But Romney's job creation record in Massachusetts is nothing for him to brag about--especially when he emphasizes his business prowess--which did not do much for him while he was governor of Massachusetts during an economic slump:
"...Romney’s record from his days as Massachusetts governor paints a different portrait, that of a politician who swept into office with big promises and a Harvard MBA but who failed to create a meaningful number of jobs for his home state and lacked a clear, concrete economic vision.
Economists from Massachusetts also say Romney was never able to solve the structural problems inherent in the state’s economy — issues that now plague the country as a whole and will challenge whoever becomes president in 2013 -- such as the decline in manufacturing and the dearth of employment for less-educated, low-income workers.
'There is nothing in his record as governor that shows he knows how to address economic failures,' says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. 'The thing that’s bothered me most about the Romney campaign is this major distortion of his record. ' ”
Romney and his campaign team will continue to try to convince voters that he has the experience to lead this country into prosperity--better than what Mr. Obama has accomplished under the worst possible circumstances.
But the facts prove otherwise.
As a job destroyer with Bain Capital and a less than mediocre job creator in Massachusetts as governor, Romney needs to deal with political reality and not pandering rhetoric.
You probably know that one of the GOP's go-to lies is bashing President Obama's jobs record.
Mitt Romney's called him a job destroyer, claiming that the President "has not created any new jobs."
But no matter how the GOP tries to twist data to conform to their lies, this chart cannot be denied.
These are the facts, not fiction.
46 comments:
Obama's auto industry takeover threw tens of thousands out of work, so Obama still beats Romney as #1 job destroyer.
And this...
"When Obama took office in 2009, there were slightly over 13.4 million. As of December 2011, there were about 11.8 million."
http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=6338:factchecking-obamas-state-of-the-union-speech-part-1-jobs
Obama's Car Czar: I think the ad is unfair."
This ain't the McCain campaign. Watch the Romneyites eat Obama's lunch.
The hopium has dissipated, and Obama has descended from Mount Olympus. This ain't a cakewalk. The Obama campaign is going to have to amp up its game, and chump change BS like this won't cut it.
I didn't watch the ad before I posted my last comments. I assume you are aware that GST Steel closed in 2001. I also assume you knew Romney left Bain to organize the Olympics. Bain Capital closed the plant no Romney. If they want to blame someone blame Jonathan Lavine, a big Obama supporter and contributor.
Blaming Romney for the closure of GST is like blaming Bush for the sorry state of the economy in 2010, oops guess Obama did that.
Obama's handlers really need to do a better job of twisting facts that are so easy to refute.
How many would have been thrown out of work had GM and Chrysler been allowed to go out of business SF?
The fact is Romney has no plan. He just says he does. When pressed it's the same old failed republican bullshit about screwing union members and cutting taxes for the "job creators."
The "job creators" still have their Bush tax cuts so the republican "plan" has been time proven to be a lie.
Yet you defend them SF.
101
GM and Chrysler were never going out of business, that is just hype. Obama got what he wanted with GM and Chrysler and that is Union ownership at the taxpayers expense. He did sell off or shut down a bug chunk of GM and sold Chrysler to a foreign company. I guess now Chrysler can advertise they are an import.
I am all for everyone paying their "fair" share of taxes. What is the "fair" share for the 48% who pay nothing.
In fact they were going out of business Skuds.
And why do you repeat the lie that 48% don't pay taxes? have you never heard of sales tax? Phone tax? Gas tax? Payroll tax?
Property tax? State taxes?
Romney jokes about his dad closing a plant in Michigan and the best you can do to be a good servant of the right is repeat lies Skudsy.
pathetic.
Truth,
Right you are that everyone pays some taxes but you know I was referring to Federal Income Tax. The leftists always say the "rich" don't pay their "fair share" but don't define what "fair share" is. Is it 60% or maybe 70%, kinda takes the incentive out of working hard to become successful.
