In 2012, It’s the Jobs, Stupid

August 26 2011
by Ed Dervan

The key issue of 2012 is going to be jobs. Specifically — how to create them. Over the course of the primaries we are going to hear a lot of braggadocio BS from the Republican candidates about their job creation skills. Let’s look at what we’ve got.

Mitt Romney: Romney’s claim to fame is that he ran Bain Capital in Boston. He was CEO of what is billed as a private equity firm. He made hundreds of millions for himself while running that operation. He claims to have done over a hundred deals at Bain. What they did was invest in start ups like Staples and target companies to hollow out like American Pad & Paper. American Pad & Paper. Remember that name. That is Mitt Romney. Romney bought that firm for $5 million of his clients money. He charged American Pad & Paper millions in fees for himself and Bain, ran the company into bankruptcy, fired hundreds of employees and left creditors and stockholders broke and holding the bag. Romney and Bain went on to other successful investments. He claims to have created tens of thousands of jobs on over 100 deals. He won’t list those deals. We will never see the details.

Romney’s other business specialty was running off shore tax havens for his rich corporate friends out of the Cayman Islands in order to help them avoid U.S. Federal, state and local taxes.

You can read the sad details for yourself in the link above. Bottom line: Romney made a fortune helping others evade their tax obligations. He wasn’t helping Middle Americans in that business.

As a result of his business and religious connections Romney has access to what has been called “quiet” money in his campaigns. He has made a lot of his friends rich with his advice and corporate raiding tactics. Payback is payback.

The question remains: how many jobs did he actually create? We will never know. But it certainly is a good sound bite to claim something that you won’t back up with the facts.

Rick Perry: Where to start? Perry is being unmasked as a classic crony capitalism government intercessor. In Alaska they called it “The Corrupt Bastards Club”. They have a large and thriving branch in Texas and Rick Perry is the President of the local chapter. Sarah Palin cut her teeth exposing these type of legitimized crooks inside the government working hand in hand with big business to raid the state treasury and the state taxpayers. The jobs Rick Perry says he created in Texas came at a terrible price to the taxpayers.

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney share at least one thing in common. They both have a lot of fat cat political donors beholden to them for money made in the past by avoiding taxes in the Cayman Islands and hollowing out targeted companies and charging exorbitant fees on the one hand and by channeling grants, political favors, and tax payer revenue streams in exchange for political contributions on the other hand.

In Congress they call this form of political corruption Pay for Play. The favorite tool for that at the Federal level is Earmarks in appropriation bills. It got so egregious and stinky and downright illegal that even Obama made noises about ending the practice. But Harry Reid has assured us that Earmarks will be back as soon as the election is over and all the fuss has died down. Believe him if Obama is re-elected. You might ask yourselves–given Romney’s and Perry’s less than savory background of rewarding their friends–if the practice will be any different under a Romney or Perry administration. Odds are business as usual will sail on like always.

Michele Bachmann. Bachmann has no record of creating jobs at any level. She doesn’t claim any. There is no Jobs category on the Issues page of her Congressional web-site.

She says she was a federal tax lawyer (shudder!!!). She wants to reduce corporate income taxes. And she thinks the EPA is a jobs killer. That’s good. She is mighty, mighty thin on experience or proposals. There is no there, there. An empty suit.

Sarah Palin: The facts say that Sarah Palin has the best actual record of job creation of any of the candidates in the field. She had the second best record for any state in job creation while Governor. She had the 3rd best record on unemployment. She ran the most efficient government as measured by surplus as a % of total revenues of any other candidate. She got a AAA rating for Alaska. Alaska ranked 4th in the Nation on economic growth and per capita economic growth. During Romney’s term Massachusetts was a 48th place finisher in economic growth–an economic basket case (he will blame it on his Democrat predecessors –sound familiar?). Perry’s famed “Texas Miracle” is actually below average in economic growth for the average family. Texas ranked 10th in the Nation in GDP growth under Perry (Palin ranked 4th). But at the same time Texas ranked 27th in per capita GDP growth. Somebody was getting rich in Texas but it wasn’t the little guy or Middle Americans.

Sarah Palin didn’t pal around with the fat cats to accomplish her growth record. She took them on. She stared down big oil and re-negotiated the deal to get a bigger slice of those oil profits for the people of Alaska.

Cronyism, Rick Perry Texas style? Ask the Corrupt Bastards Club in Alaska how back slapping, cigar smoking, back room dealing, Pay for Play, Ear Mark giveaways of tax payer dollar politics worked in the Palin administration in Alaska.

Cozying up to Wall St investment banker friends and laughing all the way to the bank while you advise them how to hide their income in off-shore tax havens while exploiting, hollowing out and gutting American companies while driving them into bankruptcy all the while charging them exorbitant fees for your advice, Mitt Romney style? Sarah Palin can see those Cayman Islands off-shore tax havens from her front porch in Wasilla, Alaska.

Staring with a blank look of incomprehension when the subject of jobs comes up, Bachmann style? While Bachmann is fixing her makeup offstage in the next Presidential debate she will miss Sarah Palin describing how she created the conditions for job growth in Alaska.

Folks, Sarah Palin, like the careful prepared hunter she is, will go into this jobs debate with these rival Republicans loaded for bear. She will blow them out of the water on the facts. She will challenge their jobs bona fides in ways that average Middle Americans can understand. The smoke and mirrors BS will not hold up under even the most minimal scrutiny. It’s gonna be no contest.

Have courage. Help is on the way.

Conservatives 4 Palin