Q JINN
2012-06-05 11:18:21 UTC
<html>
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n-mitt-romney-s-economic-failure-in-massachusetts.html?utm_medium=3Demail&=
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<BR>
<DIV class=3D"grid-9 copy-style-b wrap-body first">
<DIV id=3Dwrap-page></DIV><HEADER class=3D"wrapped clearfix">
<H1 class=3D"heading heading-style-i size-30" property=3D"dc:title"><FONT
size=3D5>Michael Tomasky on Mitt Romney's Economic Failure in
Massachusetts</FONT></H1><SPAN class=3D"byline
byline-style-a"><SPAN>by</SPAN> <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/michael-tomasky.html"
rel=3Dauthor property=3D"foaf:publications">Michael Tomasky </A></SPAN><TI=
ME
class=3Dtimestamp property=3D"dc:created"
datetime=3D"2012-05-29T08:00:00.000Z" pubdate=3D"pubdate">May 29, 2012 4:0=
0
AM EDT </TIME>
<DIV class=3Ddek-body>
<DIV class=3D"parsys updated-dek"></DIV>
<H2 class=3Ddek><FONT size=3D4>Mitt Romney loves to attack Barack Obama's
record of job creation as president. Too bad Mitt's record as
Massachusetts governor pales in comparison. </FONT></H2></DIV></HEADER>
<DIV class=3D"body parsys"><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text0></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P><A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/25/friday-afternoon-=
bain-sum-up-who-won-the-week.html"
target=3D_blank>Bain</A>? Dude, that's so last week. Let's talk
Massachusetts. President Obama dropped little hints toward the end of <A
href=3D"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-next-step-i=
n-obamas-attack-on-bain-capital/2012/05/28/gJQAsnaTwU_blog.html"
target=3D_blank>last week</A> that Romney's job-creation record as the Bay=
State's governor would also be on the table. So let's get the facts.
They do not support, frankly, an argument from Obama that he is the
better job-creator as chief executive than <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/25/romney-s-revealin=
g-slip.html"
target=3D_blank>Romney</A>. But they do support an argument that Romney
when working in the public sector, not the private, as he obviously
would be as president had a downright embarrassing jobs record,
especially for a state with higher-than-average education levels. And
they do support an argument that, if you subtract the difficulties that
were sitting there to smack each man in the face when he took the oath
of office, Obama has had the better of it. And though he might have a
hard time making that case, the case against the opposition is plain and
direct.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_inlineimage></A><FIGURE class=3D"multimedia section"><IMG
class=3Dcq-dd-image title=3Dromney-job-creating-record-tomasky alt=3D"Debt=
Politics"
src=3D"http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/05/29=
/michael-tomasky-on-mitt-romney-s-economic-failure-in-massachusetts/_jcr_c=
ontent/body/inlineimage.img.503.jpg/1338279326515.cached.jpg">
<FIGCAPTION class=3Dfigcaption>
<P>Mitt Romney gestures during a recent speech at the Latino Coalition
economic summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.
