minutes:

  • Taxes were in the spotlight during Romney's interview, as he defended his own 14.1% tax rate, Politico reports. It's the "right way to encourage economic growth—to get people to invest, to start businesses, to put people to work," he said.
  • Romney also discussed health care, pointing out that an uninsured heart attack victim isn't left to "sit in their apartment and die." Instead, there's the ER: "We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care." Interesting, notes the Huffington Post, because Romney said the opposite on Morning Joe in 2010: "Look, it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility."

  • Obama was similarly on the defensive, notes the Los Angeles Times, as he responded to Romney's suggestion he's been weak on defense. If the former governor "is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so," Obama said.
  • The president acknowledged the frustrations of his job, Politico adds. His "biggest disappointment": not changing "the tone in Washington." "I’m the first one to confess that the spirit that I brought to Washington, where we weren’t constantly in a political slugfest but were focused more on problem-solving ... I haven’t fully accomplished that," he said.
(More President Obama stories.)

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