If you were paying attention to the facts, Romney was responsible for investing in a sinking steel plant to keep it alive, he left Bain in 1999 and the steel plant shut down in 2001
How many monikers you got Skuds?
Even rich people like Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan and Warren Buffet support the progressive tax rates dudes.
Your attacks on those who don't benefit from the largess of America as much as Dimon and Buffet and Alex Rodriguez do shows you to be mere sheep doing the bidding of the one percent.
i get really tired of politicians from both sides of the fence taking credit for creating jobs. usually they bribe companies to set up shop in their jurisdiction or poach jobs from another jurisdiction. it just becomes a bidding war with the corporations coming out the winners.
To answer SF's comment:
(BTW, he indirectly admitted Romney IS a job destroyer: SF: "...so Obama still beats Romney as #1 job destroyer."
Glad to see we agree on this, but there is disagreement on SF's comment.)
"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the stimulus act passed in February 2009 saved or created at least 1.4 million jobs.
And a separate study by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics and an advisor to John McCain's presidential campaign, and Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and advisor to President Clinton, estimates that the stimulus act created about 2.7 million jobs.
the Obama administration also saved and created significantly more jobs through its bailout of the U.S. auto industry.
According to a study by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) a Michigan think tank, the bailouts of General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Chrysler Group saved 1.5 million jobs.
And more jobs are likely in the pipeline thanks to hiring plans announced by GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500). CAR estimates that the auto industry will likely add almost 170,000 jobs nationwide by 2014 creating a jobs boom in the auto states of Michigan, Ohio and Gov. Daniels' home state of Indiana."
Was getting ready to jump into the conversation. But decided what the hey. Those who have their minds made up based on only one side of the equation (argument)only are not likely to give a hoot what anyone thinks.
There are a lot of water carriers out there. On either side of the aisle.
Let's take this individual with more positions than the Kama Sutra and out of this discussion for a moment. Let's just consider some generic, quite successful businessman or woman as a prospective president.
Business is, traditionally, about making profit. Since the rise of the financial industry as America's dominant industry over the past 30 years, businesses have shifted their raison d'etre to maximizing profits, no matter what.
Government is about identifying problems and trying to prevent them or minimize harmful impacts on people. Government is about being a traffic cop who makes it possible to keep the crowd of often competing and conflicting interests moving with as few collisions and tie-ups as possible. Government is about seeing to the safety and security of people, physical, financial and otherwise. Most of all, government is about providing services people need and want.
Government is not about, nor should it be about, making a profit. It certainly isn't about maximizing profits.
Can a businessman be a good president? As surely as anything is possible, yes. Is a successful businessman a cinch to be a good president? Not at all. And, history shows a not too surprising lack of ones who have been.
One other thing about business types as president. Some of our best presidents have achieved success and won public confidence and admiration by building consensus on various issues, sometimes with the public, often with Congress. The corporate model is top-down leadership where the boss might or might not seek the advice and input of others, and where he might not always be right but he/she is always the boss. We saw that kind of leadership from Bush and Cheney. It contributed to making a mess out of literally every thing they got their hands on.
S.W.A - Points well made. The same also goes for law instructors and community organizers I suspect.
skudrunner wrote: "The leftists always say the 'rich' don't pay their 'fair share' but don't define what 'fair share' is. Is it 60% or maybe 70%, kinda takes the incentive out of working hard to become successful."
In the late 1940's and early 1950's the top marginal tax rate was more than 90 percent. Did the rich quit running companies and corporations? No. Did they quit investing because, you know, what's the use? No. Did they pile on to boats and planes, renouncing their U.S. citizenship on the way to Rio or wherever? No.
FYI, most of America's wealthiest people were born into wealthy families. Being born to wealth is the single greatest determinant of who will make fortunes.
Last but not least, when you're considering wealth, well-being and incentive, you have to reckon with the real impact of a high tax rate. The person with $30 million in annual after-tax income won't have his or her lifestyle or enjoyment of wealth altered one iota by an 85 percent tax rate. Along the same lines, Bill Gates can't really appreciate any difference in his life from making an additional billion dollars. Past some point of attaining great wealth, additional wealth becomes an abstraction: numbers on a page, entries in a spreadsheet.