(Evan Vucci / AP Photo)</P></FIGCAPTION></FIGURE><A style=3D"VISIBILITY:
hidden" name=3Dbody_pullquote></A>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=3D"blockquote section">
<P>Romney avoids talking about his health-care policies because they're
too liberal, but he also doesn't want to talk about jobs because his
record here is so lame from any ideological
perspective.</P></BLOCKQUOTE><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text1></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P><A
href=3D"http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMS25000000000000001?data_tool=3DXG=
table"
target=3D_blank>Here</A> you will see the official Bureau of Labor
Statistics month-by-month lists of total nonfarm payroll employment in
Massachusetts for every month from January 2002 to April 2012. The
relevant dates here are January 2003 through December 2006, Romney's
tenure. This chart lists totals, not gains or losses, so I had to do a
little math. Romney took office January 3, 2003 (not January 20, so we
can lay the whole month on him, assuming few to zero jobs were lost
during the Rose Bowl). In January 2003, the state's payrolls had 3.224
million workers. Within a month, 15,000 jobs were shed. The year ended
with 3.179 million on the payrolls, for a first-year net loss of 44,700
jobs.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text2></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>In 2004, the state gained back 20,500 jobs. The next year it gained
back 24,400. So after three years in office, Romney was up a grand total
of 200 jobs. Finally, in his fourth year, another 40,500 jobs were
added, so he wound up with a net gain of 40,700 jobs. This, as has been
often noted, put Massachusetts at 47th in the nation, only ahead of of
Michigan, Ohio, and Katrina-ravaged Louisiana.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_breakout></A>
<DIV class=3DadBreakout data-breakout=3D"{params:
'pos=3Dbreakthrough;pid=3D1646613664', siteID: '5480.iac.tdb',
zone:
'politics/voxbox/article'}"></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text3></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Why? The general explanation is that the high-tech economy benefited
Massachusetts more when it was booming and it hurt it more when it
collapsed. So the 2001 recession figures in here, which Romney and his
defenders have mentioned in the past. But there is also such a thing as
policy. When Romney saw his numbers sinking in the state about midway
through his term, he decided not to seek reelection and to run for
president, and at that point came the inevitable ascent, if we can call
it that, into the Palinosphere. In a state where biotech is vital
(Harvard, MIT, etc.), he blocked a stem-cell research bill that could
have created jobs, quit spending much money on infrastructure repairs,
and took Massachusetts out of a regional greenhouse-gas initiative that
has <A
href=3D"http://www.thenation.com/blog/164599/why-mitt-romney-had-such-bad-=
record-jobs-massachusetts"
target=3D_blank>benefited other states</A>.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILIT=
Y:
hidden" name=3Dbody_text4></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Okay, now, Obama's record. <A
href=3D"http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=3Dnet_1mt=
h"
target=3D_blank>Here is</A> the exact same BLS chart for the whole United
States from January 2002 to April 2012 (except that this shows jobs
gained and lost, not total numbers). It starts out ugly. If you give him
one third of the 818,000 jobs lost in January 2009 (he was sworn in on
January 20, of course), a total of 4.59 million jobs were lost through
February 2010. March 2010 brought the first net positive jobs report of
the Obama term (189,000). There were losses that summer, but the numbers
have all been positive since October 2010. So measuring since that
March, 3.745 million jobs were gained. That's a net loss of 845,000
jobs, and Romney has a right to say that, because it is technically
true.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text5></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>But ... what reasonable person would say that Obama caused those
first several months of crushing losses? It may be fair game, such as
these things are defined, for 30-second ads, but it isn't real life.
Real-life Obama-blaming starts sometime later. In his seminal book <I><A
href=3D"http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Democracy-Political-Economy-Gilded/d=
p/0691136637"
target=3D_blank>Unequal Democracy</A></I>, political scientist Larry
Bartels measured the effect of each president's policies on the economy
since Harry Truman by giving them all one year for their policies to
start to kick in. Hey, it's not the only thing Julius Caesar came up
with that <A
href=3D"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Reforms_of_Julius_Caes=
ar"
target=3D_blank>we still abide by</A>.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY:
hidden" name=3Dbody_text6></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>If we use the Bartelian calendar, Obama is relieved of almost all of
"his"=9D job loss 4.48 million, or all but 110,000 lost jobs. Now, even
though this is a respected social-science technique, if Obama tried to
say something like that, it obviously would not pass a general laugh
test. But it is worth pointing it out, for the sake of the historical
record, and it is still true 'still!' that more Americans blame Bush
than Obama for the economy (56 to 29 percent, <A
href=3D"http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2012/03/29/most-americans-s=
till-blame-bush-more-than-obama-for-nations-economic-problems/"
target=3D_blank>found CNN</A> not long ago). And what president doing
exactly what could have stopped 2009's hideous immiseration? And please,
don't say "John McCain" and "cutting taxes and
regulation."=9D</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text7></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>So by Bartels's rules, Obama has created a net 3.635 million jobs.
