Mitt Romney Contradicts Own Spokesman On 100k Jobs Claim

[RandySF]

NEW HAMPSHIRE — Mitt Romney doubled down in Saturday night’s debate on his claim that he created a 100,000 jobs while in the private sector and in the process contradicted recent remarks on the subject from his own campaign spokesperson.

Under persistent questioning from debate moderators, Romney denied that the 100,000 figure can only be reached if one does not count layoffs and other job losses he was responsible for during his time at the corporate management company, Bain Capital.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/mitt-romney-takes-dubious-100k-jobs-claim-to-prime-time.php?ref=fpa

[Historic NY]

1. open mouth insert foot.

So Romney’s adviser told the Post the the number comes from the jobs that exist at the companies now, not the jobs that were created specifically while he was at Bain, and that they didn’t take into account the other side of the ledger.

[SixthSense]

2. I don't believe it

If that was really Mitt he'd contradict his own spokesman and then contradict himself and the contradict the spokesman again before finishing his answer.

[chelsea0011]

3. He has a job loss/ layoff problem

On the campaign trail he rips Obama and the countries 25,000,000 job loss. He blames Obama for this and attempts empathy for the out-of-work. But when it come to his corporate raider private life job loss is a necessary result and is something that he won't address. No empathy here for these people. Mitt is a fraud.

[bigtree]

4. they're just digging in, hoping the distortions are bought by folks who don't pay attention

. . . or who can do basic math.

[geckosfeet]

5. I have to think that by the time of the general election

team Obama will have Romney/Bains job destruction numbers charted in painful detail, and be able to compare normalized data with the Bush/Obama transition period and the Obama presidency period.

Can r0mn3y legitimately claim that he 'created' the jobs at the companies Bain bought out?

[div class="excerpt" style="width:65%;"]
Excerpt from the Wikipediea entry for Willard Mitt Romney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Business_career

Bain Capital's leveraged buyouts sometimes led to layoffs, either soon after acquisition or later after the firm had left. Bain Capital officials later said that overall, more jobs were added than lost due to these buyouts, but a lack of available records makes such assertions unverifiable. In any case, maximizing the value of acquired companies and the return to Bain's investors, not job creation, was the firm's fundamental goal, as it was for most private equity operations. Regarding job losses, Romney later said, "Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient. My job was to try and make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong." Bain Capital's acquisition of Ampad exemplified a deal where it profited handsomely from early payments and management fees, even though the subject company itself ended up going into bankruptcy. Dade Behring was another case where Bain Capital received an eightfold return on its investment, but the company itself was saddled with debt and laid off over a thousand employees before Bain Capital exited (the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, with more layoffs, before recovering and prospering). Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most such fees. Romney said in retrospect: "It is one thing that if I had a chance to go back I would be more sensitive to. It is always a balance. Great care has got to be taken not to take a dividend or a distribution from a company that puts that company at risk. [Having taken a big payment from a company that later failed] would make me sick, sick at heart."