It's pretty obvious what line from the Romney campaign generated the most attention yesterday, but there was something else the candidate himself said yesterday that should not go overlooked.
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Mr. Romney, in response to a question about the bank bailout, said he felt that President George W. Bush and his treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, had taken the correct steps in authorizing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP.
"In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said, 'We've got to do something to show we're not going to let the whole system go out of business,'" Mr. Romney said. "I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that. They kept -- I keep hearing the president say that he's responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression. No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson."
On the substance, Romney's line on TARP is at least somewhat defensible. Plenty of credible voices in both parties can make a compelling case that the rescue of the financial industry in 2008 prevented the Great Recession from becoming an even more catastrophic global disaster.
But the politics of yesterday's comment are far more interesting. In this case, Romney not only endorsed the wildly-unpopular TARP bailout -- the last time I checked, the Republican base isn't fond of the legislation -- he also reminded voters who signed the wildly-unpopular TARP bailout.
As Jon Chait noted, "[T]he Wall Street bailout is actually a huge political liability for Obama because it's incredibly unpopular and most Americans think Obama, not Bush, signed it. So having Romney run around reminding people that Bush bailed out Wall Street is actually Obama's prayer answered."
But there's even more to this. Romney's comment raises a point I don't remember hearing him make before: pivoting from the absurd "Obama made things worse" talking point, Romney now wants to talk about who deserves credit for making things better -- and he wants to drag George W. Bush into the picture.
I don't imagine Romney wants my advice, but this is an odd strategy. Not only is it based on a bogus premise -- Obama's policies really did, as a point of fact, help turn the economy around -- but it's also based on the premise that the economy is getting stronger on Obama's watch.
Does Romney really want to spend 2012 debating who deserves credit for an economic recovery, with the GOP nominee siding with Bush? He'd be better off talking about Etch A Sketches.
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The TeaParty was sired by TARP.
Thus, Romney has a curious way of courting their support.
Wow. "Bush is an economic hero" - haven't heard that from a major Republican for a while. The Repugs have been content to let people think Obama signed TARP (and also is a Kenyan, socialist, terrorist, doesn't drill for oil, etc.)
Romney's "strategy" seems to be making stupid statements, then "walking them back" the next day or sometimes an hour later. And of course, it merely underscores the Etch A Sketch analogy.
Mr. Romney does not appear to think before he speaks, and when he does say something it's framed in a way that doesn't really communicate what he probably means. Is this a quality people actually want in their president?
Pres. Obama may be too cautious at times but I'd rather have that in a president then a man who opens his mouth and lets it run as he walks away.
Romney also reminds us that eight years of the Bush Presidency lead us to the brink of the Great Depression. Bush & Paulson saved us from ... Bush & Paulson.
Amen!
Don't you just love it when Romney keeps shooting himself in the foot? He favored TARP to save the banks, but he was willing to let the auto and housing industry go, the unemployed to get cut off from unemployment compensation. Now he favors Ryan's plan to end SS and Medicare as well as a host of other domestic programs while giving tax cuts to the rich. What is the message he is sending? Duh.
TARP was government money for the already rich. What it did or didn't do, prevented or didn't prevent, has no relevance to anything. The Monopoly Guy had his hand out and Bush Co unquestioningly put a trillion dollars into it. That's Capitalism and Freedom in Mitten's mind. The government was giving taxpayer money to millionaires and gigantic corporations and that's all that really matters. The money that we know of (a lot of it just vanished) ended up in numbered offshore bank accounts and shell corporations down in the Caymens. It's not like the government wasted it on education or cancer screenings or anything dumb like that.
Huzza and Kudos to Mitt Romney for recognizing who the truly needy in America are: The Mitt Romneys.
No such thing happened. The money went to banks to ensure liquidity in the financial markets. The bulk of the money has been repaid. At the time, the country was in crisis. Bear Stearns had to be taken over. Lehman went bankrupt. AIG almost went bankrupt. Countrywide and Washington Mutual had to be taken over. The ripple effect would have led to a depression if the government had not acted. Our current Treasury secretary, then at the NY Fed, essentially administered the program.
