Mitt Romney, Jobs Creator?

1. Mr. Romney keeps waving his Bain credentials to show how he can run a business, (or a country), and create jobs.

what eye thynk: Bain is a private equity company, designed to make money for its investors. Even Rush Limbaugh agrees that these kinds of companies are not job creators. “That is not what they do." Jobs may be a bi-product, but it is never the stated goal and job cuts are very often the consequence of having your business taken over by a private equity firm.

Instead of looking at his record as a businessman at Bain, we should be looking instead at his record as the governor of Massachusetts. While Mr. Romney was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47 out of 50 states in job growth.  Why should we expect anything different to happen with him in the White House?


2. Mr. Romney insists that President Obama is entirely to blame for our jobless rate.

what eye thynk:  Our current unemployment rate is too high, we can all agree on that; but it is improving--slowly, but improving. In 2010, we added 940,000 new jobs. In 2011, we added 1.6M new jobs. The private sector added more jobs in June 2012 than at any time since the beginning of the recession. The public sector is not doing as well, but with a Congress that refuses to fund government programs, there can be no government hiring. Still, our current unemployment rate is lower today than at any point since March 2009 when businesses were still shedding employees like fleas because of the October 2008 financial meltdown. So, yes, the recovery is slow; but it is still a recovery.

Mitt Romney once said that blaming the president for the jobs market was “poppycock”. In 2004, when John Kerry was attacking Bush’s jobs record, Mr. Romney defended W by saying: “The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm. And an effort by one candidate to somehow say, ‘Oh, this recession and the slowdown in jobs was the result of somehow this president magically being elected’, people in America just dismiss that as being poppycock…Every indication is that the economic policies adopted and pursued by this president are creating jobs…And so the people of America have to ask, ‘Do I stay with the president who is rebuilding the economy, who is creating jobs, or do you want to stop mid-stream and find someone new?”

For once, I agree with Mitt. Blaming the President for the jobs market is “poppycock” and I see no need to “stop mid-stream and find someone new”, especially someone who couldn’t do any better than 47 out of 50 when he was last in charge.