From Fox’s Special Report with Bret Baier
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
On the White House’s recent attention to Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital:
It’s a warning that Romney ought to look at [the issue again]. To give an answer [like] the answer he gave last night — “this is class war and the politics of envy” — is not enough. The White House and Gingrich, Perry, are going to run ad after ad of somebody who lost his job. That’s going to have a real impact. You can’t answer with abstractions.
He [Romney] is going to have to (a) show the faces of people who actually were helped, had a job — perhaps [after his company was] slimmed down, lost a job but regained it.
And (b) he’s going to have to say: Look what Obama did with the auto industry. He had to throw a lot of people out of work. He had to close a lot of dealerships. But in the end he saved it [the US auto industry]. I did exactly the same — but with private money, [at] higher risk — because sometimes you have to make a company lean if you want to save it and produce jobs.
Waiting for the screams of betrayal at Mr. Krauthammer's statement that the auto bailout saved the industry and US jobs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBoy, what a crock. Governments do not take over a company to make it lean or save it. They take it over to control it and force taxpayers to help finance the garbage they produce. What Romney did and Obama did are two different world views, I can't believe it's this hard for Krauthammer to understand.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree. That was a serious whiff by Krauthammer. Of course the government can "save" an industry if they point government guns at taxpayers, extort huge wads of cash from them, and hand it over to the industry to be "saved". That doesn't require the slightest sliver of a smidgen of a particle of business sense, and is not in any sense an accomplishment at anything except robbing the politically disfavored to pay the politically favored, IE, the owners of the Democrat party, the unions.
Romney's private sector experience is relevant not because he was such a wonderful philanthropist. Rather, he can say "I took good care of my bosses' money and made them better off. As president, you'll be my boss, and I'll do the same for you."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm not so sure that's a good pitch by Romney. See, he made money for his 'bosses' (investors at Bain) by actively cutting out of the 'business' people he considered to be dead weight - or even people who were doing a good job but just weren't profitable enough.
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How does that translate to running a country? As others have asked, is he going to sell off California?
Absent a large PR push from him, I'm afraid Romney is perceived to be seen as someone who will take the axe to a lot of 'employees' (the middle and lower classes) in order to make a good return for his 'bosses' (the wealthy). His current tax plans reinforce that narrative quite a bit.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"How does that translate to running a country? As others have asked, is he going to sell off California?"
Not that there is anything wrong with that idea.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseoh, I don't know ... since he doesn't yet "own" California I'm not sure your comment makes logical sense but just to play along ...
close the DOE, DOT and Dept. of Ed ... can't sell them so close them ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHis tax plans only reinforce that narrative if you haven't been told what the other narrative is, which:
1.) Is something that does not happen on a regular basis because leftists dominate the media and education and the other narrative isn't discussed very much any more nationally, which leads to comments like yours here. You realize there is more than one direction to go with this problem, but, again, you're only able to think through to one of them - the winning one for (D)s.
2.) Pansy (R) politicians are afraid of telling the other narrative because they don't know how to tell it properly because they're worried - or they've been conditioned to worry - of a blow back from the people who can't stand them in the first place.
Romney first and foremost needs to contrast economic liberty and freedom with the left's big government stupidity, Obama being the latest iteration of that. Romney's problem is that he can't channel Milton Friedman right now. Some people don't think he's capable of it, period. I don't know if that's true, but this country needs a capitalism and freedom defender big time or else we are screwed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, it's a fact - not spin - that his current tax plan calls for tax increases for the lower and middle classes (through the reduction of certain credits) and major tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. No matter how you look at it, that reinforces the narrative that I spoke of in the post you responded to.
I do agree that the GOP has done a terrible job of explaining their position in layman's terms, and Romney's attempt to paint everyone who opposes him or forwards an argument that his business perhaps wasn't the 'job-creating' powerhouse he's presented it as, as being 'envious,' isn't going to cut it either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo matter how you look at it, that reinforces the narrative that I spoke of in the post you responded to.
