So let me get this straight: Mitt Romney has disavowed his singular accomplishment as Massachusetts governor (universal health care). And for the most part, he’s resting his claim to the presidency on his Bain-related expertise and accomplishments. He even asserts (without any proof) to have been a big “job creator” there. And yet Romney has the audacity to declare his Bain years off-limits to examination and critique by Obama and other Democrats.
As Ezra Klein points out:
Romney’s national platform … calls for doing less for the victims of the global economy. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would guarantee that workers would get health insurance even if they lost their jobs in, say, a private-equity led restructuring. He wants to pay for large tax cuts and more defense spending by cutting funds for Medicaid, for food stamps, for worker retraining, and for housing subsidies. He wants to cut Social Security benefits. He has no detailed plans to improve the continuing education system, or worker retraining programs, such that displaced machinists have a better chance to find a new job.
That’s why the ads in which laid-off steelworkers say Romney just doesn’t care about people like them are so effective. As head of Bain, it was Romney’s job not to care about them. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his job to show that he does care about them. So far, he hasn’t.
Limerick Ode To Mitt “Job Creator” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Romney brags of his Bain expertise—
Says it’s earned him the White Houses’s keys.
Yet he’s sore, slams the door,
Says how dare we explore
What exactly he did for those fees.
Dear Mitt, you can’t have it both ways.
Your record’s reviewed in this phase:
When you proudly proclaim
You know biz, it’s fair game
To appraise your Bain management ways.
