Obama dead wrong about Romney and Detroit [Reader Post]

Loading

Here's the pertinent part of the transcript

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Governor Romney's right. You are familiar with jobs being shipped overseas, because you invested in companies that were shipping jobs overseas. And, you know, that's your right. I mean, that's how our free market works.

But I've made a different bet on American workers. You know, if we had taken your advice, Governor Romney, about our auto industry, we'd be buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China. If we take your advice with respect to how we change our tax codes so that companies that are in profits overseas don't pay U.S. taxes compared to companies here that are paying taxes, now, that's estimated to create 800,000 jobs. The problem is they won't be here; they'll be in places like China. And if we're not making investments in education and basic research, which is not something that the private sector is doing at a sufficient pace right now and has never done, then we will lose the lead in things like clean energy technology.

Now, with respect to what we've done with China already, U.S. exports have doubled, since I came into office, to China. And actually, currencies are at their most advantageous point for U.S. exporters since 1993. We absolutely have to make more progress, and that's why we're going to keep on pressing.

And when it comes to our military and Chinese security, part of the reason that we were able to pivot to the Asia-Pacific region after having ended the war in Iraq and transitioning out of Afghanistan, is precisely because this is going to be a massive growth area in the future. And we believe China can be a partner, but we're also sending a very clear signal that America is a Pacific power, that we are going to have a presence there. We are working with countries in the region to make sure, for example, that ships can pass through, that commerce continues. And we're organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards. That's the kind of leadership we've shown in the region. That's the kind of leadership that we'll continue to show.

MR. ROMNEY: I just want to take one of those points. Again, attacking me is not talking about an agenda for getting more trade and opening up more jobs in this country. But the president mentioned the auto industry and that somehow I would be in favor of jobs being elsewhere. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it wa

s in real trouble was not to start writing checks. It was President Bush that wrote the first checks. I disagree with that. I said they need — these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, and in that process they can get government help and government guarantees, but they need to go through bankruptcy to get rid of excess cost and the debt burden that they'd — they'd built up.

And fortunately the president picked —

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Governor Romney, that's not what you said.

MR. ROMNEY: Fortunately, the president — you can take — you can take a look at the op-ed.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Governor, you did not —

MR. ROMNEY: You can take a look at the op-ed.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You did not say that you would provide, Governor, help.

MR. ROMNEY: You know, I'm — I'm still speaking. I said that we would provide guarantees and — and that was what was able to allow these companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. Under no circumstances would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry — of course not. Of course not.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Let's check the record.

MR. ROMNEY: That's the height of silliness.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Let's — let's check the record.

MR. ROMNEY: I have never said I would — I would liquidate the industry. I want to keep the industry growing and thriving.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Governor, the people in Detroit don't forget.

Indeed. So let us check the record.

Here is what Romney said

It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.

But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.

The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.

In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.

Obama could not have been more wrong. Or dishonest.

zp8497586rq
0 0 votes
Article Rating
28 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Is this new? Unfortunately, President Romney will have to preside over the 2nd GM bankruptcy in 4 years.

If Obama was so concerned about outsourcing jobs, and dollars, he would have put a stop to the welfare program that supplies low income people with cell phones from TracFone, a company whose controlling share holder is Carlos Slim, a Mexican national, and the richest man in the world. And everytime the people with those free cell phones buy extra talk minutes, even more money goes into Carlos Slim’s wallet.

Think about this: there are 3.8 million people with Obamaphones. Carlos Slim made $10.00 from each and every one of those phones.

Also, why did we give millions of dollars to Fiska, a foreign company, that promised to create jobs here but used the money to create jobs in Finland?

Obama, no hat, no cattle.

@retire05:

Obama, no hat, no cattle.

and no chair.. oops, correction… an Empty Chair….

Obama…
Dead Wrong.
On Sequestration.
On Bayonets.
….
….
….

As I commented here on another thread:

Romney behaved as a statesman, Obama channeled his inner Chicago thug.

End of story.

