Mitt Romney Focuses Criticism on Obama in New Op-ed

Governor Romney offers a sharp critique of President Obama and his economic policies in his most recent Op-ed published at The Boston Globe. As “recovery summer” comes to end with little no sign of actual economic recovery, we can expect more statements like this from Romney and hopefully from other strong voices in the GOP as well. It seems evident that this is going to be the point Team Romney will drive home if/when he announces candidacy for the presidency.

Below is a teaser from the op-ed, followed up by an interesting recap by Chris Cillizza – be sure to check that out as well.

Grow jobs and shrink government
by Mitt Romney

IT’S NOT happening the way President Obama had planned. Unemployment blew past his 8 percent ceiling and hasn’t looked back. Private sector investment in new jobs and capital has languished. Even the head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, has resigned.

Almost every action the president has taken has deepened and lengthened the downturn. The private sector has retreated, frightened by his agenda and paralyzed by the uncertainty, lack of predictability, and outright hostility he has engendered.

His policies are anti-investment, anti-jobs, and anti-growth. Raising taxes — with a 15 percent hike on certain small business corporations, new taxes to pay for ObamaCare, and an increase on the dividend tax from 15 percent to nearly 40 percent — depresses new investment throughout the economy. Promoting an open-ended cap-and-trade tax dissuades expansion by employers in the energy sector. Bowing to the demands of unions to tilt the table in their favor — with proposals for card check and mandatory arbitration as well as the installation of a labor stooge at the National Labor Relations Board — chills new hiring.

Hostility toward foreign trade — by delaying agreements with Colombia and South Korea and by threatening punitive taxes on US businesses that compete abroad — stalls opportunities for new jobs at home. The so-called stimulus that focused on government spending and bailing out states and unions has boosted GDP only modestly and temporarily; the latest stimulus reincarnation will likely do no better. All the while, the president’s failure to address the looming deficits, national debt, unfunded entitlement liabilities, ballooning Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae liabilities, and incalculable government pension obligations causes employers and investors to ask whether the dollar will be worth very much in the future, and thus, they hold back. The policies of the president and congressional Democrats are job killers.

Continue reading…

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Chris Cillizza offers an interesting take on the op-ed and Romney’s focus in general:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney penned an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe blasting President Obama’s economic policies and, in so doing, provided yet more evidence of his laser-like focus on financial matters as he prepares to challenge the incumbent in 2012.
[...]
Romney’s economic op-ed comes even as many of his potential rivals for the 2012 Republican nomination stake out increasingly aggressive stances on the issue du jour: the proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center a few blocks from Ground Zero.

Romney, for his part, has not spoken out on the mosque matter at all. The lone comment about the issue from anyone in his political world came last week from spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom making clear Romney opposed the building of the mosque.
[...]
Romney’s message disciple — it’s the economy, stupid — is also aimed at portraying him as the most serious candidate in the field, the candidate not distracted by the bright, shiny objects thrown at him on a near-daily basis by various interest groups and the media.

It’s an interesting (and smart) tactic — particularly with polling suggesting the economy is, far and away, the most important issue on the minds of voters.

I believe Cillizza is right on all accounts. Team Romney’s disciplined strategy to focus on the economy is a smart one – one which which Romney and the GOP can win. Serious, focused, competent, capable and willing…. that is the candidate I want for 2012. Forget the distractions, focus on what’s important.

~Nate Gunderson