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PDFFrom ThinkProgress:
“Saying that things are better off is an insult,” added Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom. But if it’s an insult to say that the economy is better off, then Mitt Romney has been slinging some insults of his own, considering how he answered a question from conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham back in January:
INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better? ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]
INGRAHAM: Isn’t it a hard argument to make if you’re saying, like, OK, he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now, we’re seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway? Isn’t that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?
ROMNEY: Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.
When President Obama took office, the economy was shedding 800,000 jobs per month and contracting at a rate of 8.9 percent. As Time’s Michael Grunwald noted, at that pace, “we would have shed the entire Canadian economy in 2009.” Literally four years ago, in September 2008, the U.S. was gripped by financial panic. Investment banks were failing, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship, and the groundwork was being laid for the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout of the financial system.
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