As usual, the conservatives take on this issue is over-simplified and doesn’t take into consideration all the mitigating circumstances, and Romney’s own clarifications of his original statement. His complete plan (as expressed in later reports) can be summed up by the following: “Romney’s actual idea included, Romney argued that the auto companies should seek a privately financed managed bankruptcy, with the government providing guarantees to their loans.” http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romney-detroit-op-ed-2008-jumps-york-times-162603273–election.html

The only problem with this plan was that no one could be found who was willing to finance such a bankruptcy, except the government. http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/23/news/companies/romney-auto-bailout/index.html?iid=HP_LN

@retire05: Please read the following fact-check—paying especial attention to the history of this policy, initiated by the Reagan administration; and changed to Carlos Slim’s TracPhone company by George Bush. http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

This clearly indicates how Obama gets blamed for a lot of untrue things by the Fox News propaganda network an its unaffiliated blog postings of these kinds of rumors.

@Liberal1 (Objectivity):

I realize that you don’t understand what a managed bankruptcy would have done for GM. You can only parrot what your handlers tell you. But a managed bankruptcy would have allowed GM to reorganize, stay in business, put paying their vendors on hold, and renegotiate their contract with the UAW. All this would have been done by a board approved by the bankruptcy court, not the administration and Eric Holder. The federal government would have guaranteed the loans required by GM to reorganize, not actually given GM taxpayer dollars. Think FDIC.

That would have been exactly what other companies, including airlines, et al, have done before in order to remain viable.

Instead, the federal government, i.e. Obama and Holder, screwed the secure bond holders, the one entity protected in federal bankruptcy law, to cut a tony deal with the UAW. No one came out on top except the union. And it will be the union that will, once again, drive GM into the ditch, only this time, the American taxpayer will get shafted, not the secure bond holders. The first clue? Putting Ed Whitaker in charge.

Romney was right, and Obama actually lied about what Romney proposed. But you seem to have no problem with the number of lies told by Obama, like he didn’t know Benghazi was an attack by al Qaeda right away.

This is sad. Funny, but sad:

Leno on Iranian Sanctions: ‘If Anyone Knows How To Cripple an Economy It’s Obama’

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/24/leno-iranian-sanctions-if-anyone-knows-how-cripple-economy-its-obama

Romney is gaining ground, starting to win in Ohio. And now that the cat is out of the bag regarding the false information Obama was giving the American public (State Department emails from day of Libya attack show Al Qaeda-tied group on radar) and “The third email came at 6:07 p.m. ET and was sent to a different email list but still includes the White House Situation Room address and a subject line of “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU).”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/23/state-dept-emails-from-day-libya-attack-show-al-qaeda-tied-group-on-radar/#ixzz2AETrOrWO

@Liberal1 (Objectivity):

So what you are saying is that since President Bush did it, it’s OK for Obama? I thought you voted for Obama because he wasn’t George Bush.

TracFone was a Florida started company that was bought out by MexTel. At the time, MexTel was a private-public company owned by share holders and the Mexican government. The biggest share holder at the time of the purchase was Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, an American company, which later sold its shares and created a new telephone service in Mexico. It was after that the Mexican government sold its remaining shares to Carlos Slim.

When SBC bought “controlling” interest in MexTel, it sent technicians and construction crews to Mexico to update the system.

So tell me, what other policies of George Bush do you think Obama should have continued?

@AdrianS:
This is sad. Funny, but sad:

Leno on Iranian Sanctions: ‘If Anyone Knows How To Cripple an Economy It’s Obama’

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/24/leno-iranian-sanctions-if-anyone-knows-how-cripple-economy-its-obama

Yup, funny, but sad.
The fact is Iran’s leaders don’t care about their people’s suffering.
When there was a bus driver strike over the fact that the government (their boss) was not paying them for over 6 months, several strikers were imprisoned and a few killed!
That sent the rest of them back on the job…..for free.
When Iran’s nuclear facilities were threatened the Iranian government forced hundreds of thousands of Iranian people to relocate within the potential strike zones.
They don’t care one whit about their people!
I’m not positive Obama does, either, but he MUST still give lip service to the concept.
After all, we are an ARMED people, unlike the Iranians.

@Liberal1 (Objectivity): Lib1, don’t give too much credibility to Snopes, it is well known who they are in the tank for. Yes, they do ok on facts about things other than political, but political, it’s all Dims.

Any business in this country, including the big 3 auto makers that were and still are run as poorly as they are, in no way deserved to be bailed out with my tax dollars.
Both Management and the UAW have enough sharp financial people on their staffs that they had to know they were driving these companies into the ground and yet they did little to nothing to stop it. Nobody wanted to be part of the group that has to accept less than the previous group of employees so they just kept squeezing the golden goose until there were no more eggs to be had.