Now, if you have some proof high tax rates make the wealthy pack it in, or make those hellbent on becoming wealthy give it up, let's see it. Otherwise, please spare us any repetitions of that stale, groundless political meme.
Thanks SWAnderson for those fine comments. I've never been able to understand how the GOP can reject every compromise that includes a small tax increase for the top 1% of billionaires.
RN: "The same also goes for law instructors and community organizers I suspect."
Law instructers teach, and they don't become billionaires when they do so--profit is not a motive there. Community organizers, like the patriots in our colonial past, help people, with common interests, come together to improve their lives. No profit motive there either.
"Massachusetts ranked third lowest on this key job generation measure and would have ranked second lowest if Hurricane Katrina had not devastated the Louisiana economy. Manufacturing payroll employment throughout the nation declined by nearly 1.1 million or 7 percent between 2002 and 2006, but in Massachusetts it declined by more than 14 percent, the third worst record in the country."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/29/romneys_economic_record/
If it had not been for Katrina, MA would have ranked 48th instead of 47th while Mittens was governor. Not very impressive.
SW Anderson: You want proof? Look at the 1970's.
Post WW II was a historical anomaly. We were the only industrialized economy left standing, so we set the price and dictated terms to the world. There was nowhere else for rich people to invest and get a return.
By the 70's we had gotten fat, dumb and lazy, and the rest of the world started eating our lunch.
The CBO report is an estimate based upon supposition modeling. They did what the democrats who gave them the data asked them to, which is their job.
The CBO report also shows that each job cost $228K to $500K.
Get government off the backs of the private sector, and they can create them for much less than that.
Also helpful to remember, is that this stimulus money went to bankrupt failures like Solyndra, so those "saved" jobs are now lost.
Now, if you have some proof high tax rates make the wealthy pack it in, or make those hellbent on becoming wealthy give it up let's see it
Of course not everyone is afected by their own policies
From the link Anonymous #1 provided:
"Many are going to London, the United States, Singapore and Asia in general. Many are even considering renouncing their nationality, in the event that the taxes will follow them overseas."
And "many" are NOT! How many is "many?"
From Anonymous #2's link:
"New French president Francois Hollande, who claims to ‘dislike the rich’, has THREE homes on French Riviera."
Wow! Mitt Romney has the same number of homes as the new socialist French president!
I wonder if Hollande is planning on building a car elevator for his fleet of autos?
At least Romney doesn't demonize success.
The only good rich are either democrat or socialist
Good Rich-Pelosi,Kerry,Wrangel,Corzine,Hollande,Clooney
Bad Rich-
Bush,Romney
S.W.A
Obama defines someone making over $250K as "rich" even if that income is a small business who passes through net to the owner.
Obama had two years of total control to change the tax code and he did nothing. Now it is someones else's fault that he squandered that opportunity.
Post WW II we taxed ourselves at twice the rate we have taxed ourselves since 1983.
We had huge expenses (WW II debt, Marshall plan, interstate highway, schools and other infrastructure for the new boomer generation, etc.
Yet we ran no multi-trillion dollar debts, and had the greatest growth the World had ever seen. Higher taxes did not kill growth. It all fell apart when Republicans decided (passed laws) to not pay our bills (tax cuts.
Anonymous @ 11:31 am, give us an example of Obama demonizing the wealthy. What he's actually done is simply ask that they pay taxes the same as we middle and lower income people do, and not hide hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts, like Mitt Romney does.
If he were to win the presidency, he'd be the first president to hide his money, for tax evasion purposes, in foreign countries. What a distinction that would be.
Romney released his 2010 tax return after much criticism about his reluctance to do so. The return revealed that he earned $21.7 million in 2010, and paid a lower tax rate than someone who earns $50,000 a year.
