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   Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 Last year there wasn�t a single fatal airline accident in the developed world. So why is the U.S. health care system still accidently killing hundreds of thousands? The answer is a lack of transparency.
 Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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March 31, 2011
NOT ROMNEY'S STRONGEST SUBJECT.... He can't talk about health care. He can't talk about energy. He can't talk about social issues. When he tries to talk about national security, it doesn't go well. So former Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is sticking to the one issue everyone else should be talking about: jobs.
So far, so good. I certainly agreed with Romer's concerns, so Romney's op-ed is off to a good start. What else ya got, Mitt?
So much for the promising start. For one thing, the notion that President Obama made the recession "worse" is truly insane. The economy was hemorrhaging jobs; now it's gaining jobs. Unemployment was getting worse; now it's getting better. The economy was contracting; now it's growing. Every Republican prediction about the White House's recovery efforts was proven wrong, and all told, the economy added roughly 1.3 million private-sector jobs in 2010 -- a little more than the combined net total of the entire Bush/Cheney era. I would have preferred a more ambitious stimulus, but the fact remains that the president's policies helped turn the economy around after the failures of the last Republican administration. Even Mitt Romney should be able to tell the difference between up and down. For another, there's Romney's record. He was governor of Massachusetts for four years, and during that time, his state's record on job creation was "one of the worst in the country." Adding insult to injury, "By the end of his four years in office, Massachusetts had squeezed out a net gain in payroll jobs of just 1 percent, compared with job growth of 5.3 percent for the nation as a whole." How bad is Romney's record? During his tenure, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in jobs growth. There's a reason he didn't seek re-election -- Romney was wildly unpopular in his home state. Maybe this is another issue Romney just shouldn't talk about. —Steve Benen 1:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
Comments
Based on what we know so far, are there any issues Romney should talk about? -Z Posted by: Zorro on March 31, 2011 at 1:56 PM | PERMALINK" Romney was wildly unpopular in his home state. What? They hate him in Utah too? Or is it Michigan? Ever since Bush the Elder (MA, ME, TX), you practically need a scorecard to tell which is the REpublican's home state. Posted by: Chesire11 on March 31, 2011 at 2:01 PM | PERMALINKIt's going to fun to see the Romney camp get obliterated once voters start scrutinizing Bain Capital and his "business experience." Mittens is basically a Wall Street trust fund baby who made millions by bankrupting companies and destroying jobs. Posted by: AJ on March 31, 2011 at 2:08 PM | PERMALINK"I would have preferred a more ambitious stimulus, but the fact remains that the president's policies helped turn the economy around after the failures of the last Republican administration." No, no, no, Mr. Benen...Obama's policies didn't do this. Don't you realize that the economy didn't improve until the very next day after the Republican landslide in the midterms. The American people were so thrilled by the outcome that the turnaround was instantaneous. Or so they would have you believe.... Posted by: whichwitch on March 31, 2011 at 2:10 PM | PERMALINKPoor Mittens, Maybe he's not really trying to get the spot as the Republican Presidential Candidate, but is instead trying to get William "Wrong Again!" Kristol's spot on the WaPo Op-ed page! Like "Bloody Bill," has Mitt ever been right about ANYTHING? Posted by: c u n d gulag on March 31, 2011 at 2:13 PM | PERMALINKOoh! Did MA do worse than MS? Let's line up the Goobernatorials, including Huck and Palin. I want numbers. Pawlenty's governorship sported actual job shrinkage, but he had more time and some help from Dubya. (eww, I know. sorry.) Posted by: m2 on March 31, 2011 at 2:25 PM | PERMALINKPresident Obama didn't cause the recession, but he made it worse and caused it to last longer. From the outset, he inaugurated the most anti-investment, anti-business, anti-jobs policies we have seen since Jimmy Carter. REALLY???!! Can you cite any metrics that support that statement? That Obama didn't cause the recession is a given since we were in recession for many months before he even won the election, let alone was in office. So we'll give the Mittster that one. When he is right he is right. Now, what policy of Obama's can be pointed to as making the recession worse? Stimulus? Even those economists who claim that it didn't really stimulate economy (are there any, really?) would have to admit that there was nothing about it that cost jobs. The straight facts were, the US economy declined by 6.4% in the first quarter of 2009 after Obama took office and only 1% in the second quarter. By June of 2009, six months after Obama took office, the longest recession in post-war history was over. I don't see how anything that was done by Obama during that time could have made things worse that what Bush did during his term, or prolonged the recession beyond what was inevitable due to the Bush era policies. Inaugurated the most anti-investment, anti-business policies since Carter? How does the Mittster respond to the FACT that business profits are at an all-time high. How about the auto industry, that mainstay of US industrial might? Mitt's GOP bretheren had the grave dug and were ready to drop the still breathing carcass in and bury it in early 2009. Against all their howling Obama bailed them out. So, how's that working out? Anti-business??? The US Chamber of Commerce doesn't know a good friend even when he is tearing up the "do not resusitate" sign and applying CPR while they are flat-lining. Somebody needs to start calling these A-holes out on these blatant lies. They are too intelligent to believe their crap. They will just keep saying anything they think will help them get elected for as long as we allow them to. Posted by: majun on March 31, 2011 at 2:48 PM | PERMALINKas majun says, i've been truly astonished at how the right-wingers have, en masse, declared how anti-business obama is when by any objective consideration, he has been irrationally pro-business and particularly irrationally pro-big banks. has any of them provided any basis for their characterization other than than, obama being a kenyan socialist and all, everything he does is by definition anti-business? Posted by: howard on March 31, 2011 at 3:48 PM | PERMALINKJust because we happen to disagree with him doesn't mean that isn't a message that will resonate with more reasonable Republican and independent voters. If he can get past the lunatic wing in the primaries (big if, I'll grant you) then Romney strikes me as far and away the Republican with the best chance of knocking off Obama in 2012. Attack him on policy, sure, but it's a mistake to lump him in with people like Bachmann or Gingrich. He's not stupid. I don't see anything there that hurts him among the voters he's going for. Quite the opposite. Posted by: john on March 31, 2011 at 3:56 PM | PERMALINKPeople outside Massachusetts forget, or probably never knew, that Romney stopped being governor two years into his lone term. He didn't resign, as two of his Republican predecessors did, but after his resounding defeat in attempting to end the Democrats veto-proof control of the state senate in the 2004 state elections, he threw in the towel, and just obviously began running for president. He was running for president all along, but for his first two years in office he made an attempt at being governor while slowly moving, flip-flopping, to the right. His sole accomplishment was the state-wide mandatory healthcare coverage that the legislature actually improved over his original plan. Posted by: rrk1 on March 31, 2011 at 5:38 PM | PERMALINKDo we care what you think about Romney? No, you are in love in Obama and you should welcome such an awful candidate to oppose him in 2012. If you liberal honestly think we are going to let you pick our candidate again - 2008 - you are wrong. Really could care less about your low opinion of Romney, he will be our next President and you can cry every day about how stupid, awful, horrible he is but your guy and his horrible administration will be gone. I just can't figure President Obama out, he is all over the map compared to when he ran in 2008 and has backtracked on almost everything that he had against Bush. So write and write about how bad Romney is and will be but your guy is toast! Posted by: Janeway on March 31, 2011 at 7:35 PM | PERMALINK"...but he made it worse and caused it to last longer." Mittens quoted by Steve Benen. Simply requrgitating the Republican line against FDR, he can't even come up with a new idea. Posted by: Doug on March 31, 2011 at 7:50 PM | PERMALINK
May 2011
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