Following the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire tonight, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement:

“Tonight’s debate provided further evidence that the Republicans are offering no new ideas to help restore economic security for the middle class or help America’s working families get ahead. And no one has a weaker record on helping the middle class and those still trying to make it into the middle class than Mitt Romney.

“The reality is, Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected. This is a candidate who is trying to spin the facts on his career as a corporate buyout specialist, taking credit for jobs that were created after he left Bain Capital while at the same time ignoring all of the workers Bain laid off under his leadership and all of the American jobs that were outsourced overseas.

“This is a candidate who talks about job creation but doesn’t mention that Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 in job creation when he was governor. And this is a candidate whose tax plan would give a tax cut of $150,000 to millionaires and billionaires while increasing taxes on many middle class families.

“Romney says he’s a numbers guy, but the math doesn’t add up. He might distort the facts, but Americans deserve the truth. Mitt Romney’s job creation record is mythical, and he isn’t the fighter for the middle class he claims to be—far from it.”

From:    Brad Woodhouse, Democratic National Committee

To:        Sunday Show Producers

Date:     January 7, 2012

RE:       Romney’s Rationale for Candidacy Unravels Over Bogus Jobs Claims, Record in Public and Private Sectors 

From day one, we’ve heard Mitt Romney say that the basis of his campaign for president is that he has the business experience and economic know-how to create jobs and improve our nation’s economy.  With that in mind, it’s only fair that the American people get a chance to take a closer look at his record. 

Upon doing so, they’ll find a number of misleading statements by Romney: his false claim this week that he was responsible for creating 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital and that he had a strong job creation record as Massachusetts Governor, the notion that he’s interested in helping working and middle-class families, and his dishonest attacks on the President’s economic record.  And when those claims are held to even the most basic level of scrutiny, Mitt Romney’s rationale for his candidacy simply doesn’t hold up.

ROMNEY MISLEADS ON HIS OWN JOB CREATION RECORD

During an interview with “Fox and Friends” with FOX News on January 3 this week, Mitt Romney said: “And I’m very happy in my former life; we helped create over 100,000 new jobs. By the way, we created more jobs in Massachusetts than this president’s created in the entire country.  So if the President wants to talk about jobs, and I hope he does, we’ll be comparing my record with his record and he comes up very, very short.”

While Romney boasts about the jobs he created as Governor of Massachusetts, the reality is that those were mostly government jobs.  In fact, despite Romney’s near-constant references to his private sector business experience, for every one private sector job that was created in Massachusetts, there were 6 government jobs created.  Under Romney’s leadership, the state actually ranked 47^th out of 50 in job creation, badly trailing the rest of the country with manufacturing jobs falling by more than double the national average. 

With regard to Romney’s claim that that during his tenure as the head of Bain Capital, he created over 100,000 new jobs, a fact-check conducted this week by the Washington Post found that Romney’s story just doesn’t add up.  First of all, by the admission of Romney’s own spokesperson, while this figure stems from the sum of job gains at three companies that Romney “helped to start or grow” – Staples, The Sports Authority and Domino’s – it is based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain.  In other words, Mitt Romney is trying to bolster his own economic credentials by talking about jobs he wasn’t even there to create. 

What’s more, in 1994, following his claim that he created 10,000 jobs at Bain, Romney even backed away from that statement – acknowledging in an interview with the Boston Globe that there was no way to determine whether jobs had been lost or gained economy-wide on account of his ventures at Bain.  Now Mitt Romney wants to argue he was responsible for creating 100,000 jobs?

The other problem with Romney’s math is that it does not factor in for the thousands of workers Bain laid off under his leadership, not to mention the American jobs he outsourced.  Let’s remember that as the head of Bain Capital, Mitt Romney made any number of profit-based business decisions that led to firing thousands of workers, closing plants, bankrupting American companies and outsourcing jobs overseas. 

That includes companies like GS Technologies, which was profiled this week in a Reuters story.  GS Technologies was a steel mill in Kansas City that was acquired by Bain Capital, leading to the layoffs of roughly 750 workers.  Thanks to Mitt Romney and his business partners, the employees at GS Technologies lost severance pay and health insurance that had been promised to them, and their pension benefits were slashed.  A federal government insurance agency had to swoop in and bail out the company’s pension plan – all while Bain raked in millions of dollars in profits.

