Mitt Romney: Obama Made the Economy Worse, No Obama Didn’t Make It Worse, Yes He Did Make it Worse

Memo to Mitt:  It’s Not That Hard

Mitt Romney came under fire some time ago for going around the country and saying that President Obama made the economy worse.  Now there is plenty to criticize Mr. Obama for on the economy, but it is hard for even the most partisan of political opponents to honestly claim (ok, if we put in the "honestly" qualification we can exclude Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann) that things have gotten worse since Mr. Obama assumed office. 

Every important economic indicator, like economic growth, unemployment, productivity, the stock market etc have improved since January 2009.  So when confronted with these facts Mr. Romney said that he didn’t say the economy had gotten worse.  But now he is saying the he did say and does say the economy has gotten worse under Mr. Obama (confused, you will be even more after you read this link). 

A major failing of Mr. Romney is his desire to turn himself into whatever he perceives his current audience desires.  So the message here Mr. Romney is very simple.  If you think the economy is worse than it was in 2008, just cite some statistics that show that, you know, good old fashioned facts. 

And one more thing Mr. Romney, be careful touting the job creation thing.  Your work in the private sector involved leveraged buyouts, where your firm would borrow money to buy companies and then sometimes fire a bunch of workers to get enough cash flow to pay the debt.  This is going to come up at some time in the future, so think about whether or not you made things worse for the companies you purchased. 

Here is Mr. Romney standing outside of a shuttered steel plant.  According to the Boston Globe, shuttering steel plants is something Mr. Romney has experience with.

In many cases, such as Staples Inc., the Framingham retailer, and Steel Dynamics Inc., an Indiana steelmaker, the companies expanded and added thousands of jobs. In other cases, such as Ampad and GS Industries, another steelmaker, Bain-controlled companies shuttered plants, slashed hundreds of jobs, and landed in bankruptcy.

But in almost all cases Bain Capital made money. In fact, the firm earned substantially more from Ampad than Staples. Staples returned about $13 million on a $2 million investment; Ampad yielded more than $100 million on $5 million, according to reports to investors.

So Mr. Romney, in at least one case, Ampad  you bought the company, incurred huge debt, made a profit of $95 million for yourself and your company, drove the company into bankruptcy and destroyed hundreds of jobs.  Yep, The Dismal Political Economist advises you to go easy on the job creation stuff.