JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - Republican Mitt Romney is touting his revival of the Massachusetts' economy in a pitch to voters in Florida, a state that could make or break his White House bid, but some experts dispute that record.
The former Massachusetts governor issued a statement on Sunday titled "creating jobs" that focuses on 57,600 jobs added to the Massachusetts economy during his single term as governor from 2003 to 2007.
But Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum, who has researched Romney's record, said the state lagged the U.S. average during that period in job creation, economic growth and wage increases.
"As a strict labor market economist looking at the record, Massachusetts did very poorly during the Romney years, he said. "On every measure you've got, the state was a substantial under-performer."
At a campaign rally here on Saturday, Romney's supporters handed out flyers promoting the candidate's economic credentials, a central theme in his campaign, saying he had "closed a nearly $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes" during his term in Massachusetts.
But the $3 billion deficit projected by Romney and state legislators in January 2003 at the start of his administration never rose that high because a surge in capital gains taxes more than halved the shortfall to $1.3 billion.
While Romney and the state legislature cut $1.6 billion from the 2004 budget, analysts noted he also generated more than $500 million by raising fees and by closing corporate tax loopholes -- actions considered tax rises by some businesses.
"There's never been under his watch an economic turnaround to speak of," Michael Widmer, president of the independent Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, told Reuters.
"We added a few jobs over the last three years of his tenure but very few. He also raised corporate taxes and fees and the (deficit) gap turned out to be less than $3 billion."
MIXED RECORD
Romney is in a close four-way race in Florida where the primary on January 29 is the next test in the state-by-state battles to determine the Republican and Democratic candidates who will square off in November's presidential election.
The multimillionaire former venture capitalist has retooled his campaign to emphasize his nearly 25 years of business experience that includes founding Bain Capital LLC, a successful Boston-based private-equity firm, in 1984.
At rallies, Romney presents himself as a candidate whose real-world business experience can help shake up Washington.
But he faces stiff competition in Florida's Republican race from John McCain, the senator from Arizona who won Saturday's South Carolina primary, along with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Romney's resume includes a number of prominent successes such as rescuing the debt-ridden Salt Lake City Olympics and helping to set up office supply retail-store chain Staples Inc., which employs about 70,000 people.
Massachusetts also won a credit-rating upgrade during Romney's term as governor for the first time since 2000, his campaign's statement said.
His supporters contend the state's job market was soft long before Romney's term, which ended in January last year, blaming a Democratic-controlled Legislature for the weakness. His spokesman, Kevin Madden, has asserted that Romney brought Massachusetts "back from the brink of financial disaster."
But Northeastern's Sum said that while jobs were created under Romney, the rate was the third-lowest in the nation after Hurricane Katrina-hit Louisiana and Michigan. At the same time, wages in the New England state stagnated during Romney's term.
The average weekly wage of Massachusetts workers, Sum said, rose by just a $1 between 2001 and 2006 after adjusting for inflation, while the state had the third-highest rate of population loss in the nation between July 2002 and July 2006.
Real output of goods and services -- a broad measure of economic performance -- grew 9 percent, below the 13 percent rate for the United States, he added.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Mitt Romney's Real Fiscal Side
Mitt Romney is being touted as a "fiscal conservative." However, the following article from the Boston Globe exposes some flaws in Romney's economic policies that he doesn't want you to know about.
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2 comments:
HWJV, How Would Jesus Vote?
Huckabee abhors, abominates, loathes, can't stand, contemns, curses, deprecates, derides, despises, detests, disapproves, disdains, disfavors, disparages, objects to, recoils from, scorns, shudders at, shuns, spurns, is sickened by, feels disgust for, and generally HATES Romney. And Huckabee is a Christian?
"Why?" you may ask. Simply because Romney, as a Mormon bishop, did not take payment for his services to his church.
You see, evangelical pastors rely on their churches as their source of income. Many are good, moral people whom, I believe, earnestly minister to their respective flocks. Yet, it is also their livelihood. Mormons do not pay their leaders and, doctrine aside, Baptist Huckabee has a problem with that. Too, the rapid growth and retention rates of the Mormon Church in the South, coupled with it’s superlative welfare system have only added grief to the southern evangelical leadership.
Of course, Paragraph 3, Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution reads, “. . . all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but NO RELIGIOUS TEST shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Well, so much for the Constitution. On the campaign trail to the 2008 presidential election, religious bigotry has reared its ugly head. Never mind that one would be hard pressed to find a more humble, clean-living, patriotic, law-abiding and civic-minded group of people than a Mormon congregation. Never mind that the church’s name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Never mind that two major articles of their faith are: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost“, and “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. “
Yeah, when Huckabee was a preacher, he was a "Southern Baptist" preacher. But his resume, for political reasons, just reads "Baptist." Southern Baptists are so named because they split from Northern Baptist over the slave issue during the early 19th century. Oh, sure - both Baptist conventions now claim that the differences between northern and southern Baptists would have brought separation eventually, even if there had been no slavery-abolition issue.
But none of that gets Huckabee off the hook. He started the anti-Mormon rhetoric in this election and now wants to call "foul" when religion works against him.
Just pass the plate Preacher. You'll get your 30 pieces of silver - one way or another. Is this how Jesus wants evangelicals to act? HWJV, How Would Jesus Vote?
Uh Ken, Jesus probably enough wouldn't vote for a flip-flopping cult member like Mitt Romney!
But His brother (according to LDS fantasy . . .er . . . theology) might.
More importantly, Romney and the Romney-ites have grossly distorted the "no religious test" provision of the Constitution. The "no religious test" provision of Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution clearly does not prohibit individual voters evaluating a candidate's intellect, personal moral values and even religious beliefs in the private calculus on whom to vote for. Nor does it prevent any candidate from responding in candor and honesty as to questions on matters of faith. It simply prohibits the government from establishing a formal "religious test.
Given, however, the poor state of civics education in this country and the constant anti-debate paeans to a lazy, empty-headed, politically-correct "tolerance," Romney's message undoubtedly resonates with many in the electorate.
To the extent that a candidate's religion and personal piety (e.g. "applied religion") provide windows into the intellect, public and personal values, motivations, philosophy, opinions and beliefs of a candidate, they are clearly relevant in the private calculus on whom to vote for.
Although the law does have a didactic ("teaching") function --which is a timeless, fundamental principle wholly lost on generations of social libertarians-- the secularists and “toleration fascists” derive the wrong lessons from the Constitution. Freedom of conscience is firmly enshrined in the FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE of the First Amendment. Read properly in its historic context, this fundamental liberty contemplates a robust, public discussion and consideration of "faith-based" questions, even in political campaigns.
Voters must always retain the liberty to exercise the civic responsibility of selecting candidates on criteria consistent with their personal values. Consistent adherence to these fundamental principles of liberty inherently implicate the consideration of religious values, opinions and beliefs. Far from the rigid, formal, sectarian, government-directed "religious test" banned in the Constitution, this free market of ideas is at the heart of what the Constitution protects.
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