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highplainsdem

(48,957 posts) Tue Jan 24, 2012, 12:08 PM Jan 2012

DNC Fires Off 7-Point Attack On Romney’s Record

http://news.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/dnc-fires-off-7-point-attack-on-romneys-record.php

I'm going to quote this in its entirety since the DNC letter is in effect a press release:

From: Democratic National Committee

To: Interested Parties

Date: January 24, 2012

RE: Seven Things You Won’t Hear about Mitt Romney’s Economic Record in His Speech Today

Today, Mitt Romney will deliver a major campaign speech aimed at distorting the President’s record and vision in advance of tonight’s State of the Union address. Romney knows that unlike President Obama, who will focus tonight on laying out a blueprint for an America that’s built to last and where hard work and responsibility are rewarded, he can’t win by running on his own record. That’s because it turned out to be an absolute disaster for America’s working and middle-class families. So today, you’ll hear plenty from Mitt Romney as he continues to say anything to get elected - but here are seven things about Romney’s real record and policies that we can guarantee you won’t hear today.

#1 - ROMNEY ENRICHED HIMSELF BY FIRING WORKERS, CUTTING BENEFITS AND PENSIONS

From day one, Mitt Romney has staked his whole campaign on the claim that his “real world” experience as a so-called job creator in the private sector makes him uniquely qualified to lead our nation. But a closer look at Romney’s actual record as a corporate raider for Bain Capital shows a very different picture.

According to a Los Angeles Times article last month examining Mitt Romney’s job creation record at Bain, “Under Romney’s leadership, Bain became one of the nation’s top leveraged-buyout firms, helping lead a trend in which companies were acquired using debt often pledged against their own assets or earnings.” Furthermore, “like other leveraged-buyout firms, Romney and his team also maximized returns by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly.”

One such company was GS Industries - a steel mill in Kansas City that was acquired by Bain Capital and where, as the article notes, “More than 700 workers were fired, losing not only their jobs but health insurance, severance and a chunk of their pension benefits. GSI retirees also lost their health insurance and other benefits.” As for Mitt Romney and his business partners, “Bain partners received about $50 million on their initial investment, a 100% gain.”

#2 - ROMNEY’S FORMER COLLEAGUE SAID THEIR GOAL WAS NEVER TO CREATE JOBS - IT WAS TO CREATE WEALTH

Serious doubt has been cast on Mitt Romney’s assertion that he was trying to create jobs during his time at Bain Capital. But perhaps the most telling disclosure of all came from Marc B. Walpow, a former managing partner at Bain who worked closely with Romney for nine years. As Walpow recently told the Los Angeles Times, “I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation. The primary goal of private equity is to create wealth for your investors.”

#3 - ROMNEY’S RECORD AS A CORPORATE RAIDER AT BAIN COST 850 FLORIDA WORKERS THEIR JOBS

Hardworking Americans in any number of communities across the country could tell you firsthand the very real impacts of Mitt Romney’s years at Bain. That was certainly the case at Dade Behring, a medical-equipment company in Florida. After Bain bought the company and ran it into the ground, 850 workers in Miami - and twice as many nationwide - lost their jobs.

In the words of Cindy Hewitt, a Miami resident who served as human resources manager at Dade Behring, “What bothers me most is that Romney’s campaign says he was a creator of jobs. I didn’t see that in any way, shape or form. He didn’t create jobs. He slashed and burned jobs.”

But what was devastating to hundreds of Floridians and their families was good news to Mitt Romney. As the New York Times reported last November, Bain made nearly $250 million, but it came at a very high cost: “At Bain Capital’s direction, Dade quadrupled the money it owed creditors and vendors. It took steps that propelled the business toward bankruptcy.”

#4 - WITH ROMNEY AS GOVERNOR, MASSACHUSETTS PLUMMETED TO 47TH OUT OF 50 IN JOB CREATION WHILE WAGES AND INCOME FELL

With respect to creating jobs, Mitt Romney didn’t do much better in the public sector. In fact, with Romney at the helm as the Governor of Massachusetts, the state fell to 47th out of 50th in job creation. Furthermore, Massachusetts residents saw their incomes and wages fall. According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, between 2003 and 2005, the typical worker in Massachusetts had a decline in wages close to five percent, “the largest decline in the country during that period.” Additionally, under then-Governor Romney, U.S. Census data shows that the median household income in Massachusetts decreased $1,963 in real terms.

#5 - UNDER ROMNEY’S LEADERSHIP, MANUFACTURING DECLINED BY TWICE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE AND GOVERNMENT JOB GROWTH INCREASED 6 TIMES THE RATE OF PRIVATE SECTOR GROWTH

But that wasn’t the end of the bad news for Massachusetts workers under Mitt Romney. For all of Romney’s tall tales about his “real-world” experience in business - which was once a central premise of his campaign for Massachusetts governor, just as it is today - the reality is that for every one private sector job that was created in Massachusetts, there were six government jobs created. Given this record, it’s odd to see Mitt Romney out on the campaign trail railing against public sector jobs - where was Mitt Romney the anti-government crusader back then?

And manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts declined by twice the national average - which as the Boston Globe reported was the “third worst record in the country.”

#6 - ROMNEY’S TAX PLAN HURTS WORKING AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS BUT GIVES HEFTY TAX CUT TO WEALTHIEST FEW

Mitt Romney has said that his tax plan is designed to help middle-class families. But the truth is that Romney’s tax plan would actually increase the federal budget deficit and give more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while providing little or no relief to the middle class and those still working to get there.

Under Romney’s plan, people making more than $1 million would get an average tax cut of $146,000, while many middle class and working families would actually see their taxes increase. This plan shows just how out of touch Mitt Romney really is. He’s out there advocating for a plan that gives more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires while working families foot the bill, and he’s wondering why his support among middle-class voters has cratered?

#7 - MITT ROMNEY WANTS TO LET WALL STREET WRITE ITS OWN RULES AGAIN

Mitt Romney apparently prefers an economy where fewer people succeed while most Americans get left behind. That’s why he wants to roll back President Obama’s financial reforms and let Wall Street write its own rules again, and he wants to return to the same policies that caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Why doesn’t Romney think America’s working and middle-class families deserve basic protections from the same Wall Street greed and recklessness that already put so many of them at risk?

CONCLUSION

With all of the damage that Mitt Romney has already caused for working and middle-class Americans - in both the private and public sectors - it’s not hard to see why Mitt Romney would be quick to change the subject. For Romney, the truth hurts - and that’s why today, you’ll see him try to dodge accountability by launching false attacks against President Obama and his vision for restoring our economic security. But voters deserve better. They deserve to know exactly what Mitt Romney’s leadership has looked like for middle-class folks and those still struggling to get there. And once they see Romney’s real record, they’ll know exactly why he continues to run from it every single day.