Over the final weeks of the campaign, voters will hear from each candidate on their plans to fund Pell Grants for students who plan to pursue a college education. President Obama has doubled funding for Pell Grants, helping nearly 4 million more students to better access and afford college. Moving forward, he will continue to support the program so that students will see their maximum grant increase to keep up with inflation in the coming year. President Obama knows that if education is the gateway to the middle class, then Pell Grants are the key for millions of Americans.

At the first debate, Romney said, “I don’t have any plan to cut education funding and grants that got to people going to college.” Once again, Romney’s proposals just don’t add up. The Romney-Ryan budget, authored by his running mate, would slash discretionary funding by 20% across the board, and as a result could slash Pell Grants by about $1,000 per student. Ryan also proposes to eliminate non-discretionary funding for the program entirely, making the program more vulnerable to year-to-year budgetary changes. And without addressing how we would replace this funding, Ryan nearly triples the current budget shortfall for the program over the next 10 years.

On top of this, Romney promises to roll back the President’s student loan reforms that ended more than $60 billion in bank subsidies in order to invest in Pell Grants, community colleges, and deficit reduction. He would let the president’s college tax credit expire, worth up to $10,000 over four years of college. When asked what students should do to afford college, Romney’s offered his best advice: “Shop around.”

President Obama knows that when it comes to educating our way to prosperity, we are all in it together. In fact, according to the College Board, community colleges and private universities are more affordable today than they were five years ago thanks in large part to the president’s investments in college scholarships.

Pell Grants have helped millions of Americans achieve their fullest potential by not only opening the doors to college, but providing the resources necessary to complete their studies and succeed in today’s economy. As Election Day nears, Romney may sing a different tune on Pell Grants and other programs important to middle-class voters, but the notes are the same. If cuts are made across the board, Romney could slash Pell Grants for students and other key investments in innovation, clean energy, and education. His plan is a choice we just can’t afford.

"If you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth."—President Obama

At the debate last night, Mitt Romney promised to repeal Obamacare—but he didn’t lay out a single, specific idea to protect millions of Americans who are already benefiting from the law, or the millions more who will gain coverage in the years to come. And nowhere was his evasiveness more clear or more disappointing than when it came to the issue of covering people with pre-existing conditions.

Half of Americans under age 65 have a pre-existing health condition, and making sure they have access to health insurance was one of the President’s top priorities with Obamacare. Romney has pledged to do away with the comprehensive protections the health care law provides—saying he would repeal Obamacare and “kill it dead” on his first day in office.

Last night, he stood on the debate stage and told the country, “I do have a plan that deals with people with pre-existing conditions.” But he simply wasn’t telling the truth. The plan he’s talking about only protects people who have been “continuously covered,” meaning that they haven’t had any gaps in health insurance coverage. As Romney explained in July, “People who have a pre-existing condition, who’ve been insured in the past are able to get insurance in the future.” Immediately after the debate, Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom emphasized the same thing, saying, “What Governor Romney has said is for those with continuous coverage, he would continue to make sure that they receive their coverage.”

Since Romney’s plan only helps people who already have health insurance, it leaves a lot of people out. In fact, 89 million Americans have had a gap in health care coverage. That means Romney’s plan does nothing to help them get coverage or protect them if they develop arthritis, survive breast cancer, or discover they have high blood pressure.

But there’s another—even bigger—problem with the plan Mitt Romney is trying to sell the country: It’s already the law. Since 1996, federal law has protected people with pre-existing conditions if they have already have insurance. So not only does his so-called “plan” leave 89 million people at risk, it’s also not even a change from the status quo.

President Obama fought to reform the health care system because he believes Americans deserve affordable health care—and he knew the old system wasn’t working. Thanks to Obamacare, insurance companies won’t be able to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, insurers will be barred from charging women higher premiums than they charge men, and more than 3 million young adults gained health care coverage because of the provision allowing young adults under 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance. By repealing Obamacare entirely, Romney would eliminate all these benefits and once again subject middle-class families to the whims of insurance companies’ bottom lines.

Governor Romney has a problem: There is only one way to pay for his $5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, and that’s higher middle class taxes. Since Governor Romney won’t release his own plan, he is desperately attacking the President’s plan to distract voters.

Yesterday, he claimed that President Obama’s plan would raise middle class taxes by $4,000. What he didn’t mention was that, by the same math, the middle class would pay $5,300 unless we act on the President’s deficit plan. In other words, the study—if taken at face value—shows the President’s budget is actually a $1,300 tax cut.

