Economy

Romney Mocks Stimulus For Saving Jobs

Mitt Romney really hates the stimulus but he loves holding fundraisers at the homes of men who benefited from the stimulus.

Mitt Romney spent this morning in Florida trashing the stimulus, saying the Obama administration “borrowed almost a trillion dollars but used it to protect government.”

But just hours after the speech, Romney boarded a plane to Tennessee to fundraise with a beneficiary of Obama’s stimulus funds.

Romney will spend Tuesday night at a $10,000-a-head fundraiser at the house of Orrin H Ingram II, Chairman of the Ingram Barge Company — which received $130,000 in federal stimulus money. Ingram Barge Company is a private company, not a government entity.

When Mitt Romney mocks the Obama Administration for using stimulus funds to "protect government," who he's really attacking is police, firefighters, and teachers.

The overwhelming majority of stimulus funds distributed to the states were used to prevent layoffs of public employees. Over 3 million public employees were in danger of losing their jobs following the onset of the recession, but the stimulus afforded states the funds they needed to avoid handing out massive amounts of pink slips. Pink slips that would have gone to police, firefighters, and teachers.

As far as Romney is concerned, if you are a public employee then you are a leech, and he thinks you should be out of a job. Ensuring that you lose your job as an employee of the state is now a centerpiece of his campaign. As far as he's concerned, the money used to employ you would be put to better use by passing another tax cut for himself.

That's not conjecture of hyperbole. That is his platform.

To repeat -- Romney is campaigning on firing people. He's campaigning on less jobs. He wants to fire you so he can pass more tax cuts.