Posted on 03/23/2012 3:16:11 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
On today’s Martha MacCallum Fox News Channel interview, former (liberal state) New Hampshire Governor John Sununu made astonishing statements on Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts record that look to be the opposite of what Mitt Romney’s actual record has been reported to be. But don’t take my word for it, you decide:
Sununu stated that as Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney cut spending and taxes:
Romney consistently likes to paint himself as a turnaround artist in Massachusetts claiming he “closed a nearly $3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes” while Governor. The facts do not back this up.
According to Jason Szep of Reuters, “the $3 billion deficit projected by Romney and state legislators in January 2003 at the start of his Administration never rose that high because a surge in capital gains taxes more than halved the shortfall to $1.3 billion.”
Romney’s claims of cutting the state budget by $2 billion also do not ring true, according to Carla Howell of LewRockwell.com, Howell stated in 2007
“These ‘cuts’ were merely budget games. Spending cuts in one area were simply moved into another area of the budget.”
While Romney may blame the primarily liberal state legislature, Howell stated:
“When it comes to tax and spend policies, he’s not only in lockstep with the Democrats, he leads the way. Each of the four years Romney served as Governor, he started budget negotiations by proposing an increase of about $1 billion. Before the legislation even named a budget figure, in a typical smoke and mirrors fashion, Romney would accept a few line item budget increases from the legislature. However, when Romney would veto a few other line item increases, the media helped him out again by making fanfare of his vetoes and portraying him as tough on spending – after he had already given away the store!”
According Sam Batkins to the National Taxpayers Union (New Budget Data: Romney's Mediocre Record):
“Under Romney, spending in the Bay State rose 20.7 percent from $22,848 billion to $27,588 billion.”
How did the people of Massachusetts fare under Romney? According to Northeastern University economist, Andrew Sum told Reuters in 2008,
“In number of jobs created, economic growth and wage increases, not well.”
Jason Szep, "Mitt Romney's Economic Record Questioned” Reuters, also stated:
“As a strict labor market economist looking at the record, Massachusetts did very poorly during the Romney years…On every measure you’ve got, the state was a substantial under-performer.”
and
“During Romney’s term Massachusetts was in the bottom three of the nation for job creation, only above Michigan and post-Katrina Louisiana.”
Moody’s Economy.com was a little more generous ranking Massachusetts as the fourth weakest state during the period.
“Only 24,400 new jobs were netted during Romney’s term, an anemic 0.8 percent increase.”
Wages did not fare much better either during Romney’s term and the weekly wage, adjusted for inflation, from 2001 to 2006 increased a mere $1.00. Jason Szep, “Mitt Romney’s Economic Record Questioned-Rueters” stated:
“real output of goods and services – a broad measure of economic performance – grew nine percent, below the 13 percent rate for the United States. Under Romney, Massachusetts did rank in the top three in another category, however; the third highest for population loss in a state from 2002 to 2006.”
The Romney camp responds to such criticism that if it weren’t for Romney, Massachusetts would have fared much worse. According to Romney spokesman in 2008 Kevin Madden, Romney brought Massachusetts “back from the brink of financial disaster.” That sounds eerily familiar to our current president’s rhetoric.
“...rose 20.7 percent from $22,848 billion to $27,588 billion”
Okay, it’s early - been up since 5am - but isn’t $22,848 billion well over a billion and into trillion territory? Isn’t 1,000 billion a trillion? Or is it 1,000,000 billion a trillion? Crap, I can’t remember Math 101; need coffee.
Did MA really have that big of a budget?
1,000,000,000,000,000 - thousand, hundred thousand, million, billion, trillion?
http://www.jimloy.com/math/billion.htm
"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."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]
The report’s number are all screwed-up; don’t make sense. According to to that clock, it’s nowhere near what was reported.
2,284,800,000,000 to 2,758,800,000... I give-up. Too early. Can’t focus mind or eyes. Try later.
Sununununu was the guy who gave us Suprime Souter after all.
Who’d believe ONE WORD from him after that?
While watching him on the show yesterday, I was thinking what a colossal disappointment the GOP leadership has been.
FY 06 was 28.052 billion.
But hey since Deval Patrick took over, it’s gone up another 20% (in only 5 years) to 34.009 billion.
Thanks for clearing that up. My calculator melted trying to handle all those 0s...
The funny thing about this is that Sununu made a name for himself in the Bush campaign by following Mike Dukakis around the country and pointing out his lies about the so-called Massachusetts Miracle, where Dukakis made the same sort of bs claims about balancing budgets and cutting taxes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.