NYT: Mitt Romney - “I like President Obama, but he doesn’t have a clue how jobs are created …. I know how jobs are created and how jobs are lost.”
Steve Benen (Washington Monthly): Nice timing, Mitt. These remarks come one day after we learned the economy created 222,000 private-sector jobs last month - the second-highest total in five years - and the unemployment rate finally dipped below 9%, reaching its lowest level in two years. All told, the private sector has added 1.5 million workers in the past year, while the unemployment rate has dropped from 9.8% to 8.9% in just three months - the sharpest improvement in nearly two decades.
…Romney was governor 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.
Boston Globe (2007): Real world experience has shown that a governor is limited in his power to influence the course of economic development in a state. A full-time governor who is deeply committed to the economic well-being of a state’s workers can, however, make some difference. The state unfortunately did not receive such leadership over most of the past four years. Jokes about Massachusetts may receive some half-hearted laughter on the national campaign trail, but few working men and women in Massachusetts should see anything funny about the state’s lackluster economic performance during the Romney years. (More here)
NY Post: Romney’s past is more a working class zero - Likely Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been out on the pre-campaign trail saying he is the man to get Americans back to work, despite a spotty jobs record while on Wall Street.
…the former private equity firm chief’s fortune - which has funded his political ambitions from the Massachusetts statehouse to his unsuccessful run for the White House in 2008 - was made on the backs of companies that ultimately collapsed, putting thousands of ordinary Americans out on the street. More here
White House.gov