This is laughable. You can think of no other way? Absolutely no other way to look at it? You're smarter than that, Fish. I've said this before and I'll say it again, you are a very perceptive person, but either you're incredibly lazy with your thinking or you don't want to admit there's at least one powerful (I would argue more powerful) way to look at it, which is the opposite of what you consistently put down. You've said in the past you've studied free markets your entire life, yet you can't come up with any single other narrative than the one you keep mentioning? I gave you a big fat hint in the comment you just responded to. You're better than this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, I can't come up with a TRUE narrative, other than the one that I posted. Certainly not a convincing narrative. Perhaps you can?
I'm uninterested in BS about 'job creators' or any of the other modern code words for 'trickle-down,' thanks very much.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"big government stupidity"
Would that be results-based, measurable, real stupidity--evidenced by bloody, costly wars with no outcome and no rationale; massive recessions triggered by big bank feeding frenzies that commence once regulations are eased; wildly inconsistent policies around 'life' that make any notion of a rational, forward-looking, long-view government philosophy absurd; and grotesque anti-intellectualism cultured into a 'movement' to solve the problem of candidates, executives, and legislators who are visibly stupid by encouraging the truly stupid and the manufactured stupid of America to believe passionately that stupid, coincidentally, is the new smart? Because it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to remember the big government stupidity of the Bush administration.
I know, the republicans have dibs on Small Government--such trademarks are annoying, since the five or six worst Big Governments in the past fifty years have been under the control of the party of Small Government. But there ought to be a time when we actually check whether those words reflect reality.
Obama's 'big government' is smaller than Bush's 'small government'. Clinton's 'big government' was smaller than Reagan's 'small government.'
PS if you argue that Obama's government is smaller only because Republicans crashed the economy, causing government to cut jobs, therefore Bush gets credit for Obama's smaller government, well, I won't have a good answer for that one, because I have trouble typing while I laugh.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat's funny. Romney already made point (b) and Rush spent an hour (Wednesday) ripping him for doing so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe's got to show people who lost their jobs to Obama's policies. The market creates jobs in one place while it destroys them somewhere else. The alternative is Eurosclerosis.
Obama's policies destroy jobs in one place while destroying other jobs somewhere else.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think that probably would be a good idea for Romney. My question is, though - who would you find to highlight in this way? What policies of Obama's would you point to as the blame for this person losing their job?
In order to it to counter the Bain narrative, it would need to be a pretty dang clear connection.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow about Obama's infusion of taxpayers' money into failed businesses like Solyndra and Light Squared, losing both the "investment" and the jobs?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can quickly give examples from my industry:
Gulf drilling moratorium: at least 20,000 jobs lost (many more indirect losses in fact)
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Failure to approve Keystone pipeline: at least 20,000 jobs prevented.
Not to mention, the EPA's regulatory jihad is estimated to cost almost 1.5 million jobs over ten years.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe easy argument against the Gulf position is that we had a major disaster there last year, and it was unclear if we should continue approving new projects that had similar construction.
I don't buy that EPA argument at all and I don't think that any voters will, either. The study you reference was 100% funded by the oil and gas industry, which can hardly be considered a neutral party. I doubt you would buy studies done by Media Matters or ACORN as legit, so I'm sure you'll understand my reluctance to rely upon those projections.
The Keystone pipeline is probably the strongest attack against Obama at this point, in terms of jobs destroyed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse'The market creates jobs in one place while it destroys them somewhere else. The alternative is Eurosclerosis.'
The unemployment rate in Germany is 5.5%. Oops!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow, that last part - comparing what Bain does to the auto industry bailout - what a political loser that would be! I'm actually shocked to read such a thing.
Romney also can't say that Obama 'saved the US auto industry' without being absolutely crucified by the vast majority of his 'base.' The fact it happens to be true in many ways is immaterial.
Romney's in a pickle and there isn't going to be any easy way out of this one for him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI disagree. While I am not certain that Romney is everything I'd want in a candidate, I think the Bain experience CAN be a highlight for him. He just has to frame it properly.
He went into companies that were in danger of going completely under and tried to make them healthy and capable of surviving and thriving. He made money because he was more successful than not.
By the same token, we have a country that is in serious financial trouble. It will require someone making hard choices to shrink the size of government and grow revenue in order for it to survive and thrive. Who else can point to experience in making those hard choices and a track record of success afterwards?
It takes telling people the honest truth, hard times are coming but they'll be even harder if we do nothing. Romney can point to his experience of "doing something".
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