Romney Rips Obama On the Economy

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright June 10, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

             GOP presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney followed his new campaign script of ripping President Barack Obama on the economy. Republicans strategists    follow the old rule “it’s the economy stupid,” realizing that demonizing the president is the best path to the White House. Calling Barack’s handling of the economy a “moral failure of tragic proportions,” Romney hopes to convince voters that Obama caused the worst recession since the Great Depression. Playing fast-and-loose with the facts, the U.S. economy failed on President George W. Bush’s watch in 2007-08, when the banking system ran out of cash. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan compared the meltdown to the Financial Panic of 1907, eventually leading the Fed’s creation in 1913. Greenspan said the economic recovery would take years to achieve.

            Romney’s approach involves twisting the facts and hanging all U.S. economic woes on Obama. Calling Barack’s poliices “muddled, confused and simply ineffective,” Romney offers no hint of what he would do differently other that suggesting he’d dramatically scale back the federal workforce. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported June 1 a bump in the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 8.2% with the nation adding only 69,000 jobs, Romney called Obama’s policies a failure. Yet when the nation shedded over 100,000 jobs a month for two years under Bush, Mitt said nothing. While not what labor economists wanted, 69,000 jobs are better than losing jobs. Contained in that same report was a loss of 15,000 government jobs. Barack has tried to push a public works jobs programs for two years, only to find it stalled in the Republican-dominated House. Romney’s plan involves slashing government jobs.

              When speaking about the economy, even presidential candidates must stick to the facts and not indoctrinate. “We have waited and waited and waited for recovery, and enough time has passed to pronounce judgment on the economic policies of this administration,” Romney told a GOP campaign rally in St. Louis. “They have not worked. Your government has failed you,” said Mitt, the exact message the GOP pinned on Obama the day he took office. Every time the stock market sells off and takes profit, it’s evidence of a “double-dip” recession—a failure of the Obama policy. In case Mitt hasn’t noticed, the economy has added 4.27 million jobs since March 2010, about half the ones lost during what Geenspan called the worst recession since the Great Depression. Mitt wants to blame Obama but won’t specify clearly what he’d do differently, other than slash jobs and end Obamacare.

              If Mitt read the Congressional Budget Office Report, he’d find out that Obamacare, despite costing about $1 trillion over 10 years, dramatically reduces budget deficits over the same period. Not revenue neutral, Obamacare generates more capital gains and income taxes by fueling the biggest health care expansion in the nation’s history. “I do not believe this has been done with evil intent or ill will,” said Romney. “But for family watching their house being sold at foreclosures, or the family forces to spend their kid’s college savings just to make ends meet, the results are just as devastating.” What does Romney think happened under the last Republican president that pushed for a Medicare drug plan, cut taxes and drove the federal budget deficit into the stratosphere? Romney should know that most Americans have no college savings plans to make ends meet.

           National default and foreclosure rates have slowed under Obama, in part due to tough legislation forcing banks to refinance or modify unreasonable home mortgages. If Romney gets his way and follows the GOP platform, he’ll promote private sector jobs growth by dramatically slashing government jobs. Nobel laureate Columbia University economist Joseph I. Stiglitz believes Romney’s approach would send unemployment soaring and the country back into recession. Romney tells his audiences the nation faces economic disaster under Obama, when, in fact, the Gross Domestic Product continues to grow. “Yet the president tells us he’s doing a great job,” said Romeny. “I will not be that president of deception and doubt. I will lead us to a better place,” but not if you work for federal, state or local government. Romney blames the nation’s economic woes on labor unions and government jobs.

             GOP strategists tell Mitt his only chance of making headway is by demonizing Obama’s economic policies. He must make voters believe him not the Bureau of Labor Statistics or any other reputable source that says that the nation continues crawl out from underneath the worst recession since the Great Depression. Everyone’s impatient wanting a return to boom times. But no one wants to return to the same policies that slashed taxes while dramatically increasing government spending. Stiglitz urges the Congress with its 14.8% approval ratings to spend more money and generate more government jobs, the surest path toward recovery. Romney’s economic plan calls for slashing government jobs and praying that the private sector picks up the slack. With the economy regaining a pulse, the last thing it needs is slashing government jobs, more unemployment and bigger deficits.

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