ANS -- Romney campaign: Mitt bleeding companies to death just like President Obama saving auto industry

This is about interpreting what politicians are saying. it's short. 
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--Kim



Mon May 21, 2012 at 11:45 AM PDT

Romney campaign: Mitt bleeding companies to death just like President Obama saving auto industry

by Jed Lewison Follow
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Trigger alert: Your jaw is going to drop after you read this question from none other than Andrea Mitchell to Mitt Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstom (he of "Etch-A-Sketch" fame):

ANDREA MITCHELL: There are winners and losers, but isn't it fair to single out companies that might have survived if they had not been bleeded by the investors and the money taken out? Isn't there a way that they could have lasted longer if Bain had not pulled the plug on them?

Before I even get to Fehrnstrom's response (which you know is going to be gold), can we just pause for a moment and reflect on just how stunning it is to hear Andrea Mitchell casually talk about how Mitt Romney's business model includes bleeding companies to death, taking their money out and pulling the plug?

Okay, now pick your jaw back up and check out Fehrnstrom's response:

ERIC FEHRNSTROM: Look, sometimes when companies are in trouble they require corrective measures. Let's take an example: General Motors. When the government, when the Barack Obama administration was running General Motors, they had to take corrective measures to save the company. So what did they do? They shut down plants. They closed dealerships. They laid off employees. They had to change benefits for workers to make them less costly. That's the nature of free enterprise. And today, General Motors is a profitable company because of the steps that were taken to bring their costs in alignment with their revenues.

I'll give you a second to recollect your jaw because I know you dropped it after reading that nonsense.

I guess the good news is that Mitt Romney's campaign is finally conceding that it believes President Obama understands the nature of the free enterprise system, something they've denied since day one. Of course, General Motors needed to be bailed out because private markets had failed ... which brings us to the absurdity of Fehrnstrom's response, the premise of which is was that Mitt Romney's business model was no different than President Obama's.

Of course, there's a big difference: President Obama was taking a step to save hundreds of thousands of jobs and protect a vital national industry because it was the right thing to do. Mitt Romney was maximizing value for his investors. The fact that Mitt Romney sought to maximize profits is not inherently wrong. In fact, the quest for profits is one of the things that fuels economic growth. But the president's job isn't to maximize profits, it's to maximize the strength of the nation­and that's not something Mitt Romney or Eric Fehrnstom seem to understand.

President Obama measures the success of the auto bailout in terms of how many jobs it created and whether it saved the industry as a whole. By that metric, it's been a resounding success, with more than 100,000 jobs created in the auto sector since it hit bottom in 2009. Eric Fehrnstrom, who is Mitt Romney's closest aide, measures the success of President Obama's policy on the basis of General Motors' profitability.

In Mitt Romney's world, America's bottom-line is the corporation's bottom-line. In Barack Obama's world, America's bottom-line is its people's bottom-line. And Eric Fehrnstrom's response to Andrea Mitchell couldn't have made that distinction any more clear.

Originally posted to The Jed Report on Mon May 21, 2012 at 11:45 AM PDT.


Also republished by Daily Kos.