Any so called lesser industry in this country would have been allowed to go under and nobody at the federal level would have thought twice about letting it happen.
I’m not responsible for their failures, the financial sectors failures, or anybody elses failures. You run your business poorly, you go bye bye….

OHIO get in line with ROMNEY,
you know, when there is no jobs, there are no work, no unions
when there is no money in the public basque, there is layout no money for unions
no jobs for members, that’s where OBAMA IS TAKING YOU STRAIGHT THERE
BEST TO YOU

Anonymous quote of the day, from the northwest Indiana Post Tribune’s readers’ comments section:

The election comes down to this: Do you want to live in Bedford Falls or Pottersville? You decided.

I’m pretty sure Mr. Potter would have been happy to see GM broken up and sold off in pieces to the highest bidding vultures.

Three more quotes, suggesting the local mood today:

If I was Richard Mourdock’s wife, his remark wouldn’t have put him in the dog house. He’d be out of the house.
. . .
Sen. Lugar probably doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
. . .
Richard Mourdock, Todd Aiken, Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle. If the tea party had nominated electable candidates, rather than wackos, Republicans would control the Senate next year.

Those last three comments reflected my own thoughts as I was casting my early ballot today. I voted for republican Richard Lugar in every past election. I would have done so his year as well. Instead, I voted for conservative democrat Joe Donnelly.

“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Richard Mourdock

I can’t that believe that a majority of Hoosiers will go along with such a view.
In a couple of weeks, I guess I’ll know if I’m right or wrong.

I suspect he’ll be costing some Romney/Ryan votes, too. They haven’t withdrawn their endorsement of the guy.

@Greg:

What a shame that your mother didn’t have an abortion, Greg. The world would have been a better place without you in it.

@retire05, #17:

You’re just a joyful little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? You really ought to work on that a bit. Seriously.

@Greg: Greg, surprisingly you find it okay for others to be aborted but seem to be offended when someone suggests that your abortion might make a better world. Maybe, given the chance, those aborted might also take offense that they were aborted ‘against their will’.
I have no problem with a woman deciding to do an abortion if it is what she considers to be in her best interest. My only problem is when it is just used as ‘routine’ birth control.

I believe it’s a fundamental right of any woman to have sovereign control over her own body, and that neither a state government nor the federal government has any business whatsoever depriving her of that control.

I recognize that this empowers women to make decisions that I might not approve of. If so, so be it. That’s one of the unavoidable consequences of having the freedom to make personal choices.

There’s a highly assertive element within the Republican Party that feels otherwise and is determined to impose their will. It they’re not stopped, they will do so.

GREG
ON 18,
retire is a ray of knowledge also.
bye

@Greg:

There’s a highly assertive element within the Republican Party that feels otherwise and is determined to impose their will. It they’re not stopped, they will do so.

Greg, you know as well as I do that the woman’s right to an abortion is not going to be changed. almost all Dimocrats and about 75% of the Repubs are for the right to an abortion. I don’t see anything changing. What I’m much more concerned about is the basic freedoms of this country being taken away by the Anti-American Muslim in the White House and his executive orders. He needs to be voted out.

GREG
THE ASSERTIVES ELEMENT ARE FROM OBAMA AND HIS CREW,
THEY PROMOTE ABORTION,
THE WOMAN GET CONFUSE BY THE PULLING THEY GET FROM ABORTIONISTS SOFT
CONVINCING WORDS TO A YOUNG GIRL TOO YOUNG TO BE SURE, SHE SHOULD GET COUNSELING
OPINION FROM A MAN OF GOD ONE WHO OBEY THE 10 COMMANDS FIRST, AND SHE SHOULD NOT ABORT IF SHE IS NOT SURE, OTHERWISE, SHE WILL CARRY THE GUILT ALL HER LIFE,
QUESTIONING HERSELF, DREAMING OF IT, IT WON’T LEAVE HER, IT WILL FOLLOW HER LIKE A SHADOW OF A BABY UNBORN,
NOBODY WILL PROBABLY EVER ACCUSE HER, IT WILL BE HERSELF ACCUSING HERSELF, NO ONE ELSE,

@ilovebeeswarzone: bees, very good. I think you summed it up very well

Redteam
thank you,I tried hard,
bye

@Greg: Who looks out for the rights of the baby in your world, Greggie?

@ilovebeeswarzone: Nicely put, Beezy.

Bobachek
this time they elect their own PRESIDENT,
they gave him a purple shirt, he work for them.