I happen to remember the bleak times, the Carter presidency, and when he was through the country was not in good shape. Reagan lowered taxes for everyone and the country saw a robust recovery.
Contrast that recovery to the current administration. Out of control spending, selling off private companies, massive debt and uncertainty about future taxes. Business are not going to make long term plans when they don't know what the leaderless administration is going to impose as far as taxes and regulations.
Again, if this "the rich don't pay their fair share" is not just politics, why didn't he change the tax code when he had both houses of congress. It is not that the "rich" (those making over 250,000) don't pay their fair share it is that they follow the tax codes. Why don't we go to a fair tax system, that way the more you spend the more taxes you pay.
I guess you never heard of the Reagan recession, which happened just months after his new tax cuts became law. If you want robust, check the figures under a Democratic President Clinton.
No, Anon, you're being Krugmanesque in your disingenuity.
Carter ran the country into the ground. We had high unemployment, high inflation and a stagnant economy, a grave condition. Volker snuffed the inflation, which prolonged Carter's recession, but it was a necessary step, and led to the greatest economic boom in our history, which started during Reagan's first term.
Bill Clinton, smart man, stayed the Reaganomics course.
But more importantly, what will Obama do about his Bain problem?
Bain threw some steel workers out of work two years after Mitt left the organization, but Obama was cosied up to the Wall Street Vampires:
"Obama also picked up at least half a dozen fundraisers from the finance sector, including one managing director of Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by his possible GOP rival Mitt Romney.
Jonathan Lavine, the chief investment officer of Bain affiliate Sankaty Advisors, was also an Obama fundraiser in 2008, but only joined the reelection effort in recent months, raising between $100,000 and $200,000."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-campaign-fundraising-20120131,0,3306822.story
This latest Bain attack is about as week and dishonest and that last Anon post.
This ain't 2008 McCain, my lib friends. Better amp up your game!
skudrunner, your comment on Reagan doesn't square with the facts:
"Grover Norquist...often points to Reagan when calling for lower taxes and spending cuts; he says, by contrast, "tax hikes are what politicians do when they don't have the determination or the competence to govern." Conservatives also hail Reagan as a budget cutter willing to make hard choices to keep spending in line.
It's certainly true that Reagan entered office as a full-throated conservative vowing to cut both spending and taxes. And he quickly followed through on part of that promise, passing a major reduction in marginal tax rates. (According to author Lou Cannon, the top marginal rate fell from 70 percent when he came into office to 28 percent when he left.)
But following his party's losses in the 1982 election, Reagan largely backed off his efforts at spending cuts even as he continued to offer the small-government rhetoric that helped get him elected. In fact, he went in the opposite direction: His creation of the department of veterans affairs contributed to an increase in the federal workforce of more than 60,000 people during his presidency.
And while Reagan somewhat slowed the marginal rate of growth in the budget, it continued to increase during his time in office. So did the debt, skyrocketing from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Then there's the fact that after first pushing to cut Social Security benefits - and being stymied by Congress - Reagan in 1983 agreed to a $165 billion bailout of the program. He also massively expanded the Pentagon budget."
Reagan was a tax and spend Republican. That's reality, but it doesn't match the myths the GOP have created about him.
So you are saying that Clinton had the exact same fiscal policies as Reagan? Wrong.
Clinton came up with 22 million jobs, a tax hike, and robust growth.
It was great, which is why you falsely attribute it to Reagan.
SF, the Wall Street "vampires" have fled from Mr. Obama and found a friend in Romney. The "vampires" love Romney!:
Obama Wall Street Fundraising Evaporates As Donors Flee To Romney
I wish all you anonymice would make up some name so I know which anonymouse I'm answering.
Reagan added over two Trillon dollars to the federal debt. In today's dollars, it would be closer to six Trillion. Can you imagine the boost to the economy we would have had if Obama spent as much as Reagan on the stimulus?
Republicans love to spent money and drive up the debt when they are in the presidency.
