Ryan, Romney blast White House on China currency manipulation
Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., campaigns at Youngstown State University, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012 in Youngstown, Ohio.
/ AP Photo/Mary AltafferUpdated: 4:28 p.m. ET
Stressing the importance of manufacturing in a state with many blue-collar workers, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan used separate appearances in Ohio on Saturday to fault the Obama administration for failing to label China a "currency manipulator" by delaying a currency report until after the Nov. 6 election.
Administration officials announced Friday they would be delaying the release of a currency report due Oct. 15 that could have labeled China a country that purposely devalues its money to gain a competitive advantage in its trade practices. Romney has repeatedly highlighted the China currency issue during the campaign.
"The administration had their eighth chance to label China a currency manipulator - it's due in two days - they say they are going to push this deadline off until after the election. That's eight opportunities to say, 'You know what, play fair with us, trade with us fairly,'" Ryan said at a rally in heavily industrial Youngstown.
Campaigning 250 miles to the south in Portsmouth, Romney repeated his promise to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. "It's time for us to stand up to China for their cheating. It's gotta stop," he said.
The Treasury Department said it wanted to assess progress during an early November gathering of finance ministers and central bank presidents, delaying until after the election a politically charged decision that could fuel Republican claims that the administration is soft on China.
"Two million jobs we've lost, according to the International Trade Commission because of one country, China, taking our intellectual property rights, meaning taking our patents, taking our goods that we make and copying them and selling them - that's not correct, that's not right, that's cheating," Ryan said. "And you know what, we are going to do something about it."
The ITC Commission study Ryan cited actually said that better protections of the nation's intellectual property could lead to the creation of 2.1 million new jobs, not that it had led to the disappearance of existing jobs. A similar claim in an ad released by GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign has been labeled "misleading" by fact checkers.
Romney's campaign sees no issue with the claim. "A lost job is a lost job," said spokesman Michael Steel when asked about Ryan's use of the study.
Responding to Ryan, Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner took the offensive, pointing to the president's action against a surge in Chinese tire imports by imposing tariffs in 2009. The Obama campaign has highlighted Romney's opposition to the move - which one study says saved as many as 1,200 domestic jobs -- in an ad.
"Congressman Ryan's tough rhetoric can't hide the fact that Mitt Romney will never crack down on China's cheating - just look at his record. When President Obama stood up to China on behalf of American tire workers, Romney called it 'decidedly bad for the nation,' " Kanner said in a statement.
Even though he has made tough talk about China a prominent focus about his campaign, Romney had business ties to the country prior to his presidential election in which he has taken a harder line. According to an Associated Press story published earlier this week, as the chairman and chief executive of consulting firm Bain & Co.'s, Romney helped oversee the company's expansion into China in the early, including tasking members of the firm with holding management seminars for Chinese government trade officials.
Bain & Co. - which is separate from the venture capital firm Bain Capital that Romney helped found in the 1980s - was among several U.S. strategy firms that branched out to Beijing during the 1990s.
Speaking in southern Ohio's coal country, Romney pledged to be friendlier to the coal industry than the president, pointing out that Obama spoke of making it difficult to build new coal plants when he ran in 2008. "That tells you something about his philosophy," Romney said. "Mine is this: we have a lot of coal, we're going to use it."
The Obama campaign has fought Romney's use of coal as a campaign issue, running ads in coal country that accuse the Republican of backing tax policies that would send jobs overseas and using footage from 2003 when Romney was Massachusetts' governor and vowed to close a coal plant there that he said "kills people."
The Republican nominee also voiced his support for a nuclear power plant located in nearby Piketon, Ohio that has been waiting for a $2 billion loan guarantee from the federal government since 2009. Obama supported the loan guarantee, which would outfit the plant with new energy technology, while he was campaigning in 2008. His administration, however, has continued to delay its approval in the face of budget deficits and a lengthy review process.