Applying the same rules to Romney's numbers through the same time
period=E2=80"that is, through April of his fourth year in office,
2006=E2=80"we credit Romney with 64,500 jobs. So he grew jobs by 1.9
percent. Obama's job-growth rate is 2.35 percent.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text8></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>It's worth going into these numbers because it's worth knowing what's
true and what kinds of arguments might strike a chord. It is pretty
hilarious that Romney hardly talks about Massachusetts. As my colleague
Paul Begala <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/paul-begala-what-=
s-mitt-romney-hiding-in-his-record-as-governor.html"
target=3D_blank>noted in March</A>, you usually can't get governors
running for president to shut up about their infernal records. Romney is
trying to avoid talking about his health-care policies because they're
too liberal, but he also doesn't want to talk about jobs because his
record here is so lame from any ideological perspective.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text9></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Obama obviously doesn't have a lot to boast about on the jobs front.
But Romney clearly can make no claim whatsoever that he has access to
some magic tonic that grows jobs. Combining his record as governor with
the plans he insists he'll inflict on us as president - gargantuan tax
cuts for the rich, a gaping deficit, severe cuts to all manner of
government investment in research and innovation and environmental
protection so we can make sure that Lebron James gets another half
million or whatever returned to him - adds up to a lurid scenario of a
society becoming both more unequal and more stagnant, and a picture of a
man who seemingly cannot under any circumstance utter an unfalse word
about himself.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV> </html>
<A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/29/michael-tomasky-o=
n-mitt-romney-s-economic-failure-in-massachusetts.html?utm_medium=3Demail&=
amp;utm_source=3Dnewsletter&utm_campaign=3Dcheatsheet_morning&cid=3D=
newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=3DCheat%20Sheet">http=
://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/29/michael-tomasky-on-mitt-romne=
y-s-economic-failure-in-massachusetts.html?utm_medium=3Demail&utm_sour=
ce=3Dnewsletter&utm_campaign=3Dcheatsheet_morning&cid=3Dnewsletter=
%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=3DCheat%20Sheet</A>
<BR>
<DIV class=3D"grid-9 copy-style-b wrap-body first">
<DIV id=3Dwrap-page></DIV><HEADER class=3D"wrapped clearfix">
<H1 class=3D"heading heading-style-i size-30" property=3D"dc:title"><FONT
size=3D5>Michael Tomasky on Mitt Romney's Economic Failure in
Massachusetts</FONT></H1><SPAN class=3D"byline
byline-style-a"><SPAN>by</SPAN> <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/michael-tomasky.html"
rel=3Dauthor property=3D"foaf:publications">Michael Tomasky </A></SPAN><TI=
ME
class=3Dtimestamp property=3D"dc:created"
datetime=3D"2012-05-29T08:00:00.000Z" pubdate=3D"pubdate">May 29, 2012 4:0=
0
AM EDT </TIME>
<DIV class=3Ddek-body>
<DIV class=3D"parsys updated-dek"></DIV>
<H2 class=3Ddek><FONT size=3D4>Mitt Romney loves to attack Barack Obama's
record of job creation as president. Too bad Mitt's record as
Massachusetts governor pales in comparison. </FONT></H2></DIV></HEADER>
<DIV class=3D"body parsys"><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text0></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P><A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/25/friday-afternoon-=
bain-sum-up-who-won-the-week.html"
target=3D_blank>Bain</A>? Dude, that's so last week. Let's talk
Massachusetts. President Obama dropped little hints toward the end of <A
href=3D"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-next-step-i=
n-obamas-attack-on-bain-capital/2012/05/28/gJQAsnaTwU_blog.html"
target=3D_blank>last week</A> that Romney's job-creation record as the Bay=
State's governor would also be on the table. So let's get the facts.