Had TARP not been enacted who knows where we would be.
So you oppose free market capitalism then.
I do not oppose. Banks, however, occupy a unique role in the economy. They provide the capital to business so they can operate. The rationale for the govt bailing out the autos was that there was no private capital to allow for a normal bankrupcy.
the conditions that led to TARP was Bushco's final robbery of the US Treasury. It totally benefit his Wall Street allies as he walked out the door, they continued with their executive bonuses, they sit on trillions of dollars - not making home loans, small business loans, or Auto Industyr loans, etc. And nobody's gone to jail.
"Does Romney really want to spend 2012 debating who deserves credit for an economic recovery, with the GOP nominee siding with Bush?"
I take a different view than Benen's on this - and as savvy as Benen is, I believe he's playing right into the Romney camp's hands with the headline of this post, "Romney Credits Bush with Preventing Economic Collapse." The whole point of Romney putting forth this premise is really not to push for the viewpoint that Bush saved the economy - it's to get a "pundit war" going which will feature endless headline variations on the theme "should Bush get credit for the economic recovery" -- a theme which will muddy the waters of Obama's clear success in pulling the nation back from the brink. I was hoping to see this story presented here with just a single-sentence blurb along the lines of "Romney makes his latest ridiculous assertion" with a link to the quote and let it be at that. I believe Romney is counting on the pundits to snowball this nonsense by taking it seriously enough to endlessly argue it until we'll have a good section of the country hoodwinked into being "unsure" as to whose policies almost imploded the country, and whose policies saved the country.
Except to make this argument, you have to point to the things Bush did and the ONE thing he did that "made things better" was TARP and that is toxic to the Right. It is not as if Bush embraced Keynsian policies and even if he did that too would be a liability. All Obama has to do in one of the debates is remind voters that Bush signed TARP and that Romney things that saved the economy and Obama scores big in depressing the Right.
@ejd47 - I take your point, but- as Romney's staffer made clear, he is pivoting from primary mode to general election mode. If Romney can get thousands of headlines across the country to include these words "Bush, credit for the recovery" between now and the time of the debates, it starts to muddy the waters. If Romney was lusting after Jeb Bush's endorsement, giving "W" credit for the Obama recovery is probably a logical next step. And about the toxicity of TARP to right-wingers? I don't think Romney's concerned about that - he's a seasoned liar who can simply blame that aspect of it on Democrats. I hope that since the genie's out of the bottle, the Obama campaign gets out in front of this now, because if they were to wait until the debates, low-info voters would have been so exposed to the many "Romney is right/Romney is wrong" arguments that I fear the typical "both-sides-do-it/unsure" thinking would have deeply set in on this topic.
I think you're correct. I also think that Romney is using this argument to bolster his 'Yes the economy is improving but NOT because Obama DID anything.' However, he is doing it in his usual clumsy way. But what he MEANT (because there always has to be the pundits telling us what he REALLY meant) was that Obama is riding Bush's coat tails. It really was the REPUBLICANS that helped the country.
@Mego-516015 - indeed, totally agree with your point.
Agree - it's like a push-poll question for the media.
Romney camp is definitely muddying the waters.
It's all they have left.
Yes! Romney ties himself to Bush! Between the constant rich guy gaffes, the Etch-A-Sketch thing, and now this, it's like the triple crown of Republican buffoonery. This campaign gets better and better every day.
Perhaps I'm wrong but, is this the first "mainstream" GOP endoresment of the Bush Presidency? (Aside from the rare Condi interview, the Cheney's offspring, and the Faux experts on buffoonery) Really??!! Rmoney thought this was a good thing to capture, front and center?! OMG, somebody get the Zantac..
