I'd been trying to figure out just what bugged me so much when Mitt Romney said these words about "free stuff": "If you're looking for free stuff, if you're looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy. That's what he's all about, OK? That's not what I'm about."
It wasn't just the apparent pander to his conservative crowd... something else was bugging me. And then I saw the clip below from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week, and it hit me.
It's that Romney is taking advantage of the government's "free stuff," too, and has been profiting from it handsomely for a long, long time -- even as he rails about the "free stuff" that the government provides other people.
Let's just take one example -- GST Steel. Here is a little Kansas City, Missouri steel company Bain Capital bought for $75 million, but put only $8 million of its own money into the deal. They borrowed the rest. Within a year, Romney and Bain put GST Steel further into debt, borrowing another $125 million. Some of that money was put to good use, modernizing the factory. But $36 million of the borrowed money was paid to Mitt Romney and Bain in the form of a dividend. Do you get that?
Less than a year after loading the company up with debt, Romney and Bain gave themselves bonuses four times bigger than the $8 million they had put into the deal. And guess what the tax rate they had to pay on that unearned income was? A lot less than yours. You guessed it: 15 percent. Thank you for all that extra "free stuff" from the U.S. Government's tax code.
Bain also asked Kansas City for a $3 million tax break. The Bain executives were taking home $36 million in borrowed funds and were asking Kansas City to forfeit $3 million in public money for police officers, roads and schools? More free stuff!
Then, when GST Steel filed for bankruptcy and laid off 750 people, we learned that Bain had consciously underfunded its pension obligations to those employees. The company simply decided not to meet its legal responsibilities. The end result: the federal government's pension benefit guarantee corporation was stuck with a $44 million bill.
That federal agency was created for the purpose of guaranteeing pensions in the event of a catastrophe in the private sector -- the ultimate safety net. And it had to fork over the money to save the worker pensions that Bain chose to underfund.
So, that's $44 million for the pensions, $3 million for the local tax breaks and $7 million from the federal tax code. A total of $54 million in free stuff from the government. And that was just one of Bain's companies.
Mitt Romney privatizes the gains from his enterprises, but spreads the costs to the rest of us.
Seems that "free stuff" is in the eye of the beholder.
Thank you, Jon Stewart.
Cross posted at "The War Room" blog. Follow Jennifer Granholm on Twitter and Facebook and "The War Room" on Twitter and Facebook. "The War Room with Jennifer Granholm" airs weeknights at 9/8c on Current TV.
Follow Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JenGranholm
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
No mention of how GST steel (formally Armco Steel) employed nearly 4,500 people in the 1970's and was down to 1,000 emplyees by the 1980's
That the CEo of ARMCO steel decided to either sell the plant or close it down.
The late 1990s saw a new outpouring of cheap steel from elsewhere around the globe. The Asian financial crisis walloped the mining industry, cutting demand for GST products. The price of GST’s electricity and natural gas skyrocketed. The union dug in, refusing to make concessions. By April 1997, it was on strike, shooting bottle rockets at guards. Labor costs spiked, and by 1999 GSI was reporting $53 million in net losses.
In 2001 it would become one of 31 steel companies that went bankrupt from 1993 to 2003
The artile doesn’t note that the broader company, GS Industries, employed 3,500 and that the Kansas City plant (with 750 workers) was the only one shuttered. Other plants were bought and operate today.
and they have paid back the loans in full
As Gov. Granholm points out, it is not just "undeserving" poor and disadvantaged who get free stuff. The lion's share always go to those at the top of the heap, while less and less is expected in return.
does it bother any of you liberals that when it collapsed and laid off all those workers, that is was a man named Jonathan Lavine who was the head of BAIN and who took over when Romney left ?
who is Jonathan Lavine?
Jonathan Lavine is obama's top bundler....
Does it bother you obama took bain money in 2008 and recently for his campaign?
Romney's top 6 contributors are the large banks whose fraud and illegal actions have been in the news every day since 2007 when their greed collapsed our economy and decimated the retirement funds of the American middle class.
Goldman Sachs $593,080
JPMorgan Chase & Co $467,089
Bank of America $425,100
Morgan Stanley $399,850
Credit Suisse Group $390,360
Citigroup Inc $312,800
Clearly they have one thing in mind - relaxed oversight, repeal of regulations and further rape of the US economy when the Republicans are in power.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67770.html#ixzz217PgIe00
Goldman Sachs $593,080
JPMorgan Chase & Co $467,089
Bank of America $425,100
Morgan Stanley $399,850
Credit Suisse Group $390,360
Citigroup Inc $312,800
http://www.politicolnews.com/mitt-romney-olympic-bailout-business-experience/
That doesn't take overwhelming business expertise, that takes overwhelming political access, in order to subsidize your appearance of expertise.
Anyway, a band of legal thieves is all they are. Not good looking enough to be pirates, but they have a similar (lack of) heart.
"I operate within the law," sure. But what he won't / can't say is the laws are skewed to his favor through lobbying/campaign contribution influence, etc. It's a cesspool. Romney is the problem, not the solution.