But apparently when it comes to this fantasy figure of 100,000 jobs, Mitt Romney wasn’t about to let the facts get in the way. 

ROMNEY’S TAX PLAN HURTS MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING FAMILIES BUT GIVES A HEFTY TAX CUT TO THE WEALTHIEST FEW

Mitt Romney likes to say that his tax plan is written for middle-class families. “The wealthy are doing just fine,” he recently told Chris Wallace at FOX News.  “The people that have been hurt are the people in the middle class so I focus those precious dollars that we have, I focus that on the middle class.”

The truth is that Romney’s tax plan would actually increase the federal budget deficit and give more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while providing little or no relief to the middle class and those still working to get there. 

Under Romney’s plan, people making more than $1 million would get an average tax cut of $146,000, while many middle class and working families would actually see their taxes increase.  This plan is just the latest example of how phenomenally out of touch Mitt Romney really is.  Whether he is betting $10,000 without batting an eye, calling a $1,000 payroll tax cut a “little Band-Aid,” or advocating for a plan that gives more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires while working families foot the bill, Mitt Romney just doesn’t seem to get it. 

CONCLUSION

With such deeply misguided policies and a distinct history of sending hardworking Americans to the unemployment line, you’d think that Mitt Romney would be hesitant to throw punches at the President on economic grounds.  But that’s exactly what Romney has tried to do.  So while Romney continues to launch misguided attacks on President Obama, we’ll let the numbers do the talking: under the President’s leadership, we have now seen 22 straight months of private sector job growth.  We have also increased manufacturing job growth for the second straight year – prior to the Obama Administration, the last year the country saw manufacturing job growth was 1997.  Those are numbers Mitt Romney would have loved to see when he was Massachusetts Governor and manufacturing jobs plummeted in his state.

When push comes to shove, Romney’s story just doesn’t hold up.  His job-creation claims are factually inaccurate, and his plan to double down on the same failed policies that caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is enough to send America’s working families running in the other direction.  The American people deserve to know the truth – and as we continue to see, Mitt Romney is terrified to give it to them.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement on the results of tonight's caucuses in Iowa:

"We knew that the Iowa caucus was an opportunity to test our campaign organization and expand our volunteer base as we move toward November, and we're overwhelmed with the results. Not only did 25,000 Iowans come out tonight to talk about the President's record and vision to restore security to the middle class, but 7,500 Iowans pledged to volunteer and work for his reelection, underscoring their commitment to continuing the change the country has seen under President Obama's leadership. This is the first time a caucus has organized for a general election, and it’s a significant down payment for November.

“The Republican caucus tells a different story. They made clear tonight what kind of nominee they want facing President Obama in November—a candidate that supports Tea Party policies that let Wall Street write its own rules, gives more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and makes the middle class foot the bill. But after five years of campaigning and adopting policies far to the right of Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich on issues ranging from economic philosophy, to immigration, to social issues, Mitt Romney still failed to convince voters that he could be trusted to help middle class families and those still trying to reach the middle class.

"So while the Republican candidates pack up their offices tomorrow morning and head out of town, President Obama will emerge from tonight's caucuses with the strongest grassroots organization and infrastructure in this critical battleground state of any candidate going forward. The President made a promise tonight to keep fighting for America's working families, and he's going to keep it—for the people of Iowa and for folks across the country."

After Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said today at a campaign stop in Iowa that he would veto the DREAM Act if it passed and he were president, the DNC's Senior Advisor for Hispanic Affairs, Juan Sepúlveda, released the following statement:

“If there had been doubt in anyone’s mind—least of all, Hispanics in America, that Mitt Romney’s far-right views on immigration would make him the most extreme presidential nominee in recent memory, his statement today that he would veto the DREAM Act if he were president is appalling.  This piece of legislation has been supported by members of both parties.  It is something that Americans can get behind, and it is in line with the spirit of inclusion and diversity of our country that has made our nation great.  But Mitt Romney has shown once again that he is out of touch and far to the right of even members of his own party, and that he would not represent the best interest of middle class Americans, those still trying to reach the middle class, and Hispanics in the country.  This is in direct contrast to President Obama who strongly supports opening the American Dream for hard-working, patriotic young people who are leaders in their communities today and who are looking for an opportunity to attend college or serve our country in the military, but who can't, through no fault of their own."

