Mitt Romney's sole claim to the presidency is that his business experience will enable him to accelerate job growth in America.
The GOP debates revealed that Romney was a failure as governor, with Massachusetts 47th in the nation in job growth, and only one of the four states that did not recover to pre-2001 recession job levels before the Bush/Cheney economic collapse hit.
But, let us talk less about rankings, and more about actual jobs.
What is that story? Again, for Romney it is dismal.
During Romney's four years as Governor of Massachusetts, he added 61,000 new jobs. At the time, Massachusetts had 2.5 percent of the nation's population. Thus, extrapolated to the nation as a whole, Romney would have added 2.4 million jobs.
In four years.
During the first three years of President Obama's Administration, 4.1 million new private-sector jobs have been added.
Governor Romney's 2.4 million jobs is not quite 60 percent of President Obama's 4.1 million. That is, President Obama has added 40 percent more jobs in absolute terms than Mitt Romney in ¾ of the time.
Romney is now comparing himself to President Jimmy Carter, seeming to believe that anyone would believe that he, Romney, is somehow tougher or better than the former president. Why Romney would believe that others would come to such conclusions is baffling.
We have already dispelled the notion that Romney, who avoided military service as if it were a plague, could hold a national security candle to President Carter.
But, what about job growth? Jimmy Carter was a former peanut farmer, without the Wall Street experience or savvy that Mitt Romney proclaims his Bain experience provides him. So, how could President Carter possibly have added jobs, especially with the Arab oil embargo, the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with which Carter had to contend?
Right? Sorry, Mitt, wrong again. Under President Carter, America added 10 million jobs in four years, a faster pace than under President Reagan, and just slightly slower than under President Clinton.
Romney's extrapolated-to-the-nation job growth during his tenure as governor is less than 25 percent of President Carter's record.
Still want to compare your jobs record to President Carter, Mitt?
You might do better picking on someone more like you -- such as George W. Bush.
Follow Paul Abrams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pabrams2001
 |
 |
|
| 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 |
Its amazing how Republicans and some Americans refuse to accept the fact that Romney has a lousy jobs record. They think he has a better chance of fixing the economy than Obama. I guess ignorance is bliss in this country.
No wonder we are now considered the 26th most educated country in the world, and falling fast. The lack of education and critical thinking skills in this country is astounding !
We MUST get out the Democratic vote all the way down the line ... President Obama . Senate, House, state legislatures (big time!) and local. No excuse to stay home this November ... that's how the Repubs won in 2010 ... and we can not let that happen again!
The point, really, is that we are on a good roll, and then the rightwing seized power and threw a wrench into it. It is, however, a difficult point to make despite its truth because of this: the impact of the first two years was not felt completely until 2011/12, and now we are seeing the impact on jobs of the Republican austerity programs....that they will blame on the President.
Thank you Paul Abrams for this dynamic article. All good stuff I mean relevant and pertinent.
Romney in Mass is much worse than the U.S. rate as a whole during 2003 to 2007.
OBAMA 2012
Though to be fair, I voted for John Kerry because he wasn't former Pres. Bush. Yeah John Kerry was an "anybody but Bush" candidate and Mitt Romney is an "anybody but Obama" candidate.
C'mon now, Mr. Abrams, but everyone knows that the name 'Jimmy Carter' triggers the far right's Foul Snooze programming, authored by Frank Luntz's remedial Conservatroid Talking Points for Liars and Fools. The Great Right Dope is still playing to those people which is good for Obama because it is far right and not a position that would appeal mostly to people in the middle.
Enough negative ads can't be bought against Obama to cover for his record of shipping jobs overseas, or that he was a bad Gov. in terms of job creation.
And thank you so much for your service!
ROLL ON NOVEMBER.
OBAMA /BIDEN 2012!!!
so.... your pitch for obama is, he's the least worst?
/facepalm
Yes, I would expect that Mitt's job track record would be bad------because he has the same platform that George W. Bush had: Here's the facts below.
“How Many Jobs Were Created Per Month During The Bush Administration?
ANSWERS:
AVERAGE NUMBER OF JOBS CREATED PER MONTH BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: 20,000
AVERAGE NUMBER OF JOBS CREATED PER MONTH BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION EXCLUDING THE DISASTROUS LAST YEAR: 65,000
NUMBER OF MONTHS IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN WHICH THERE WERE 500,000 OR MORE JOBS CREATED: 0.
(In fact, there were no months in the Bush Administration in which there were 400,000 jobs created).”
Link to full article on Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-jobs-created-per-month-by-george-bush-2012-5
"If you want to live like a Republican Vote Democrat"
Harry S. Truman
What does the GOP gain by destroying the income-stream of 99% of Americans?
Only when you and I call our Reps and Senators, daily, weekly, without fail, when they cannot take another minute of hearing us call for sanity, will they stop this destruction of the nation. Its our voices, the 99% of us who must cry out, without fail, without stopping. We must make a very loud clamor and not give up. Then things will change. This nation was formed by people who couldn't take it any more. They came here to start over, to start fresh, to make a sane new path. We must be like them, if we are to change the direction of our national life. We must not give up. Never give up calling for policies which help the broadest number of Americans.
The top level Repubs and their business man friends, have no use for anyone who isn't as welloff as they are. If we're not filthy rich, it must be because we are inferior in some way.
Massachusetts ranked 47th in job growth under Romney !
Only 3 other states performed worse !
Howard Scott Pearlman
However I am very impressed with your math skills.
Good for you.
"I will see your puny job numbers and bet you $10,000 that I can 'create' 500,000 jobs a month!"
"What did you say? How? Because my job creation record as a Governor was poor, because my job creation record as a Wall Street CEO was "job neutral," at best, and because I say so!"
Are these the actual positions of a serious candidate for President?
By the way, and only slightly off-topic, why does anyone keep bringing up CEO experience as any special qualification for the Presidency? The jobs are very different, and the requirements for success in each also differ in several significant ways.
(1) A business decides it's interested in selling out so they hire a broker to arrange a bidding process;
(2) Bidders look at limited data from the business and put in a preliminary bid;
(3) Highest bidder(s) get to fully examine the business, at which time the business becomes known in the industry as being on the block and becomes damaged versus other competitors;
(4) Bain, in particular, uses this time to systematically reduce their original bid that was only designed to drive off other bidders, knowing the business needs to sell;
(5) Simultaneously, Bain tells the business managers how much help they're going to provide, knowing full well that mostly they're going to provide crushing debt and impossible profit expectations;
(6) Also simultaneously, Bain is lying to outside investors about what a can't-miss opportunity this is, thus limiting Bain's exposure to loss and allowing Bain to charge exhorbitant management fees.
That's not the work of a CEO. That's the work of a private equity investor. It's a job well-suited to pathological liars, and it's no wonder Romney was so good at it.
Obama 2012.