MEMO from the DNC
MEMO
From:
Brad Woodhouse, DNC Communications Director
To:
Interested Parties
Date:
October 3, 2011
Re:
As Media Continues to Vet Romney, Stories on His Failed Record as
Governor Pile Up
Over
the last few days there has been a steady stream of stories on Mitt Romney that shed light on
his governing record, which he has
attempted to gloss over as
a
candidate for president. These stories range from a front page
New
York Times story on the taxes he raised as Governor to an AP piece on
his consistently below average jobs record in Massachusetts to a Time
Magazine look into how Romney personally profits from his opposition to
the President’s tax reform proposals.
Mitt
Romney’s
not campaigning on his failed record as governor, he’s
literally saying anything that he thinks the Tea Party wants to hear
and that current GOP primary politics demand – most recently his
support for policies that would end Medicare as we know it and
dismantle Social Security while providing more handouts and tax cuts to
corporations, special interests and the very wealthiest few at the
expense of seniors and middle-class Americans. And since he
started
running for president, Romney’s had a change of heart on the issue of
asking large corporations to pay their fair share.
Mitt
Romney’s
not one to let the facts of his failed record get in the way
of his goal of being elected President. Despite his rhetoric on the
campaign trail, Mitt Romney was a governor who raised taxes, failed to
adequately create jobs and had a troubled relationship with the state’s
business community.
Below
please
find key excerpts from three stories that ran over the last few
days that raise more questions about Mitt Romney’s rationale for
running for president and what he would bring to the job.
ROMNEY’S
FAILED JOBS RECORD AS GOVERNOR
This
weekend’s Associated Press headline was a bit generous, Mixed job
picture when Romney was Mass. Governor. By key indicators show
Romney’s record was a failure.
From
the AP’s Story:
Under
Romney, Manufacturing Jobs Fell By A Steep 11.4 Percent.
“The steepest drop during Romney's tenure came in manufacturing. The
number of manufacturing jobs fell by 11.4 percent, extending a historic
slide in a state whose mill towns once provided the fuel for the
economic engine. Other areas that saw declines during Romney's term
were jobs in publishing, movies, broadcasting and data processing,
which fell by 7.1 percent, and in warehousing and utilities, which fell
by 2.7 percent.” [Associated Press, 10/2/11]
Recovery
Under
Governor Romney Was “Slower Than The Nation As A Whole” – By The
End Of Romney’s Term National Unemployment Was Lower Than Unemployment
In Massachusetts.
“The recovery in Massachusetts during Romney's tenure was slower than
the nation as a whole. When Romney was sworn in, the national
unemployment rate was 5.7 percent, just slightly higher than
Massachusetts' jobless number that month. Four years later the national
unemployment rate had fallen to 4.5 percent, slightly lower than
Massachusetts.” [Associated Press, 10/2/11]
Romney
Added Just 40,000 Jobs By The End Of His Term, A “Modest Achievement”.
“At the time, the state's unemployment rate was at 5.6 percent,
compared with a low of 2.8 percent just two years earlier. The jobless
rate would keep rising through Romney's first year in office, topping
out at 6 percent in August of his first year. By December 2006,
Romney's last full month in office, it had fallen to 4.7 percent. A
drop of less than 1 percent, meaning the addition of about 40,000 jobs,
may seem like a modest achievement.” [Associated Press, 10/2/11]
ROMNEY’S
CONTROVERSIAL TAX RECORD
Yesterday’s
New
York Times front page, above the fold piece on the taxes and fees
he raised as Governor is sure to cause problems for Romney with the
Republican electorate—which is why he’s trying to backtrack on the
issue.