From: Mayor R. T. Rybak, Vice Chair, Democratic National Committee; Sue Dvorsky, Chairwoman, Iowa Democratic Party
To: Interested Parties
Date: December 28, 2011
Re: With Iowa Caucuses One Week Away, Mitt Romney Tries to Rewrite History, Distract Voters from Out-of-Touch Positions, Failed Policies that Won’t Help the Middle Class

With less than a week to go until the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd, Mitt Romney has returned to the state to make his closing arguments to Iowa voters. Just yesterday, Romney gave a speech to Iowans in Davenport – but rather than offering a plan to restore economic security for the middle class, Romney made it clear he would settle for an economy where fewer Americans succeed regardless of how hard they work.

After a year of pretending he wasn’t competing here, Romney continues to try to downplay expectations for his performance in the Hawkeye State next week. But the reality is that in the month of December alone, Mitt Romney’s campaign and the Super PAC supporting his candidacy spent $4 million in Iowa – clearly, Romney is now all in to win in Iowa. But don’t take it from us that Romney has gone all in – when recently asked about the campaign’s strategy for Iowa, Romney’s own spokeswoman Gail Gitcho simply said, “Our strategy is to win there.”

Mitt Romney’s goal is clear: he is trying to buy his way to victory without having to face hardworking Iowans and tell them the honest truth about his failed agenda. Romney knows that if Iowa’s middle-class families had a real chance to kick the tires and check under the hood, they would not like what they had to see: a 17-year political career of waffling on the issues and decisions that have left the middle class behind, his continued support of policies that threaten our economic recovery, and a concerted effort to rewrite history so that working families in Iowa and across the country don’t realize how truly out-of-touch Mitt Romney is.

ROMNEY’S ECONOMIC VISION: REWARD RECKLESSNESS, STACK THE DECK AGAINST AMERICA’S MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES

As we’ve seen recently, Mitt Romney is eager to mischaracterize the President’s vision as creating an “Entitlement Society.” The reality is that the only entitlement President Obama believes in is an America where folks who work hard and play by the rules can get ahead. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney – a former corporate buyout specialist for Bain Capital who made a fortune firing thousands of workers, cutting benefits, bankrupting American companies and outsourcing jobs overseas – now supports an economic plan that would roll back financial reform and let Wall Street write its own rules again.

In doing so, Romney is doubling down on the same failed policies that caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and rewarded the recklessness of a few, while millions of small businesses and workers here in Iowa and across the country – whose wages have not reflected their hard work for decades – were left to clean up the mess. Here’s how:

• Rather than making it necessary for insurance companies to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions and provide coverage when people get sick, as the President has done, Mitt Romney wants to roll back those protections.
• While President Obama has been fighting to require banks and credit card companies to be transparent about rates, fees and terms and is working to police the predatory behavior of mortgage and payday lenders with a consumer watchdog, Romney has said he would prefer that we kill those protections.
• When the President made the tough decision to extend a loan to the auto industry to save more than 1.4 million jobs, because he believes in an America that supports U.S. manufacturing and builds the things the rest of the world buys, Mitt Romney simply argued that we should “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
• Romney has refused every step of the way to support policies that help reduce the deficit with a fair, balanced and responsible approach that asks millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share – instead, he supports a Republican budget plan in Congress that would end Medicare as we know it, lead to deep cuts in Social Security, and wipe out investments in education and programs essential to creating jobs for the middle class.

Mitt Romney was recently quoted as saying, “The real objective of anyone running for president in this cycle has to be to help the middle class.” But his own economic plan would extend massive tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires and large corporations while offering only $54 to the typical working family earning $40,000. When push comes to shove, Romney’s economic vision could not be more out of touch with the needs of working folks here in Iowa and across the country.

