""His first budget, presented under a cloud of a $2 billion deficit, balanced the budget with some spending cuts,
but a $500 million increase in various fees was the largest component of the budget fix."
Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.
Romney was rated a "C" overall by Cato.
As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal.
Thank you.
His record was, and is, not Conservative - period.
I have stated that evangelicals won't be enthusiastic about Romney, and that is true.
I am a Conservative, and also and Evangelical.
The charge is that is born that Christians will not support Romney out of "bigotry" has a long and sordid history on this board.
Today, I believe that many, many Evangelicals are so turned off with McCain's Liberalism and the Mormon church's arrogant push and enormous effort to obfuscate Romney's record that they will either sit home or write in on election day.
The sad truth is, too many LDS members went over board trying to make Romney a justification for their faith, and a standard bearer for their blind political ambitions.
As to the "bigotry" charge, would I vote for the Catholic Alan Keyes?
You bet!
I am hoping Jewish Joe Lieberman finally joins the GOP, or Michael Medved runs for office?
Absolutely!
Romney? He is a Liberal, and his LDS crowd went over the top in an "Identity Politics" orgy of Jesse Jackson proportions.
I reject him. For that, I get called a "bigot." I also get called a "bigot" for opposing the Mormon faith on the Religion Forum on theological and biblical grounds.
Par for the course for the Mormons here.
I can think of no group that has done more to alienate others, and with such out of control rhetoric, as the LDS believers here on FR.