The President has put forward a plan that reduces the deficit by over $4 trillion over the next decade without raising taxes on any middle-class families. And it has nothing to do with how the President has proposed to address our deficit challenges—which includes a combination of spending cuts and additional revenues from the wealthiest Americans. Instead, the American Enterprise Institute paper attempts to illustrate the costs of deficits by asking how much interest on the deficit would cost taxpayers if it was all paid for by higher taxes.

It’s all on page 15 of the report. If you look at the middle-class families Romney is describing—those earning between $100,000 and $200,000—you’ll see that their current “tax burden” based on projected deficits over the next decade is $3,743. If the President’s deficit reduction plan were enacted, that number would decline to $2,453. That’s a nearly $1,300 tax cut.

The Romney campaign comes to their conclusion by attributing the costs of the deficits in the 14 years between 2009 and 2022 to the President—even though the deficits in President Obama’s first term were largely due to prior policies and the recession, and his plan would cut the deficit in half by 2014, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office.

Of course, if Romney did the same misleading math he applies to the President in his ad to his own budget plan, he’d find that he is “raising middle class taxes” even more. Using Romney’s own math, unless he fully eliminated the deficit on the day he took office—a step that he himself admits would devastate the economy—he would be “raising middle class taxes.” And since Romney has proposed $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in added defense spending that he would need to pay for before he makes even a dollar of progress towards deficit reduction, his plan would show thousands of dollars in tax increases himself.

But here’s the thing: We don’t need to distort hypothetical studies to show that Romney’s tax plan would raise middle class taxes. Romney just needs to ask his own advisors who have made it clear that the only way his tax plan add up is by raising taxes on the very taxpayers he is talking about in his ad.

"If you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth."—President Obama

Among the numerous false attacks Mitt Romney launched last night was his claim that the President invested $90 billion in green energy businesses of which "about half" have failed. But as the Washington Post notes, this claim comes "nowhere near" the truth.

The $90 billion was a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and was a down payment toward our goals of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and rebuilding the economy in the short- and long-term. As CNN points out, not even half of the Recovery Act funding for clean energy went directly to green businesses. In fact, some of the major investments made by the Recovery Act included funding the weatherization of hundreds of thousands of low-income homes and the clean-up of hundreds of miles of land used for nuclear testing.

A piece of that funding was the Obama administration's investments through the Department of Energy’s loan program which included grants, loan guarantees, and loans to the clean energy industry, and are expected to support tens of thousands of jobs across the country. These investments have supported one of the world's largest wind farms in eastern Oregon, solar power plants in Arizona, and Ford's production of fuel-efficient cars. And as CNN notes, "most of the large projects that benefited from the Department of Energy loan program remain in operation—contrary to Romney's assertion." In fact, companies that filed for bankruptcy received just 4%of the funding awarded to clean energy companies through the Energy Department’s loan program.

Romney coupled this attack with another demonstrably misleading claim: "Now, I like green energy as well," he said. But his rhetoric doesn't match his actual energy plan, which would cede the clean energy economy to China. His “view that the government should cut off aid to renewable energy"—such as the wind production tax credit—won’t help us develop these new sources. He even suggested that wind and solar are “imaginary” sources of energy. In fact, Romney zeroes out federal incentives for solar, wind, and renewable businesses in his energy plan that was developed in consultation with oil and gas executives. Perhaps that is why he'll maintain the $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil.

Learn more about the clear choice Americans have on moving the country towards an energy independent future here.

"If you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth."—President Obama

At the first debate, Mitt Romney repeated the false claim that President Obama made $716 billion in cuts to Medicare and has no plan to protect the program. This falsehood has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers—the $716 billion doesn’t cut benefits and doesn’t harm beneficiaries. The facts show that Obamacare reduces the rate of growth in Medicare spending by eliminating waste and inefficiencies, adding an additional eight years of solvency to the program while guaranteeing that every benefit remains in place.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, admitted once again that he would turn Medicare into a voucher system, which could raise retirees’ annual costs by more than $6,000 a year based on an analysis of his current plan. Romney’s categorically false attack cannot hide the fact that he and Paul Ryan would force seniors to pay more out of pocket for their Medicare benefits. And in addition to increasing beneficiaries’ costs, Romney’s plan could actually bankrupt Medicare by 2016.

