Romney Rips Obama on August Jobs Report

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Sept 10, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

                GOP presidential nominee former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ripped President Obama for today’s August jobs report showing that the nation added only 96,000 non-farm payroll jobs, though the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3% to 8.1%.  Proving how Romney likes to exploit Labor Department data to bolster his campaign, last month he blasted for the president for the unemployment rate rising from 8.1% to 8.3%.  This time around, he says nothing about the unemployment rate dropping, only focusing on the jobs number.  Last month, Romney ignored the 163,000 new jobs and practically asked Obama to resign for the bump in the unemployment rate to 8,3%.  Now Mitt says Obama should be ashamed of himself for the meager jobs growth.  Looking for only bad news, Romney prays the lethargic economy helps sell himself to disgruntled voters in November.

            No matter what the economic news, the GOP interprets any data as proof of Obama’s incompetence.  When Obama took to the podium of the DNC convention in Charlotte, he told voters the economy was moving in the right direction, mentioning the over 4.5 million jobs created since the economy bottomed out in March 2010.  Former President Bill Clinton echoed that sentiment the night before saying no one could have fixed the deeply damaged economy Barack inherited from former President George W. Bush in only four years.  Romney doesn’t like to quote former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan who stated during the 2007-08 economic crisis that it would take years, maybe a decade, to fix the economy.  Yet Romney and the GOP want Obama’s head.  Romney said he was “disappointed and surprised” by Obama’s speech, even though he admitted to not hearing it.

            Romney’s got plenty of criticism but hasn’t yet said what he and his VP pick House Budget Director Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will do to fix the economy.  Obama said bailing out the General Motors and Chrysler was a positive first step in helping generate more jobs in the auto industry.  GM and Chrysler faced bankruptcy in 2009 before Barack rescued them with part of the Feb. 17, 2009 $700 billion bailout bill.  When Ford announced Oct 7, 2011 it would add 12,000 jobs to the U.S. market, Romney and the GOP said nothing.  Romney and Ryan opposed Obama’s Detroit bailout.  “This report [Labor Department] underscores President Obama’s failed promise to get our economy moving again,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), knowing, full well, that thousands of auto workers have returned to work in his home state of Ohio since the president took office Jan. 20, 2009.

            Republicans aren’t willing to look back before Obama’s Inauguration Day.  They mention nothing about the past GOP administration that watched the nation lose over 200,000 jobs a month, under the same economic policies now proposed by Romney and Ryan.  Clinton warned in his speech to not go back to fix today’s economic problems with the same policies that brought it about.  “Today we learned that the economy added 96,000 jobs in August, making 30-consecutive months of private sector growth,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), the Democratic Chairman of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee.  Romney and Ryan know that summer economic doldrums don’t help the Labor Department jobs report.  Despite the modest gain in jobs, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke isn’t quite ready to start more bond-buying AKA QE3 before the September jobs report.

            Romney and the GOP’s only hope of beating Obama in November is convincing voters that the nation’s in dire straits.  He keeps telling voter the nation’s worse of than it was four years ago.  Clearly, if you’re an autoworker in the Midwest you’re not worse off.  If you’re a Wall Street investor, you’re far better off today with the Dow Jones Industrials at today’s 13,306 than 8,000 when Obama took office.  If you’re a soldier on the front lines in Iraq, you’re better off than four years ago.  If you’re worried about Osama bin Laden and global terrorism, you’re better off than when Barack took office.  Romney and Ryan want the nation to forget which commander-in-chief ended Bin Laden’s 20-year reign of terror.  They want voters to forget it was Barack that bailed out GM and Chrysler, now making profit and adding jobs.  Voters know that the 51-year old African American president isn’t Superman.

            Romney’s new tact is that Obama didn’t deliver on all his campaign promises so he should be replaced.  What president delivers on all his campaign promises?  Ending the Iraq War, winding down the Afghan War, getting Bin Laden and helping fix the U.S. auto industry is a pretty good start.  As Clinton said:  No president can’t fix everything, especially the current oil monopoly that gouges consumers at the pumps.  “The number of middle income families who have seen the cost of health care insurance go up, the cost of food go up, the cost of gasoline go up, even as their incomes have gone down.  I expected him [Obama] to talk about these things,” said Mitt, showing how disingenuous his complaints.  Mitt won’t give Barack any credit for trying to fix soaring health insurance costs, asking oil companies to show more restraint and supporting union jobs that protect workers’ wages and benefits.

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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