Critics hit Romney job-creation record; Romney blames Legislature

Romney ran as a liberal to win the Massachusetts Governor's race and from all accounts was very comfortable running as a liberal which is a 180 from his comfort level in this Presidential primary.  It is amazing that now he blames the MA legislature for not allowing him to grow jobs:

The Republican has said that he would have been able to do more, but his hands were tied by the Democrat-controlled legislature, which had no appetite for his conservative-fueled policies.

Romney is the person who worked with the legislature to pass Romneycare but now he wants to make us believe that they are the reason he was stalled in creating jobs.  Still have that swamp for sale in in the desert if you believe that.  Is Romney unable to tell the truth about his time as Governor thinking that destroying those hard drives would keep anyone from finding out what happened.  He forgot about the Boston News Media and especially the Democrats who are being blamed for him being more moderate.  They know the Romney that ran for Governor is a 180 from the Romney today and that it is only ten years ago.

Romney is finding out that facts do matter and the truth will win out!  

Critics hit Romney job-creation record
Cite workers that left Massachusetts 

By Seth McLaughlin
The Washington Times Sunday, February 26, 2012 

 TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Mitt Romney is fighting for votes in economically struggling Michigan by pointing to his job-creation record in Massachusetts for proof he can jump-start bad economies — but the drop in unemployment during his time as governor may be a result more of willing workers fleeing the state than from his own ability to spawn jobs. 

In fact, Massachusetts had the weakest employment growth of any state from 2002 to 2006 except for Mississippi and Louisiana, which suffered the brunt of Hurricane Katrina, and Michigan itself, which was buffeted by the auto industry’s woes. 

“The fact the unemployment rate went down had nothing to do with the policies of his administration,” said professor Andrew M. Sum, director of the center for labor market studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “We had one of the three worst job-creation rates in the country under his administration. The unemployment rate largely went down for one reason, because people withdrew from the labor force and left the state.” 

Michigan Republicans go to the polls Tuesday along with voters in Arizona, and the economy remains at the top of the list of issues for Republican voters nationwide. 

Mr. Romney in particular is basing his campaign appeal on his message of economic competence, highlighting his time at the helm of Bain Capital and the one term he served as governor as critical experience that will translate over to the White House. 

“When I came in as governor, we were in a real free fall,” Mr. Romney said in a December debate. “We were losing jobs every month. We had a budget that was way out of balance. So I came into office, we went to work as a team, and we were able to turn around the job losses. 

And at the end of four years, we had our unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent.” 

Mr. Sum said he had no bones with Mr. Romney touting the role he played at Bain Capital creating jobs — more than 100,000 by the ex-governor’s own count. 

But Mr. Sum said Massachusetts’ unemployment rate fell mostly because people looking for work moved out of the state, and thus were no longer counted on the Massachusetts rolls.
In all, he said 222,000 more residents left Massachusetts than moved there during Mr. Romney’s time in office, making the state “a national leader in exporting our population.” 

The Romney campaign disputed the employment numbers, saying that when measured on a month-to-month basis from December 2002 to December 2006, both the labor force and the number of employed actually grew. 

Indeed, the labor force — measured by those with jobs or those who were actively seeking employment — grew 0.5 percent. But that was still the third-worst rate in the country, behind Louisiana and Mississippi, both of which shed workers after Hurricane Katrina. 

And Massachusetts’ employment rate — the percentage of the population actually in jobs — did grow 1.5 percent, but that was fourth-worst in the country, behind the two Hurricane Katrina states and Michigan.

Excerpt:  Read More at Washington Times

Facts really are turning out to be pesky for Romney -- 200,000 people moved out of MA looking for jobs or transferring and he touts their unemployment figures when he was Governor.  Massachusetts under Romney was the fourth worst in the country ahead of two Hurricane Katrina states (LA and MS) and Michigan.  Sitting here laughing that Romney has the nerve to tout his record on employment when his state is the 4th worst in the Country and two of the states were hurt bad by Katrina and the other one was where Romney grew up.

Everyone in Michigan needs to read the truth about Romney not what they are being fed by the Romney camp who is revising history as they go.