They do not support, frankly, an argument from Obama that he is the
better job-creator as chief executive than <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/25/romney-s-revealin=
g-slip.html"
target=3D_blank>Romney</A>. But they do support an argument that Romney
when working in the public sector, not the private, as he obviously
would be as president had a downright embarrassing jobs record,
especially for a state with higher-than-average education levels. And
they do support an argument that, if you subtract the difficulties that
were sitting there to smack each man in the face when he took the oath
of office, Obama has had the better of it. And though he might have a
hard time making that case, the case against the opposition is plain and
direct.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_inlineimage></A><FIGURE class=3D"multimedia section"><IMG
class=3Dcq-dd-image title=3Dromney-job-creating-record-tomasky alt=3D"Debt=
Politics"
src=3D"http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/05/29=
/michael-tomasky-on-mitt-romney-s-economic-failure-in-massachusetts/_jcr_c=
ontent/body/inlineimage.img.503.jpg/1338279326515.cached.jpg">
<FIGCAPTION class=3Dfigcaption>
<P>Mitt Romney gestures during a recent speech at the Latino Coalition
economic summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.
(Evan Vucci / AP Photo)</P></FIGCAPTION></FIGURE><A style=3D"VISIBILITY:
hidden" name=3Dbody_pullquote></A>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=3D"blockquote section">
<P>Romney avoids talking about his health-care policies because they're
too liberal, but he also doesn't want to talk about jobs because his
record here is so lame from any ideological
perspective.</P></BLOCKQUOTE><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text1></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P><A
href=3D"http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMS25000000000000001?data_tool=3DXG=
table"
target=3D_blank>Here</A> you will see the official Bureau of Labor
Statistics month-by-month lists of total nonfarm payroll employment in
Massachusetts for every month from January 2002 to April 2012. The
relevant dates here are January 2003 through December 2006, Romney's
tenure. This chart lists totals, not gains or losses, so I had to do a
little math. Romney took office January 3, 2003 (not January 20, so we
can lay the whole month on him, assuming few to zero jobs were lost
during the Rose Bowl). In January 2003, the state's payrolls had 3.224
million workers. Within a month, 15,000 jobs were shed. The year ended
with 3.179 million on the payrolls, for a first-year net loss of 44,700
jobs.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text2></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>In 2004, the state gained back 20,500 jobs. The next year it gained
back 24,400. So after three years in office, Romney was up a grand total
of 200 jobs. Finally, in his fourth year, another 40,500 jobs were
added, so he wound up with a net gain of 40,700 jobs. This, as has been
often noted, put Massachusetts at 47th in the nation, only ahead of of
Michigan, Ohio, and Katrina-ravaged Louisiana.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_breakout></A>
<DIV class=3DadBreakout data-breakout=3D"{params:
'pos=3Dbreakthrough;pid=3D1646613664', siteID: '5480.iac.tdb',
zone:
'politics/voxbox/article'}"></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text3></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Why? The general explanation is that the high-tech economy benefited
Massachusetts more when it was booming and it hurt it more when it
collapsed. So the 2001 recession figures in here, which Romney and his
defenders have mentioned in the past. But there is also such a thing as
policy. When Romney saw his numbers sinking in the state about midway
through his term, he decided not to seek reelection and to run for
president, and at that point came the inevitable ascent, if we can call
it that, into the Palinosphere. In a state where biotech is vital
(Harvard, MIT, etc.), he blocked a stem-cell research bill that could
have created jobs, quit spending much money on infrastructure repairs,
and took Massachusetts out of a regional greenhouse-gas initiative that
has <A
href=3D"http://www.thenation.com/blog/164599/why-mitt-romney-had-such-bad-=
record-jobs-massachusetts"
target=3D_blank>benefited other states</A>.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILIT=
Y:
hidden" name=3Dbody_text4></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Okay, now, Obama's record. <A
href=3D"http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=3Dnet_1mt=
h"
target=3D_blank>Here is</A> the exact same BLS chart for the whole United
States from January 2002 to April 2012 (except that this shows jobs
gained and lost, not total numbers). It starts out ugly. If you give him
one third of the 818,000 jobs lost in January 2009 (he was sworn in on
January 20, of course), a total of 4.59 million jobs were lost through
February 2010. March 2010 brought the first net positive jobs report of
the Obama term (189,000). There were losses that summer, but the numbers
have all been positive since October 2010. So measuring since that
March, 3.745 million jobs were gained. That's a net loss of 845,000
jobs, and Romney has a right to say that, because it is technically
true.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text5></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>But ... what reasonable person would say that Obama caused those
first several months of crushing losses? It may be fair game, such as
these things are defined, for 30-second ads, but it isn't real life.
