His Gain Would Be Our Loss:That Steel Plant Ad, and Romney and other Businesses 'Built on their Own'

There has been a lot of controversy about the recent ads (there are two) where a former Steel company employee faults Mitts on R-money for the plant closing, for loading it up with debt, taking lots of profits OUT of the plant, and then having it fail.

While there were definitely other factors that contributed to the plant closing, leveraging the plant with crushing levels of debt was clearly a strong contributing factor in that business failure.  That debt leveraging took place when Mitt Romney was running Bain, and had direct daily control of the business.

The argument that Romney LEFT Bain in 1999 to go to work on the Salt Lake City Olympics is a strongly contested one, and the controversy stems from Romney's own flippity floppity positions.  During that time, Mittens filed tax returns in Utah, claiming Utah as his primary residence.  He received significant tax benefits from doing so. During that time, in interviews with the Boston Globe, Romney claimed to still have a strong ownership interest AND to still be running Bain Capital PART TIME.  NO ONE held a gun to his head to get him to make those statements about his involvement in Bain, which included claiming regular phone calls to supervise from a distance and flying back periodically to attend meetings.

However WHEN when he wanted to run for Governor of Massachusetts, which requires as an old provision in the state constitution that candidates must reside in the state for seven years before running, Mittens told the press that he had done that.  He specifically and voluntarily made the statement, REPEATEDLY and in campaign content, that he had filed taxes in Massachusetts as a FULL TIME RESIDENT of the state.  Except that he got caught, tried to blame a local auditor with an exemplary record in Utah for the 'mistake' that he made (auditor treasurers don't file your taxes, OR advise you on taxes hint hint) and he then amended his taxes to reflect that he really lived in Massachusetts, not the house he bought and shared with his wife and kids out in Utah.

This set one of the examples that Mitt Romney will lie, publicly and often, without a second thought about it, regarding his actions at Bain, where he lives, and especially about his taxes.

So we have Mitt HIMSELF contradicting the story about whether or not he was running Bain during the time in question relating to the steel plant.

What we also know from the time where Mitt called the steel mill shots was this, from factcheck.org:

The company also reneged on pension and other benefits it had agreed to in 1997. The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. later determined the company had severely underfunded its pension, and the federal agency covered the cost of basic pension payments.

Mitt made MILLIONS on sticking this company with crushing debt, grabbing the profits and running with them.  But he stuck the GOVERNMENT with the costs of underfunded pensions and benefits.

THAT is not what I consider building a business 'on your own'.  It is much closer to taking corporate welfare while getting rich, sticking the government with his responsibility.  If you take a look 1997 comes before 1999 in chronological order.  This is part of a larger pattern in Mittens making -- or grabbing -- his money out of deals, while sticking other people with the bills for them.

There is no doubt that while Mitt got 'his', everybody else in that company, and in that town, and ALL OF US who paid tax money that went into the federal agency that cleaned up the mess left after Mitt 'got his' were harmed by this, lost money they should have had if the company was not crushed into failure by debt.  Bain businesses make a lot of money for the Hedge funders side of the equation, but they have left the other side of the equation holding the bag for the Hedge fund failures in the form of bankruptcies, closing plants and leaving under similar debt leveraging, bond issue problems, job outsourcing, and in one case $100 Million dollars in fines for Medicare fraud. 

His start up funding came from South American right wing death squad operators.

Romney's business dealings are not squeaky clean; they are simply exploitative.  Romney maintains close ties and receives contributions to his run at the presidency from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a connection he emphasized in speaking to the NAACP earlier this year.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the key players in job outsourcing, and has been accused of funneling foreign funds illegally into American political campaigns.  Romney was apparently on a fund raising tour in part during his recent trip to the U.K., Israel and Poland.  He would have done better to keep his hand out, and his mouth shut.

The proverb has the devil in the details; that was never more true than when looking at the business dealings of Mitts on R-money.  Mitt Romney doesn't like to run on his track record while governor, and he hides more from his one claim to success - Romney care - more than any other performance criteria. 

The reality is that as the chief executive in a government role, Romney wasn't very good, and Obama has been better.  Romney came up with a silly little scorecard to compare job performances, but it was badly flawed, as this

Here is the fact checking done by the WaPo:

The Facts

Jobs and Unemployment

Data from the Bureau of Labor statistics shows that Massachusetts added 50,000 jobs during Romney’s tenure in office. But that number represents only 1.5 percent growth for the Bay State, compared to a higher 5 percent increase for the nation as a whole during the same period. (We used seasonally adjusted data for our comparisons).

The scorecard indicates that Obama’s jobs numbers declined, which is true if you count his entire term to date, during which employment has dropped about .2 percent. But most of the job losses occurred while the president was trying to reverse a severe recession — one that he inherited.

Since the downturn ended in June 2009, the United States has added about 2.7 million jobs. That represents an increase of 2 percent, which is nothing to gloat about, but a positive trend nonetheless.

In terms of combined underemployment and unemployment, the level in Massachusetts decreased from 241,000 to 223,000 while Romney was in office, representing a decrease of 7.5 percent. That’s compared to a drop of about 15 percent for the country as a whole.
(Note: We found state “underemployment” data on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ geographic profiles page, while data for the United States is available through Table A-8 of the bureau’s historical data on Current Population Surveys. The term “underemployment” covers individuals who worked 35 hours and couldn’t find full-time work because of economic conditions.)

As for Obama, the nation’s combined underemployment and unemployment level has risen by 4.7 percent since he took office. But it’s fallen by 11.6 percent if you start counting at the end of the recession.

With unemployment rates, Massachusetts dropped .9 percentage points under Romney, while the United States fell by 1.4 percentage points during the same period.

You can see the recurring pattern here. Massachusetts’ numbers improved under Romney, but the Bay State didn’t keep pace with the nation as a whole.

Under Obama, the U.S. rate has risen .5 percentage points since he took office. But it’s down 1.2 percentage points since the end of the recession.

You can expect one thing, and one thing only, if Mitt Romney is elected president in 2012.  Mitt Romney will become significantly richer, at the expense of all of us, and his 'investors' in the election will become richer too, by a huge amount.  There will be more unemployment and more corporate welfare, and the government - as in we the people - will be left paying the bills for Romney and his friends getting richer.  And more people will die without insurance or health care, while Mitt blames everyone else, no matter how little they had authority or responsibility for HIS actions and decisions.

And Mitt will tell you how he and his friends made all their money strictly on their own while we're left paying for HIS bills, HIS mistakes, and HIS losses.  His gain would be our loss.