"I know you're particularly aware of nuclear as well and recognize America must have a reliable source of domestically produced uranium, enriched uranium.," Romney said. "We need to make sure that Piketon has the most modern technology so that we can provide that source of security for our great country."
Ryan also faulted the president for insufficient bipartisan compromise on budgeting issues. He implied House Republicans had been hoping for "triangulation" from the president, referring to a term that was coined when former President Clinton worked with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich to craft budget deals.
"We were hoping that that's the kind of administration we would have in its second half of its term. And so we put our budget out there and what we got was nothing but attacks and demagoguery from the president," Ryan said.
He omitted mentioning that Obama worked with House Speaker John Boehner to craft a deal to raise the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011 - a deal that was undermined in part because House Republicans (including Ryan) took a hard line against any revenue increases.
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It is much easier to destroy something than to repair/restore it.
Republicans along with Bush/Cheney destroyed the country and looted our treasury. They block legislation to make corporations, big oil, big pharma and the super rich pay their fair share to restore revenue. They want you to replace President Obama with Romney as they continue fight and block anything to help struggling Americans and revive the economy.
Republican behavior is nothing short of treasonous including their bogus voter I.D. laws designed to strip voters including longtime voters of their right to vote by making it unreasonably difficult to obtain the added paperwork new I.D. laws require to vote. That alone is reason enough not to vote for the republican party which has thrown our constitution in the trash. In fact republicans have more allegiance to the GOP and Grover Norquist than our constitution. They must not be rewarded for using their public office to destroy our great nation, American way of life and the social safety net.
Do you enjoy the fact that obama pressured the supreme court?
Or are you a person who feel entitled to everything. Let the rich pay for all your troubles? is that it? :)
You want socialism and it has never worked and it never will.
oh please.
China has the right by it's own constitution to control it's own currency.
It wisely protects itself from currency speculators who can ruin a country's economy from the outside, as they did in several S.E Asian countries back in 1997.
It doesn't have, or need a FED, like the US, a privately owned group of corrupt banks charging interest to print money for "circulation".
Their keeping the yuan low keeps prices stable throughout the world. What Eddie Munster seems to want is for Americans to have to bear another round of inflation, because any rise in the value of the yuan will cause prices to rise for all Chinese-made goods, for which there are no American replacements, thanks to the GOP subsidizing the off-shoring of labor.
Buy an American-made TV. Oh wait, there are no American TV manufacturers, so if the yuan rises in value, the cost of a TV will go up, and the American consumer will have no alternative than to pay it.
Seems what Eddie Munster is mad at, is that China is controlling the value of its own currency, rather than Eddie's cronies controlling it.
So go ahead and call China a currency manipulator, that will mean nothing, what is he going to do, invade China? Let me see him try to embargo, or import-tax China, the only result will be double-digit inflation in the US.
And the baggers want to vote for this lunatic.
Such maroons these baggers be.
So the point remains, Ryan is an idiot for the above-stated reasons.
If my statement offends you, too bad for you.
The one that is really ridiculous is where we help pay phone service for the poor, we spend roughly $120,000,000.00 per month this is ridiculous.
---------------
Agreed. Reagan should never have started that plan.
(Which is also why, coincidentally, you guys credit Clinton for the GOP balancing the budget.)
Meanwhile, Mitt 'nothing to hide in my tax returns' Romney continues to PERSONALLY profit from his company directly shipping American jobs overseas.
He gets almost half a million bucks a year from his so-called "blind trust", yet he himself said blind trusts are "an age old ruse" (he's on video saying it, but ABC won't let me post a link). To top it off, his "blind" trust is administered by his personal attorney; which means any conversations about the trust are covered by privilege.
Romney and Bain forcing Americans to train their Chinese replacements, shipping their jobs to China, and actually taking down the American Flag and replacing it with the CHINESE flag on AMERICAN SOIL.
Romney has some breathtaking gall to talk about China.
It's just mind-blowing that the media constantly gives him a pass on this.