Real-life Obama-blaming starts sometime later. In his seminal book <I><A
href=3D"http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Democracy-Political-Economy-Gilded/d=
p/0691136637"
target=3D_blank>Unequal Democracy</A></I>, political scientist Larry
Bartels measured the effect of each president's policies on the economy
since Harry Truman by giving them all one year for their policies to
start to kick in. Hey, it's not the only thing Julius Caesar came up
with that <A
href=3D"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Reforms_of_Julius_Caes=
ar"
target=3D_blank>we still abide by</A>.</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY:
hidden" name=3Dbody_text6></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>If we use the Bartelian calendar, Obama is relieved of almost all of
"his"=9D job loss 4.48 million, or all but 110,000 lost jobs. Now, even
though this is a respected social-science technique, if Obama tried to
say something like that, it obviously would not pass a general laugh
test. But it is worth pointing it out, for the sake of the historical
record, and it is still true 'still!' that more Americans blame Bush
than Obama for the economy (56 to 29 percent, <A
href=3D"http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2012/03/29/most-americans-s=
till-blame-bush-more-than-obama-for-nations-economic-problems/"
target=3D_blank>found CNN</A> not long ago). And what president doing
exactly what could have stopped 2009's hideous immiseration? And please,
don't say "John McCain" and "cutting taxes and
regulation."=9D</P></DIV><A style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden"
name=3Dbody_text7></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>So by Bartels's rules, Obama has created a net 3.635 million jobs.
Applying the same rules to Romney's numbers through the same time
period=E2=80"that is, through April of his fourth year in office,
2006=E2=80"we credit Romney with 64,500 jobs. So he grew jobs by 1.9
percent. Obama's job-growth rate is 2.35 percent.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text8></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>It's worth going into these numbers because it's worth knowing what's
true and what kinds of arguments might strike a chord. It is pretty
hilarious that Romney hardly talks about Massachusetts. As my colleague
Paul Begala <A
href=3D"http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/paul-begala-what-=
s-mitt-romney-hiding-in-his-record-as-governor.html"
target=3D_blank>noted in March</A>, you usually can't get governors
running for president to shut up about their infernal records. Romney is
trying to avoid talking about his health-care policies because they're
too liberal, but he also doesn't want to talk about jobs because his
record here is so lame from any ideological perspective.</P></DIV><A
style=3D"VISIBILITY: hidden" name=3Dbody_text9></A>
<DIV class=3D"text parbase section">
<P>Obama obviously doesn't have a lot to boast about on the jobs front.
But Romney clearly can make no claim whatsoever that he has access to
some magic tonic that grows jobs. Combining his record as governor with
the plans he insists he'll inflict on us as president - gargantuan tax
cuts for the rich, a gaping deficit, severe cuts to all manner of
government investment in research and innovation and environmental
protection so we can make sure that Lebron James gets another half
million or whatever returned to him - adds up to a lurid scenario of a
society becoming both more unequal and more stagnant, and a picture of a
man who seemingly cannot under any circumstance utter an unfalse word
about himself.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV> </html>