Mitt Romney is simply scrambling the truth and making up fabrications out of thin air. Even Mitt cannot ignore the rapidly improving economic situation, with 300,000 new jobs created each month. But instead of bowing to reality and admitting that maybe Obama knows what he's doing, Romney flees to the far right and takes the easier position of just lying about the recovery. Romney is a man of business, who is supposed to understand numbers. He understand the numbers don;t add up for his contention that Bush saved the economy; he's lying and he knows it. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
I think he should keep talking about Bush. It will bring to light just how alike the 2 of them are. Didn't Bush endorse Romney? or did he send his Mom out to do his dirty work for him. All those Oil Company Cheerleaders have to stick together. After all Whose your Daddy?
GWB played the ultimate 'starve the beast' ploy with massive unfunded tax cuts and 2 wars. This policy has been brewing since Reagan with the idea of forcing Americans to choose between defense spending and public services. The Ryan budget further pushes this agenda with more tax cuts and decimating our social safety net. The basic premise is allegedly to reduce big government, when in actuality it destroys the hopes of those not lucky enough to have been born rich. They care nothing for any part of the economy that does not line their pockets.
What Romney meant to say was it was OK for Bush to give Billion$$$$$ to already rich billionaire$$$$ and bank$ to help the economy recover, but then Obama set it back by bailing out the working man and GM.
Mitt Romney really does represent the short sightedness embodied in the capitalistic system. He is totally about what is good right now, what returns the most immediate gain on his investment.
He is a vulture politician as he swoops down to each days event and throws out what ever type bait that will attract the particular prey that has gathered before him. He has no vision and apparently no principles.
And thus, presented with the option of taking a haircut a la 1933, they instead choose 1793.
He is also a potential Seagull President (like Bush): flys in, @!$%#s all over everything, then flys away.
I absolutely agree...He claims he can bring jobs but has no plan..He can cut the deficit but it will actually add to it..Not worried about the poor but will cut programs severely....There are two things he is sure of he will make the banks bigger and start a war with Iran..HE'S DANGEROUS and the BIGGEST LIAR of THEM ALL..
Imagine the middle class as a herd of animals and the GOP as a pack of jackals darting in ever closer to find the weakest animal. They take turns darting in and attacking the weak point, women , minorities or the poorest among us.
As the states GOP leadership systematicaly focus on bringing down the animal,Mitt Romney circles over head looking, looking. He has been circling for years
At what point does "freedom of speech" become a criminal act? I believe I just heard it. If there was anything about the GEORGE W. BUSH presidency to be proud of, why has he been literally HIDING from the world for more than three years since leaving office??? Answer me that, Willard.
Well finally some truth! What Romney left out was the answer to the question why did we need a bailout to begin with? This opens the door to the Bush tax cuts and the unregulated economy, and the banks being over leveraged. Which naturally leads to the need to regulate them for the good of the economy. So what is Mitts point?
Mitt has assimilated the standard GOP line, if the President is for it oppose it.
The problem comes when reality shoves it way into the conversation and shows that good policy is good policy regardless of the party that implements it.
Whoa! He whose name shall not be spoken!!!!
Not to mention the hypocrisy of it's okay to bail out the banks but it's not okay to bail out the automakers.
Dang skippy. An improved economy AND bin Laden's death are both the result of the brilliant planning of the Cheney.Bush administration.
Who'd think that either of these problems required more than a decade for these great men to fix?... but there ya go.
Obama's just a lucky S.O.B to be in office when the Cheney/Bush policies begin to bear their inevitable fruit. (imagine how bad unemployment could have gotten if not for their unfathomable macroeconimics accumen.)
Let us thank our lucky stars
Mitt Romney is a butt kissing Neoclown fraud. He says anything to butter up any one listening. His positions can't be trusted. He will go to bed with anyone for support and $$$ Benjamin's. The Neocons hate supporting him but he along with Mormon $$$ is running in first place. If he even had a chance to win the election it will have come from Watergate type politics and New Hampshire style of Phone Jamming. Are Americans this dumb? Or do they just protect their jobs and wallets. Fat wallet that it is. Think about it!