As Obama attacks, Romney defends his record at Bain

(CBS News) Responding to attacks by the Obama campaign about his work at the helm of Bain Capital, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney defended his record in an interview today, saying he "was no longer" at the company when it closed a steel factory.

"That's hardly something that was done on my watch," Romney said on Wednesday in an interview with the conservative website Hot Air. "They said, 'Oh, gosh, Gov. Romney at Bain Capital closed down a steel factory.' But the problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after I left Bain Capital. I was no longer there."

The Obama campaign launched an aggressive attack earlier this week on Romney's leadership of the private equity firm, using a two-minute advertisement profiling a steelworker with GST Steel whose job and pension were cut. The company was acquired by Bain in 1993 and filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

The Obama campaign on Wednesday expanded their effort to characterize Romney as an executive concerned about the bottom line and not American jobs. In a conference call with reporters, two workers - Cindy Hewitt, former Dade Behring employee and Randy Johnson, a former employee at SCM Office Supplies - told their story of losing jobs after a Bain acquisition.

"He fired me, he fired my coworkers," said Randy Johnson, who worked at SCM Office Supplies when it was acquired by Bain-owned Ampad in 1994. Johnson also appeared at a campaign event with Vice President Joe Biden in Ohio on Wednesday.

Romney often points to his business experience as proof that he understands that the private sector fuels job creation, not government.

"And of course they don't mention a couple of other things. One is that we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs," Romney told Hot Air Host Ed Morrissey on Wednesday. His campaign pointed to his website that says that Bain helped to create 120,000 jobs while he lead the private equity firm.

However, a Washington Post fact check gave the claim "three Pinocchios," saying that it "does not pass the laugh test" because the focus of Bain was to make companies profitable for investors, not to create jobs. In addition, The Washington Post notes that it is "unclear" that Romney had a direct role in creating jobs at Bain-invested companies.

Despite claims by both campaigns, the battle over Bain continues. Romney on Wednesday also charged the president with profiting from the industry he is attacking: "Oh, and by the way, he has no problem going out and doing fundraisers with Bain Capital and private equity people."

However, President Obama is walking a fine line. His campaign's attacks on Bain might impact his support of the industry. According BuzzFeed, one of his campaign's bundlers, who has raised more than $100,000 for the president, is disheartened by the president's "vilification" of private equity.

Deputy Campaign Director Stephanie Cutter insists that the campaign is not attacking the private equity industry, but Romney's "values" as a "buyout specialist."

"No one is questing the private equity industry," Cutter told reporters on Wednesday, but they are questioning "Romney economics" of "creating wealth for investors."

[melmarr-2009]

Romney helped strip that Steel company of it's viable business. It makes no difference that he left 2 years prior to the actual closing. The Company was already dead by his hand, he got what he wanted and then hung them out to dry. You don't just closed the door on a Steel Manufacturing plant it has to be probably closed and that could take a year or 2. Romney says he created 100,000 jobs while at BAIN BUT what he doesn't say is that they weren't jobs for Americans, they were jobs for China. You can argue about stupid things all you want but the last person we need in the White House is a CEO. Their sole purpose is it cut jobs and sell more merchandise at cheap prices, that means selling more jobs off to the Chinese slave workers who only make 75 cents a week if they are lucky.Barack Obama is not a CEO. If you want to complain about Haliburton than stop supporting the military Industrial Complex, they are the real enemy of this country.

[christi.berlusconi]

My friend Rex told me once that Mitt Romney is supposed to be important for three things. Be he was not. Just a failure in all of them.

Mitt Romney always likes to use government bailouts to run Bain Capital. Mitt used fed bailouts to save the Olympics and Senator John McCain said that this was a "national disgrace."



Romney tells us that his leadership of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is one of three basic reasons he's best qualified to be president (the other two being his record as governor of Massachusetts and running Bain Capital).

While Romney certainly deserves credit for turning the 2002 Winter Olympics around, and we give it to him here, he did it with $1.3 billion in TAXPAYER funding!

Yes, Mr. anti-government, anti-bailout.

[TimeToEvolve]

The Republicons have been a complete failure at running government. Their fake free market scam went too far and it has been exposed as the corrupt, greedy Wall Street scam that it is. They only know how to get rid of jobs and enrich the Top 1% at the expense of everyone else. No wonder the lying parasite Mitler is trying to cover his corrupt scams at Bain. What scum.

[TimeToEvolve]

SInce Robmee is a wacko Republicon plastic parasite that like most Republicons says exactly the opposite of the truth. So of course he would defend his pathetic parasitic past. He has been lying for so long (that's how Republicons roll), he cannot even tell what the truth is. Like Bushoccio before him.

[sandiegopete]

Here is the way it works: A company like Bain Capital buys a healthy company; the new owners award themselves high salaries and other financial benefits which eat up most of the new company's income; to cover operating costs they take out loans; the new company declares bankruptcy and the assets are sold off to pay the loans; Bain Capital walks away with profits in their pockets, lenders lose money and employees lose jobs. It works out for everybody except the lenders, employees and community.

Sounds like that is the plan for the United States. Take it over, raid the Treasury, sell off the assets and walk away with tons of money while laughing at the rubes who voted Romney into office.

[sandiegopete]

krisinal: So, you approve of the operations as I have described them, so long as Bain did a start up?

You admit Bain practiced vulture capitalism but think that is OK because they did not do it all the time. You admit the Left is correct about the vulture capitalism but it should be ignored because if the Left's agenda, whateverthat is.

What whould be the acceptable ratio, in your mind, of companies gutted to companies that were not gutted?

If a person only commits adulty once during a long marrage that would be Ok with you?

[retm-w]

It would be interesting if it could be found how many jobs and companies romney saved vs how many jobs were lost and companies put out of business by Bain. I did some searches but couldn't find any information on it.

[cam2012]

Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts since 2003. It has been estimated that Romney has amassed twice the net worth of the last eight presidents combined, and would rank among the four richest in American history if elected. Talk about the 1%!

[sandiegopete]

needahandout: We understand. You would rather have a person who cares only about feathering his own nest than a person who has concerns for the population as a whole. Why the hatred for everything the United States is supposed to stand for?

[sandiegopete]

theshark832: What proof do you have thatcam2012 hasn't earned his or her own way? I will answer for you: NONE.

Why don't you hold off the comments until you find something you know at least a little bit about?

[wurmanx]

Yes, and when the Great Depression hit bottom, Herbert Hoover was no longer President as GDP found the low and unemployment went to its worst in 1933. When the Great Recession hit, when the Auto bailout took place, when unemployment hit 10 percent, Bu$h xliii was no longer asleep at the wheel in the Oval Office.

Bain purchased GST Steel in 1993. By 1999, Bain had pillaged $9 million, and the steel company had been loaded with an unprofitable acquisition as well as $300 million in debt. In total, Bain extracted $12 million from GST, charged over $4 million in fees, and stuck the US taxpayers with $44 million of unfunded retirements.

Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain when they acquired GST. He worked right through the rip-offs, then walked away before the "official" GST bankruptcy was filed. Romney's parsing of the calendar dates is flat out disgusting. What a toad!

Reuters reported this process in January, here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-campaign-romney-bailout-idUSTRE8050LL20120106

[jrtaylor001]

maybe he can tell us how to spin straw into gold

[tpcast]

How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.