Obama's team has to keep pounding the story on Bain Capital as long as Romney's people keep pushing the lie that Obama made the economy worse or that he didn't create any jobs:
"Romney has two problems. First. he’s committed himself to generating a figure he can’t prove through honest, rigorous means -- Glenn Kessler gives his jobs claims so far three pinocchios -- and that’s making him look slick and untrustworthy.
Second, he’s framed the success of his tenure at Bain around job creation rather than wealth creation -- and Bain, as many of its actions and former employees will testify, was not in the job creation business. As Kessler notes, the Bain prospectus says “The objective of the fund is to achieve an annual rate of return on invested capital in excess of the returns generated by conventional investments in the public equity market and the private equity market.” It never mentions “jobs,” “job,” or “employees.” Those simply aren’t the objective. Sometimes, in fact, they’re collateral damage.
Perhaps Romney had no choice. Perhaps he was always going to have to answer for Bain’s record on jobs rather than its record on wealth, and his best hope was to define the conversation first. But I doubt it. He could have pitched himself as the guy who understood the creative destruction inherent in capitalism and thus understood how the modern economy worked."
SOURCE
@ Jerry: Reagan added over two Trillon dollars to the federal debt. In today's dollars, it would be closer to six Trillion.
You lead yourself into a false comparison. In our inflationary environment, the numbers don't compare well. Better to measure spending against GDP. Obama's spending is unprecedented.
Anon: So just what did Clinton do differently than Reagan?
Well, SF, Bush started with a balanced budget and almost continually increased the size of the annual deficit. Obama has taken that deficit and started to reduce it inspite of having a poor economy to work with...something that was also crashed by the previous administration.
Well, SF, Bush started with a balanced budget and almost continually increased the size of the annual deficit.
Can't argue with you there. Through an economic downturn and two wars, Bush still had annual deficits 1/3 of Obama's. BTW, where is the Iraq war savings?
And Obama is not reducing the deficit. They remain at record levels.
"Right-wing media are pushing an inaccurate report on Obamacare’s impact on the deficit. The report, by Charles Blahous at the Koch-funded George Mason University Mercatus Center, pushes a well-debunked claim about Obamacare. Using faulty math, Blahous—a former official of President George W. Bush’s administration—falsely declared that health reform “clearly” increases the deficit by $340 billion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The facts are clear. As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly noted, the Affordable Care Act effectively reduces the deficit by billions.
•
According to the CBO, Obamacare would reduce federal deficits by $127 billion over the 2012–2021 period.
•
When Republicans threatened to repeal health reform, the CBO determined that a repeal would increase the deficit by $147 billion.
•
Just last month, the CBO found that the insurance coverage provisions of Obamacare will actually cost $50 billion less that it had originally projected.
But Blahous claims that the CBO is “double counting,” an argument that has been called a “straightforwardly wrong and dishonest” one. As the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities points out, “claims that the Medicare savings in the ACA have somehow been ‘double counted’ are without merit” because, “under longstanding federal budget and accounting rules,” changes in Medicare trust fund affect both the outlooks for the budget and the trust fund.
Fact-check organizations also note that the “double counting” argument is without merit. Noting that the CBO does in fact provide the truest estimate, fact-checkers have declared that “the simple fact remains that the savings will reduce the federal deficit over the next 10 years.”
The reality is that Blahous’s argument reflects more of partisan politics than the impartial facts. George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, where Blahous is a senior fellow, was launched in 1997 by Charles Koch, one of the Big Oil barons who is dedicating at least $40 million of his own money—and has helped collect $100 million in pledges—to defeat President Obama. Not only did the Koch family foundations contribute nearly $30 million to “set up” and sustain the Mercatus Center, Charles Koch is currently a member of its Board of Directors. The founder of the Mercatus Center, Richard Fink, actually headed the Koch Industries’ lobbying operation in Washington, D.C., and is currently the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
Political partisanship cannot dictate the facts, and the facts are clear—Obamacare reduces the deficit, plain and simple."
