Romney takes aim at Obama stimulus, likens federal debt to a "prairie fire"

AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

UPDATED 5:05 p.m. ET

(CBS News) DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took aim Tuesday at President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package, blaming it for a soaring federal debt that he likened to a prairie fire.

"President Obama started out with a near trillion-dollar stimulus package - was the biggest, most careless one-time expenditure by the federal government in history," Romney said. "And remember this: the stimulus wasn't just wasted - it was borrowed and wasted. We still owe the money, we're still paying interest on it, and it will be that way long after this president's out of office."

In a speech at the Hotel Des Moines to about 200 people, including some prominent Iowa politicians, Romney said that the federal debt is "not solely a Democrat or Republican problem." But he placed the blame for it squarely on Obama, saying he had increased the debt by $5 trillion - or $520,000 per average American household.

"We can't spend another four years talking about solving a problem that we know we're making worse every day," Romney said. "When the men and women who settled the Iowa prairie saw a fire in the distance, they didn't look around for someone else to save them or go back to sleep and hope the wind might change directions. They knew that survival was up to them. A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and across the nation, and every day that we fail to act, that fire gets closer to the homes and the children we love."

Romney said Obama has been feeding rather than putting out the fire. "He has spent more and borrowed more. The time has come for a president, a leader, who will lead. I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno."

The Associated Press, in a fact-check of Romney's speech, said much of the increased debt is a result of depressed tax revenues, bailouts and stimulus rooted in the recession, and in Bush-era tax cuts that Romney wants to extend and expand.

Most economists were recommending stimulus at the time Obama's package passed, in the depth of the recession, though there were varying recommendations as to its composition and size. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the Obama stimulus lowered unemployment by millions of jobs since it was enacted in 2009. For the final quarter of 2011, the agency said the government infusion had reduced unemployment rolls by 2 million people and raised gross domestic product by about 1.5 percent.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith called Romney's speech "heavy on dishonest claims about President Obama's record" and light on what she called his failure to lay out a plan to pay for the $5 trillion in tax breaks he has proposed. "Loading the country up with debt while giving tax breaks to the wealthy--America can't afford Romney Economics," she said in a statement. Smith also said that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney "raised state spending 6.5 percent each year and left Massachusetts with the largest per-capita debt of any state in the nation."

Full CBS News coverage: Mitt Romney

[retiredgustav]

Mitten's hero is Herbert Hoover. His solution to an ailing economy is do nothing.

[TimeToEvolve]

Is anyone really listening to this lying plastic parasite whose party caused almost all the debt problems America has now?

[TimeToEvolve]

What does Robmee the American business killer care, he got his millions off the backs of the rest of us. And where was his sorry butt when the Bush Cheney Crime Family and his party was spending us off the cliff? I did not hear Governor Etch-A-Sketch say ANYTHING in 2008.

[gmonsen]

I believe AP is attempting to alleviate some of Obama's responsibility by claims like part of the deficit was caused by lower tax revenues for instance. Obama's regulatory policies and anti-business and anti- capitalism were a direct cause of lowered corporate revenues and taxes. You cannot -- one cannot -- shift blame this way.

More importantly for those here who actually are thoughtful and not just repetitive chanters in the echo-chamber is that Romney's metaphor or simile comparing Obama's historic deficits to a prairie wild fire will, resound with most Americans, regardless of whether there are issues surrounding his claims. And, Lord knows, Obama has used similar techniques successfully time and again regardless of whether what's underpinning those comparisons were actual.

Its a lose-lose for Obama.

[moretruthnow]

The largest amount of debt was caused by the spending spree of the Bush administration and the GOP. The Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, several tax cuts, and the Medicare Part D all approved and signed with no consideration for what that would do to the deficit. Bush was putting the huge amount of war spending on supplementals to keep it out of the budget. Several tax cuts at the time of war was irresponsible with no concern whatsoever for the great cost. The human costs and the toll on the military now that the wars have lasted for years. The Recovery Act that President Obama wanted for this country helped states keep people working and provided funds for job creation. It was for the good of country's middle class.

[WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING]

When will MItty and the GOP put out how they will cure the deficit? Show us were the cuts will be, how much the cuts will be. Show how the tax BUSH/OBAMA tax cuts will be off set. Don't just flap your lips, show use the numbers.

[wfw3536]

The key question for this election is are you better off today than 4 years ago. Most regular folks see that they now take home about 4 thousand dollars less in their paycheck since Obama took office, 45 million folks are now on food stamps(a record), and we see Obama's plan to keep spending a trillion dollars (of borrowed money) a year for years to come, and we have 13.5 million folks who have basically given up trying to find jobs. This is Obama's record and what folks will look at when they vote.

