Romney: Not Even Net
from Ezra Klein at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/romneys-bain-figures-dont-add-up/2011/08/25/gIQAjKhelP_blog.html
The American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis also asked the Romney campaign for details on their jobs number. “Here’s what the Romney campaign e-mailed me when I asked for some substantiation of the claim,” wrote Pethokoukis:
(Romney campaign/James Pethokoukis) Whatever you want to say about Romney’s time at Bain, the number he is providing to reporters, the number Stephanopoulos was asking about, the number Romney is using publicly, is not net-net. It takes three successful companies of the hundreds Romney was involved with and uses their employment totals now — long after Romney finished working with them. Even Pethokoukis, a Romney-friendly conservative, concludes, “That’s not going to cut it.”
It would be the equivalent of explaining President Ronald Reagan’s record by choosing the two best-performing states and then attributing their growth from 1980-2011 to Reagan’s presidency. That’s not, as Romney said at another point in the debate, “net-net.” That’s not even net.
But imagine you could get a perfect count of the jobs created and destroyed during Romney’s tenure at Bain, and you could get perfect clarity on Romney’s level of responsibility for each and every one of those jobs. You still wouldn’t have learned much of value. Romney’s record at Bain Capital is not comparable to Barack Obama’s record as President of the United States.
read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/romneys-bain-figures-dont-add-up/2011/08/25/gIQAjKhelP_blog.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