The AARP endorsed Obamacare because it extends the life of Medicare by nearly a decade by reducing unnecessary insurance company subsidies and rooting out waste and fraud. President Obama’s reforms target wasteful programs and ensure that taxpayer money is efficiently filtered back into the health care system, allowing seniors to get preventive care without copays and pay less out of pocket for prescription drugs. In fact, by 2020, the “doughnut hole”—or coverage gap in Medicare Part D—will be eliminated.

Mitt Romney is resorting to such blatant distortions because he knows his plan to voucherize Medicare is extremely unpopular with seniors—after all, who wants to see their benefits diminish while their health care costs skyrocket?

The first 2012 presidential debate starts tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET. Here’s how you can tune in, and play a big role:

1. Starting at 8:30 p.m. ET, you can follow the live blog here while watching live coverage of the debate. Then make sure to stick around after the program to hear a special campaign message from Vice President Joe Biden.

2. Help get the word out to your friends and family, during and after the debate. If you’re on Twitter, make sure to use the hashtag #ForwardNotBack, and follow these accounts:

• Follow @Obama2012, where you can retweet President Obama’s best lines of the night

• Follow @Students4Obama, where actor Kal Penn will live-tweet the debate

• Follow @TruthTeam2012, where you can retweet real-time fact checks

Thanks for being a part of this important moment.

Rather than offer any specifics at the debates, Mitt Romney will rely on canned “zingers” to smear the President’s record and distract voters from his plan to double down on the failed trickle-down policies of the past. Here’s a cheat sheet to help you cut through five of Romney’s most egregious false attacks:

1. Small business: President Obama has consistently fought to help small businesses grow by cutting taxes and making it easier for them to invest and create jobs. As independent fact checkers and news organizations have repeatedly noted, Romney intentionally took the President’s words out of context in an attempt to imply that the President was somehow insulting small business owners—rather than discussing the crucial public investments that help them grow. Take a look at what the President actually said and learn more about the stark contrast between President Obama’s support for small businesses and Romney’s plan that would make it harder for small businesses to hire and expand.

2. Medicare: Even though the claim has been thoroughly debunked, Romney continues to charge that President Obama “robbed” $716 billion from Medicare. That’s just false. The facts show that Obamacare reduces the rate of growth in Medicare spending by eliminating waste and inefficiencies—the $716 billion is a projection of the savings incurred by reducing future spending over a period of 10 years. Every single guaranteed benefit remains in place. Romney, on the other hand, has proposed turning Medicare into a voucher system, which could raise retirees’ annual costs by more than $6,000 a year—based on an analysis of his current plan. Romney’s categorically false attack cannot hide the fact that he and Paul Ryan would force seniors to pay more out of pocket for their Medicare benefits. Click here to learn more about this attack.

3. Welfare: President Obama is a strong supporter of welfare-to-work programs. He recently gave states flexibility to help move more people from assistance to employment as quickly as possible—a policy that many Republican governors, including Romney himself, have requested. But Romney has decided to falsely—and repeatedly—claim that the President has somehow weakened welfare-to-work requirements—an allegation that independent fact checkers declared “mind-boggling,” “blatantly false,” and “a huge and shameless deception.” Click here to learn more about this patently false attack.

4. Health care: President Obama signed the health care law to make health care affordable for all Americans and ensure that insurance companies will no longer deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Even though the health care reform Mitt Romney championed in Massachusetts is the model for Obamacare, Romney has taken to launching a series of false statements and distortions about the law in order to score political points. Here are the facts: Obamacare improves the private health care system, strengthens the insurance plan you currently have, reduces the deficit, and offers the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. Click here to see what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to Obamacare.

5. Taxes: In an effort to distract from voters from his own “mathematically impossible” tax plan, Romney has been keen on falsely smearing the President’s record on taxes. But the facts show that President Obama has cut taxes by $3,600 for the typical middle-class family over his first term and signed 18 tax cuts for small businesses. Romney even admitted it himself when he told voters in Ohio that there is “one thing [President Obama] did not do in his first four years…which is to raise taxes.” In contrast to President Obama’s plan, which cuts taxes for 98% of American families while asking the wealthiest few to pay their fair share to help pay down the deficit, Romney’s plan would give a $5 trillion tax cut weighted towards millionaires and billionaires paid for by raising taxes on middle-class families with kids by an average of $2,000.

Watch Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter discuss what you need to know before tonight’s presidential debate in Denver—then share this video with your friends and family to help get the facts out.

