Romney Rattled by Obama's Financial Questions

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 16, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

                Republican presidential nominee 65-year-old former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney went on the offense, blasting President Barack Obama for “falsehood and dishonesty,” with respect to recent attacks on Mitt’s work record at Bain Capital.  Romney rejects the idea the he shipped American jobs overseas when completing leveraged buyout of distressed companies.  With the record clear that many folks lost jobs in Bain Capital’s distress sales, Romney quibbles over when he left the company as CEO.  Obama’s folks contend that Mitt was still the Security Exchange Commission’s CEO in 2001, two years after Romney insists he left Bain to run the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.  Whatever the details, there’s nothing wrong with Bain’s leveraged buyout practice of using mass layoffs to rehab distressed companies, sweeping liabilities off the balance sheets.

            Preaching to the choir on “Fox and Friends,” Romney blasted former Obama chief of staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for telling him to stop “whining.”  “I think when people accuse you of a crime you have a reason to go after them pretty hard, and I’m going to continue going after him,” Romney told Fox & Friends’ Alisyn Camerota and Clayton Morris.  Since announcing his candidacy June 11, 2011, Romney has bashed Obama for practically everything.  Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, the former Wall Street venture capitalist finds himself on the defensive.  “What does it say about a president whose record is poor that all he can do in his campaign is attack me,” said Romney, in a classic of “the pot calling the kettle black.” Romney hasn’t said one good thing about the nation’s 52-year-old first African American president, handed the worst economy since the Great Depression.

            Obama’s done nothing wrong questioning Romney’s economic chops, especially his offshore investments and Swiss bank accounts.  There’s been no presidential candidate in modern history that refused to release multiple years of tax returns until Romney.  Romney’s the first to bash recent Labor Department reports about the country adding about 80,000 jobs in June.  He sees this a signs of economic failure yet was mum when the nation lost over 200,000 jobs a month under former President George W. Bush.  No sooner that Obama raised his right hand and took his oath Jan. 20, 2009, the GOP placed the blame on him.  Is it really “dishonest” and “misdirected” to acknowledge, as former Fed Chairman Greenspan pointed out, that climbing out of Bush’s recession would take years?  Romney, a Wall Street guy, hasn’t given Obama any credit for dramatically improving the Dow Jones Industrials.

            When Obama took office, the Dow stood at around 8,000, now stands at around 12,700, about a 65% increase.  Yet there’s no credit from Mitt only veiled suggestions that somehow he’d do things better.  Mitt bashed Obamacare, despite uncanny similarity to the health care program he passed April 12, 2006 called the Commonwealth Health Connector Authority, affording health insurance to Massachusetts’ residents.  Mitt had nothing good to say when Barack rolled the dice and ended May 1, 2011 Bin Laden’s 20-year reign of terror against the U.S.  Calling Barack’s politics a “campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty,” Romney feels the heat now that the attacks have come back to bite him.  As long as Mitt’s slinging the mud, then it’s simply stating the gospel.  Romney never talks about what he’d do differently, only nitpicking and blaming Barack for everything that’s wrong.

            Mitt spends much time blasting Obama for not creating enough new jobs.  When Ford announced July 2 that it’s hiring 12,000 new U.S. autoworkers, Romney shrugged.  Romney opposed Obama’s Feb. 17, 2009 $787 billion bailout that rescued the U.S. auto industry, saving thousands of jobs at General Motors and Chrysler.  While Ford took no bailout funds, it benefited from the economic improvement and turnaround in the U.S. auto industry.  Autoworkers in Michigan, Ohio, Iowa and Illinois would be on welfare and food stamps had Barack not bailed out Detroit.  Romney’s view was “let ‘em go under.”  If Romney’s really being honest, he’d have to acknowledge the economic progress from the pit of the 2007-08 financial meltdown that practically destroyed U.S. banking industry.  Romney’s now blasting Obama for asking him to release more years of tax returns.

            Romney talks of Barack’s “falsehood and dishonesty” but has he really leveled with the public about how the Bush administration left the country in economic ruins?  Without specifying what he’d do differently, he keeps bashing Obama for raising taxes when he knows current tax rates are too low to sustain government programs without sizable budget deficits.   When the Office of Management and Budget announced April 11 that the U.S. budget deficit could drop in 2012 to under $1 trillion, Romney ignored the good news.  Romney talks about “falsehood and dishonesty” but doesn’t acknowledge anything positive about the economy only bad news.  Romney must convince voters to listen to him, not the Labor Department, Congressional Budget Office or OMB.  With Romney’s wealth in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, is it really too much to ask for more tax returns?

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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