[mkelter2011]

The Associated Factcheck quoted in this story wasn't exactly factual (go figure). The AP "factcheck" was written by Calvin Woodward and Carl Raum. It concluded (without substantiation):

In short, the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/15/3612211/fact-check-romney-oversimplifies.html#storylink=cpy

The AP "factcheck" is not factual. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the debt increased from $1.79 T to $3.5 T during the Reagan years which is roughly double (not triple). During the Obama years the debt increased from $10.62 T to $16.0 T which is a 50% increase.

Compared to the $5.4 T debt increase in the first (and hopefully last) four years of the Obama administration, the $1.7 T increase during the Reagan years was concurrent with a $2.6 T increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In other words the increased debt service could be paid off with the increased income of Americans.

The $5.4 T debt increase during the Obama years is associated with only a $0.5 T increase in the Gross Domestic Product. In other words, our income did not increase to pay off the increased debt service.

The money spent during the Obama Administration was wasted. At least the Reagan debt bought us a few fond memories of the Berlin Wall toppling, the Peace Dividend, and the budget surpluses of the Clinton years.

The Obama debt bought us nothing except the nightmares of future hardship and inflation.

[grzthewash]

So everything someone tries to hold this President responsible for his four years of "stewardship" of the economy, the left wing media is going to "fact check" it and say it was Bush's fault, and try to point to a prior Republican president who (supposedly) was even worse on this issue? And call it "fact checking""? We need to speak to the ombudsman of the papers, and the editors of these ridiculous articles, and demand that heads roll for such blatant fraud and deception.

[Black saint]

We needed a bigger-than-life President - we got President Zero.
We needed a well-grounded stable President - we got a certifiable narcissist.
We needed bold leadership - we got a teleprompter
We needed a seasoned hand - we got a hand in in our pockets
We needed a champion for American citizens... we got a champion for the invading horde of Illegal Aliens
We needed a skilled bridge builder - we got a class-warfare specialist and inciter-in-chief.
We needed practical, proven policies - we got socialist dogma and monumental waste
We needed an inspirational visionary - we got an ideologically blinded, left learning-impaired radical
We needed a Constitutional champion - we got a domestic enemy of the Constitution
We needed a restrained, intimidating warrior - we got groveling, bowing, Barney Fife
We needed a patriot - we got G. D. America, G. D. America, G. D. America.
We needed someone to unshackle our economy - we got someone who is a friend to our enemies and an enemy to our businesses
We needed a president beyond color - we got a green president embracing every whim and myth ever spoken by the kook environmental fringe.
We needed mature, principled leadership - we got a petulant, lying, whining, blaming, sulking, man-child.

It is a national disgrace that someone this inept, incompetent, racist, and a American hating Socialist could be elected to the office of the Presidency.

[moretruthnow]

Blarney for a black saint who sins.

[sam_osborne]

Pied-Piper Romney toots his own horn to the latest tune: "I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno."

And how will he do this, any particulars on how this self-made man that worships his maker, himself, will accomplish this?

In our consumer economy, that is depending upon spending, Romney and accompanying folks like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin are going to destroy organized labor's capacity to collectively bargain so that working folks have a bit of disposable income to spend and cut government purchases from the market, and this will bring . . . ah . . . less things sold in the market already stuffed with stuff made in low-standard-of-living- countries by masse of people that have . . . ah . . . a low standard of living that keeps them for even buying the things that makes on the cheap.

If Romney plans on getting rid of the current dying consumer capitalism, what is he going to replace the free market with? Well aside for his being for Mitt Romney!

[abbe91]

a "prairie" fire ? And what's the deficit generated by the previous president (2 wars unpaid for, tax cuts ...) ? A Bush fire ?

[grzthewash]

It's Bush's fault -- it's Bush's fault - it's Bush's fault!! Obama's election campaign is going to be so inspiring! Hope and change has turned into hype and blame.

[moretruthnow]

President Obama came in and has done his best to help this country. When the GOP behaves in this unpatriotic, obstructionist way they really do not want the economy to improve. The GOPs reckless behavior has harmed the country as they did with the debt limit stunt which caused the downgrade of our rating. I am very glad that President Obama cared about this country enough to pass and enact the Recovery Act. Republicans showed themselves to be the children they act like, but they all ended up requesting those funds for their states. When republicans will spend money on billionaire tax cuts, billions in oil and gas subsidies and won't ever cut taxes because of their Grover Norquist pledging they have no business in our government. We need revenue coming in and we need responsible cuts. Not ending Medicare, not cutting all benefits to those in poverty or with disabilities. We need a strong middle class with Democrats fighting for us. Not republicans working for the corporate billionaires against the middle class.