REWRITING HISTORY AND FLIP-FLOPPING ON THE ISSUES

While Mitt Romney’s lack of vision in restoring economic security for the middle class is enough to send Iowa voters running in the other direction, what is perhaps even more disturbing is Romney’s shameless waffling on the issues – not to mention his constant efforts to rewrite history.

One of Romney’s most recent ads, for instance, makes the claim that Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, was a budget-slasher. In reality, as Governor, Mitt Romney balanced the state budget on the backs of the middle class by raising fees on Massachusetts residents more than 100 times. And it is estimated that in total, Romney raised taxes and fees by $750 million annually on the state’s working families and businesses.

Romney has also flip-flopped on any number of issues facing our country, including gun rights. In his 1994 Senate race against Ted Kennedy, he said, “I don’t line up with the NRA,” and until he first ran for president in 2007, Romney had a clear record of increasing fees on gun owners and supporting strict gun control laws – including a ban on assault weapons. But then as he first ran for president, Romney attempted to reinvent his position on the issue – falsely claiming he owned a gun and that he had been endorsed by the NRA in his run for governor.

With regard to abortion, Mitt Romney recently supported the so-called “Personhood” Amendment similar to the ballot initiative in Mississippi, which would have restricted a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother. He also says he supports overturning Roe v. Wade and defunding Planned Parenthood. That’s a very far cry from the official positions he took during his run for Massachusetts governor in 2002, when he courted endorsements from pro-choice groups and said “yes” to Planned Parenthood on supporting Roe v. Wade, “yes” to supporting state funding of abortions, and “yes” to supporting increased access to emergency contraceptives.

Mitt Romney has also changed his position on immigration. Previously, Romney supported John McCain and Ted Kennedy’s 2007 efforts to pass immigration reform, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. But now that he’s running for office, he has the most extreme views on immigration of any presidential candidate in recent memory – saying that we should throw out undocumented veterans and split up families who have been here for decades.

The list of Romney’s episodes of political pandering goes on – he recently attacked the President for supporting the idea of an “entitlement society,” but as Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney actually went as far as creating a program that handed out free cars to welfare recipients in the state. The program may have been a reasonable way to help move deserving citizens from welfare to work - but Romney can't have it both ways, supporting progressive initiatives as Governor and then railing on them as a candidate for president. It becomes clearer by the day that Mitt Romney will say and do anything to get elected – and that includes trying to cover up previous moderate-to-liberal positions that he took as a Massachusetts politician because he doesn’t want Iowans to know the truth about his record.

BUCKING PRECEDENT, ROMNEY REFUSES TO RELEASE TAX RETURNS

Mitt Romney has continued to refuse to release his income tax returns, defying a practice that every Republican and Democratic nominee has adhered to for decades. Previous presidential candidates – including Romney’s own father when he ran for president in 1968 – have released their tax returns so that Americans could know about potential conflicts of interest and gauge whether a candidate had taken advantage of the tax system. Mitt Romney ought to live up to the same standard of disclosure.

What is Mitt Romney hiding? Well, for starters, Romney may not want voters to know that he profited from investments in Chinese companies – investments worth as much as $1.5 million that Romney’s financial advisers sold at some point after mid-August, right around the time that Romney made confronting China on trade a central plank of his economic platform.

But Romney is probably also trying to avoid having middle-class Americans find out that he likely pays taxes at a lower rate than they do. During his years as a corporate-buyout specialist, Mitt Romney made millions of dollars from investments that are taxed at a far lower rate than the wages of regular Americans. In other words, Mitt Romney – a millionaire 200 times over – pays a lower tax rate than many teachers, firefighters, police officers and other hardworking folks in Iowa and across the country. Is this Mitt Romney’s idea of helping the middle class?

CONCLUSION

As Iowa voters prepare to caucus next week, it’s not hard to see why they still may be harboring doubts about who Mitt Romney really is. After all, throughout the course of his political career, Romney has been taking reckless positions and supporting failed policies that demonstrate he could not be more out-of-touch when it comes to understanding what it takes for middle-class families to survive in America. So while Romney may try to use his personal fortune and massive war chest to keep hardworking folks from learning the truth about his record and his continued lack of vision for helping the middle class get ahead, ultimately it will be up to voters in Iowa and across America to decide what lies beneath the surface of Mitt Romney’s candidacy.