From
the New York Times’ Story:
Romney
Required Companies to Pay Nearly 20% More Taxes From When He Took Office
“By the end of Mr. Romney's term, the loophole measures required
companies to pay about $370 million a year in additional taxes, a
nearly 20 percent increase from the period before he took office,
according to an analysis of government data by the Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation, a nonprofit research group that receives
financing from corporations. [New York Times, 10/2/11]
During
Mr. Romney's tenure, Massachusetts Ranked Near The Bottom - 47th Out Of
50 States - In New Job Creation.” [New
York Times, 10/2/11]
Romney
Not Only Raised State Taxes, He Encouraged Towns Raise Taxes On
Commercial Properties. “When
residential property tax assessments shot up in 2003, the governor
signed a bill encouraging towns to offset the higher costs by lowering
tax rates for homeowners but raising them for commercial properties.”
[New York Times, 10/2/11]
Romney
“Suddenly Reversed Course” On Empowering His Tax Commissioner And Soon
Began Running For President. “Mr.
Romney, who had previously seemed so immune to the pressure from the
business lobby, suddenly reversed course. He yanked the proposal to
empower his tax commissioner further, despite support from leading
Democrats in the Legislature, and scaled back by half his 2005 plan to
raise $170 million in new loophole closings. ‘There was a lot of
pressure on the administration not to do it,’ Mr. LeBovidge said with a
hint of regret. Mr. Romney, he said, ‘felt it was not a battle worth
fighting.’ By 2006, Mr. Romney was traveling the country, all but
openly campaigning for the White House as a fiscal conservative. Much
to Mr. Norquist's delight, Mr. Romney became the first Republican
presidential candidate to sign his no-new-taxes pledge, in 2007 -
something he had declined to do five years earlier when he ran for
governor.” [New York Times, 10/2/11]
Conservative
Activist Grover Norquist Assailed Romney, Stands By Claims that Romney
Raised Taxes.
“Grover Norquist […] assailed the plan as a threat to free society. He
likened it to ‘crossing state lines to mug someone[…] Mr. Norquist
acknowledged that he had been deeply disappointed by Mr. Romney's
corporate tax overhaul. Unlike the governor, Mr. Norquist regards the
changes as tax hikes. ‘They changed the laws and the rules to
significantly raise taxes,’ he said. ‘That is a tax increase.’ [New
York Times, 10/2/11]
ROMNEY
& THE BUFFET RULE
This
morning, Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer looked at Romney’s opposition
to President Obama’s “Buffet Rule” that ensures that middle-class families wouldn’t pay higher taxes
than millionaires and billionaires, and how Romney
benefits from our broken tax code as it currently exists.
From
Time Magazine’s Story:
CTJ:
Romney Likely Paid 14 Percent Of His Gross Income In Federal Taxes In
2010.
“Assuming
that
Romney declared roughly the same number of deductions as others in
his income level and that his dividend and capital gains income
qualified for the 15% bracket, Romney would have paid roughly 14% of
his gross income in taxes to the federal government in 2010 according
to Bob McIntyre, who crafts tax policy at the left-leaning Citizens for
Tax Justice… And
this
is exactly the dynamic that Obama and Buffett have been talking
about in recent weeks: For a select group of wealthy investors, the
regular income tax structure simply does not apply. (Buffett claims to
pay just 17% of his net income in taxes.) It pays to be an investor in
a way that it does not pay to be a high paid actor or professional
sports star. If Romney made the same amount of income in 2010 as he
declared, but it all came as a direct salary, McIntyre calculates that
he would have paid something closer to 30% of his net income in taxes.
[Time, 10/3/11]
Romney’s
Tax Records Are A Political Vulnerability.
“Should Romney win the Republican nomination, he will face
substantial pressure to release his own tax returns. Usually such
disclosures
are little more than formality, but in Romney’s case, it
would land him in the middle of one of the biggest policy debates of
this election season.”
[Time, 10/3/11]
Wealthy
Americans like Romney ‘Never Pay The 35% Rate That Their Income Would
Be Subject To If They Just Got A Paycheck Like Most Americans.’ People who
earn as much money as Romney typically make most of it in capital gains
and often deduct more than they earn in royalties, salary and interest.
In other words, they never pay the 35% rate that their income would be
subject to if they just got a paycheck like most Americans. [Time,
10/3/11]