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Tonight’s debate will crystalize the clear choice we face in this election. While President Obama will lay out his specific plan to grow the economy and restore middle-class security, Mitt Romney will no doubt double down on his well-established strategy of attacking the president, distorting his own record, and avoiding any and all details of his plans for this country.

Here are the three most important areas that highlight the stark difference between the two candidates:

1. The deficit

   • Mitt Romney will no doubt claim that he’ll cut the deficit, but his math just doesn’t add up. In fact, independent analysts say that in order to give his promised $5 trillion tax cut favoring millionaires and billionaires, Romney would have to either raise middle class taxes—by an average of 2,000 on the typical middle-class family with kids—or explode the deficit. At the same time, he plans to set aside $2 trillion in new defense spending that the Pentagon didn't even ask for. Romney claims he can make up the gap by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions, but he won’t say which ones because he knows the numbers don’t add up—as President Bill Clinton said, “It’s arithmetic.”

   • President Obama inherited a record deficit ballooned by two costly wars, two tax cuts that weren't paid for, and a historic economic collapse. He made the hard decisions necessary to rescue the country from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and has since cut spending by a trillion dollars. The President has put forward a specific, balanced plan of spending cuts and revenue increases that reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade. His plan cuts annual domestic spending to its lowest level as a share of our economy since President Eisenhower by reining in defense spending based on the advice of our military leaders, reforming Medicare by reducing the cost of health care, asking the wealthiest Americans to pay higher taxes on income over $250,000, and closing corporate loopholes and wasteful tax subsidies to big oil companies.

2. Jobs

   • Romney says he'd create 12 million jobs as president. What he won't tell you is that independent economists project that we're already on track to create that many jobs on our current path. But Romney wants to go back to the same trickle-down policies that got us in trouble in the first place, and independent analysts say Romney’s plan could actually cost nearly 2 million American jobs over two years. Romney would protect tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and encourage outsourcing by eliminating taxes on companies’ foreign profits. One study found that Romney’s plan would actually create 800,000 jobs in other countries. And Romney would slash funding for education and job skills training even as he gives new deep tax breaks to the wealthy.

   • When President Obama took office, the American economy was in free-fall, losing 800,000 jobs a month. Now, we've had 30 straight months of economic growth and businesses have created nearly 5.1 million new jobs since President Obama took office. Thanks to President Obama’s decision to save the auto industry, manufacturing jobs are on the rise—don’t count on Mitt Romney to mention that he said we should have “let Detroit go bankrupt.” Unlike Romney, the President will outline his specific, concrete plan to boost employment immediately by investing in education and renewable energy. Indeed, independent economists estimate that President Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act would create 1 million new jobs next year without adding a dime to the deficit.

3. Taxes

   • Romney won’t give specifics on his tax plan because it’s “mathematically impossible.” Fortunately, independent tax experts have filled in the blanks, and even when making the most generous assumptions, they can’t make his plan add up. That’s because it’s impossible to give a $5 trillion tax cut favoring the wealthiest without increasing the deficit or raising middle class taxes by eliminating deductions families rely on, like the home mortgage interest deduction. And don’t expect Romney to be any more honest about his record in Massachusetts: The facts show that while Romney passed tax cuts that favored Massachusetts’ wealthiest citizens and its biggest corporations, he raised or created more than 1,000 taxes and fees—on everything from milk to driver’s licenses—that hit the Bay State’s middle class and small businesses.

   • President Obama, on the other hand, said he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000, and he hasn't. In fact, the typical middle-class family has seen a $3,600 tax cut over the last four years, and the President has cut small business taxes 18 times. President Obama will make sure millionaires aren’t paying lower tax rates than middle-class families, but instead paying the same rate as under President Clinton. And unlike Romney, President Obama will eliminate tax breaks for companies that send jobs and profits overseas so that good jobs are created right here in the U.S.

The first of four 2012 debates takes place this Wednesday, October 3rd, at 9:00 p.m. ET at the University of Denver, Colorado.

Moderated by Jim Lehrer, President Obama and Mitt Romney will be talking about domestic policy: the economy, health care, the role of government, and governing.

We’ll be bringing you everything you need to know before, during, and after the debate right here on barackobama.com/debate, from what to look out for on the night to how to get involved where you are—plus live coverage of all the action and reactions.

It will be a busy month for the debaters—the second debate is on October 11th, with Vice President Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, followed by two more with the President and Mitt Romney on October 16th and 22nd.

Keep checking back for more.