SF,
The annual deficit peaked in 2009, Obama's first year and Bush's last budget. It has been less every subsequent year.
Skudrunner wrote: "Obama defines someone making over $250K as 'rich' even if that income is a small business who passes through net to the owner."
One of the two breadwinners in a family of four trying to make ends meet on $44,000 a year defines someone who makes > $250k/year rich. I'm not sure if Obama has actually defined them that way.
As for small business, put the crying towel down. Some making that kind of money have a small business. Others are lawyers screwing people out of their homes on behalf of Bank of America. A bunch are lobbyists doing their best to see to it those making $250k or more will get to benefit from public services and amenities while paying ever less of their fair share for them.
"Obama had two years of total control to change the tax code and he did nothing. Now it is someones else's fault that he squandered that opportunity."
You need to spend more time reading facts and less time writing mindless, fact-free drivel.
Obama has had three and a half years of nonstop, wall-to-wall Republican obstruction, much of it in the form of filibusters. Here from the Senate tally of those is the outrageous record. It's measured in cloture motions filed, times cloture was invoked and times the majority succeeded in overriding a filibuster, respectively.
2011-2012: 84, 49, 26
2009-2010: 137, 91, 63
2007-2008: 139, 112, 61
The 2011-2012 dropoff is due to the fact 2012 is less than half over and Republicans control the House, where the inmates in charge have wasted everyone's time with crap like making birth control pills more difficult and expensive to obtain and doing their best to damage the U.S. credit rating.
"But Romney's job creation record in Massachusetts is nothing for him to brag about--especially when he emphasizes his business prowess--which did not do much for him while he was governor of Massachusetts during an economic slump:"
Oh but Shaw, would it not be equitable and balanced to point out Romney had to deal with essentially a one party senate and legislature?
Only in the name of equitable and balanced reporting I bring this forth. For is it not true that this is one of your, as well as the most on the left, fall back as to why Obama's has been unable to get more things done (thank nature for that). It therefore is reasonable to think Romney was really only able to get done what the legislative bodies signed on to.
At any rate hyperbole and or platitudes abound.
S.W.A.
Raise taxes on the "rich" is the Obama mantra and he wants to raise taxes on anyone making over $250,000 which means he classifies $250,000 as being rich. Even Bill Clinton said this was a stupid idea.
Your comments about small business shows you have never owned one.
Obama wanted to let the Bush tax cuts expire. That would've brought the tax rate for those making $250,000 back closer to a fair share, and to where the rates should've been all along. Had Bush called for just one $250 billion tax cut in 2002, our deficit and debt situation would be much better today. However, Bush had his own stimulus agenda., That was to make sure he got re-elected and not dumped after one term like his father, because of a stagnant economy.
Last fall, Obama called on Congress to pass a measure that would have raised the tax on anything over $1 million in annual income by 0.05 percent. Here's how V.P. Joe Biden put it in perspective:
“You have a one-half of one-percent surtax on the 1,000,0001th dollar — in other words it doesn’t affect anybody who makes $999,000, it doesn’t affect anybody making $999,999 — and if you want to find the guy who make $1,000,0001, it only affects that $1. That’s the only thing the rate goes up on.
“If you make $1.1 million, and god-willing this passes, you would pay next year, $500 more in taxes."
That's neither class warfare nor punishing success. It's fair play and fiscal sanity — the kind more than 200 millionaires wrote Congress to ask for last spring.
SWA
Even Clinton said taxing the millionaires is not the answer. This proposal was nothing more than a political ploy because O knew the Republicans would turn it down and he could use that as a stand.
They could take everything over a million someone makes and it would run the government four days, wooppeee.
BTW, people who make over 250K pay taxes in the 30% range but I guess that is just not enough.
Look how much in taxes the federalists could bring in if they got the 48% who don't pay federal income tax to pay their fair share. The rich take care of themselves, the poor are taken care of and the middle class gets screwed. The Obama policies are making sure there is no middle class so no one gets screwed.
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