By Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and Democratic strategist, is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee. She is a nationally syndicated columnist, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and author of “Cooking With Grease.” She was manager for the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign in 2000.
(CNN) — Recently, we learned two important things about Mitt Romney.
First, he would rather see the American economy fail than President Barack Obama win.
Second, the extent of his hypocrisy is amazing. While he laments the toll that outsourcing has taken on our workers and economy, he amassed a fortune by investing in companies that outsourced American jobs.
In word and deed, Romney roots for failure, and his insincerity reveals a disdain for the common good and disregard for people’s common sense. Americans deserve better.
As Bloomberg News reported, Romney urged Florida Gov. Rick Scott to downplay good economic news in the Sunshine State. It’s his way of sending a signal to Republican governors in states where the economy is improving — in the battlegrounds of Virginia, Ohio and elsewhere — to be quiet. Obscure the truth, he begs. Obstruct any progress.
But these governors know better. Scott continues to tout Florida’s economic recovery, as he should. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that the state’s 5.6% unemployment is the lowest in three years — in other words, it’s been falling since Obama’s policies took effect. … Read More
It’s Time to Examine the “Job Creators”
by David George
As November approaches, we’ll be hearing repeatedly the case for low taxes on businesses. Since they create jobs, runs the message, we must do all that we can to assure that the job making machine chugs along with minimal interference. There are several problems with this argument.
First some background on “job creation.” During the Great Depression the work of John Maynard Keynes suggested that certain acts of government could ease unemployment, causing new jobs to exist without any other jobs disappearing. There was thus a net increase in the number of jobs, and thus, in a manner of speaking, some “job creation” had occurred.
Prior to Keynes, in contrast, the usual assumption was that the economy always operated at or near full employment and that the addition of any new job would always come at the expense of some other. There was, in other words, an increase in employment in one industry requiring a decrease in employment elsewhere. To speak of “job creation” could thus be misleading since for every new job there had to be a loss of a job. The provision of new types of employment were not to be confused with a net rise in employment, but simply a shuffling of the deck as some types of employment replaced others.
But consider now a more subtle problem with the habit of referring to employers as job creators. Even in instances when a new job does not come at the expense of another, does it make sense to speak of the employer as the “creator?” After all, isn’t it true that people seeking jobs are the “suppliers” while employers are the demanders? In markets for goods and services, it is the nearly always the “supplier,” not the demander who “creates.” General Motors “creates” autos which customers (the demanders) buy, brain surgeons “provide” or “create” surgical acts that patients (the demanders) receive. And so on. … Read More
Mitt Romney, A/K/A The “Outsourcer-In-Chief”
The Obama campaign just acquired a truckload of ammunition to shred the Romney-as-job-creator narrative. The Washington Post reported on Friday that Bain Capital, Romney’s private equity firm, poured investments into firms that specialized in outsourcing American jobs.
“During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain (…) ” the report says, “it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components.”
The response from the Romney campaign was swift but not quite persuasive:
“This is a fundamentally flawed story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus offshoring nor … Read More
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