To Romney, the only thing that matters is that he himself makes a profit.
American jobs? American workers? Not a consideration.
Outrageous and anti-American
Companies flee overseas to escape leftists. Want to stop the outsourcing? Maybe we shouldn't have the highest corporate tax rates in the world, you think? You seem to think that a sign of patriotism is to stay here with their necks under your boot. Good luck with that.
Maybe this is why all leftists eventually stop people from leaving their countries altogether.
If so your argument is invalid. :)
At least Romney doesn't take money out of your pocket and give it to someone who has not earned it.
Meanwhile, Mitt 'nothing to hide in my tax returns' Romney continues to PERSONALLY profit from his company directly shipping American jobs overseas.
He gets almost half a million bucks a year from his so-called "blind trust", yet he himself said blind trusts are "an age old ruse" (he's on video saying it, but ABC won't let me post a link). To top it off, his "blind" trust is administered by his personal attorney; which means any conversations about the trust are covered by privilege.
Romney and Bain forcing Americans to train their Chinese replacements, shipping their jobs to China, and actually taking down the American Flag and replacing it with the CHINESE flag on AMERICAN SOIL.
Romney has some breathtaking gall to talk about China.
It's just mind-blowing that the media constantly gives him a pass on this.
To Romney, the only thing that matters is that he himself makes a profit.
American jobs? American workers? Not a consideration.
Outrageous and anti-American
China has the right by it's own constitution to control it's own currency.
It wisely protects itself from currency speculators who can ruin a country's economy from the outside, as they did in several S.E Asian countries back in 1997.
It doesn't have, or need a FED, like the US, a privately owned group of corrupt banks charging interest to print money for circulation.
Their keeping the yuan low keeps prices stable throughout the world. What Eddie Munster seems to want is for Americans to have to bear another round of inflation, because any rise in the value of the yuan will cause prices to rise for all Chinese-made goods, for which there are no American replacements, thanks to the GOP subsidizing the off-shoring of labor.
Buy an American-made TV. Oh wait, there are no American TV manufacturers, so if the yuan rises in value, the cost of a TV will go up, and the American consumer will have no alternative than to pay it.
Seems what Eddie Munster is mad at, is that China is controlling the value of its own currency, rather than Eddie's cronies controlling it.
So go ahead and call China a currency manipulator, that will mean nothing, what is he going to do, invade China? Let me see him try to embargo China, the only result will be double-digit inflation in the US.
And the baggers want to vote for this lunatic.
Baggers are such maroons.
I do agree that China has a right to manipulate its currency; and I also think that most of the "manipulation" going on, is to maintain China stability, not necessarily to screw us.
But that doesn't mean that their currency isn't negatively affecting other currencies. It is. It is the fact that the Yuan has become the floor, that is what gives it this power.
Stop with the GOP outsourcing meme; it's an absolute lie. Not only has GM just opened 12 new plants in China - funded by us - if you ask all these nefarious companies why they leave for overseas, they all tell you the same thing. Taxes and regulations; which is clearly a leftwing fetish. Just like the Fed, another shady leftwing anachronism that has to go.
These DBaggers are such morons; always looking for an excuse to blame the GOP for their failings.
We gave $1.1 TRILLION in credits to corporations in 2011 alone, which caused most of our deficit.
No need to raise taxes - just remove entitlements.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/28/viral-video-touting-obama-phone-puts-spotlight-on-16-billion-federal-program/
We need new leadership in Washington, people need work not promises, and more lies.
But then, they nominate someone whose expertise is in bankrupcy and outsourcing.
Oh well, guess we know what's coming.
On the bright side, if you are willing to work in Singapore, then it isn't outsourcing.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/28/viral-video-touting-obama-phone-puts-spotlight-on-16-billion-federal-program/
As the article states he also has taken campaign contributions from Bain Capital officers while running for the senate.
Really sounds like an honest man, right who does the same things he is accusing Mitt Romney of. Who is the LIAR?