The Romney campaign has released a powerful new web video, “Fine?.” The new video responds to President Obama’s out of touch “the private sector is doing fine” comment with snippets of middle class workers talking about their experiences struggling with the realities of the Obama economy:
- “We’ve seen layoffs, cutbacks.”
- “When it’s all said and done I’m making $200 a month.”
- “I’ve been looking for a job for two years haven’t found any.”
- “I had to file my own personal bankruptcy and had to close my business.”
- “Here I am. No healthcare and a slashed pension.”
- “I just lost my job recently.”
- “I have to work part-time in order to make ends meet.”
- “Sometimes I feel like I’m a failure.”
Watch “Fine?”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/s9Yqj3tvcQc[/youtube]
James Pethokoukis offers some key statistics to show the private sector is not doing fine:
- Private-sector GDP rose just 2.6 percent in the first quarter, after rising a measly 1.2 percent last year. Private-sector GDP rose 3.8 percent in 1983 and 6.5 percent in 1984 during the supply-side Reagan boom.
- Private-sector jobs job creation has averaged just 89,000 a month during the entire Obama Recovery. During the 1983 and 1984 supply-side Reagan boom, private sector jobs increased by an average of 292,000 a month. Adjusted for population, that number is more like 375,000 private-sector jobs a month.
- Real take-home pay is down over the past year.
- After-tax corporate profits dropped for the first time in three years during the first quarter.
As we discussed yesterday, Obama really believes that bigger government is the way to make the economy stronger. During his “the private sector is doing fine” press conference, Obama said the thing to do is help state and local governments and the construction industry. That is exactly what he tried to do with his failed $831 billion so-called stimulus.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Obama misdiagnoses state and local government layoffs:
“They aren’t the result of falling state and local revenues, which have increased by 6% over the last two years, according to the Census Bureau. The problem is that the cost of worker benefits is growing faster than revenues. Governments are having to lay off workers to pay for their rising pension and health bills.”
The 2012 presidential election is all about the economy. Romney’s private equity vs. Obama’s public equity. Or, as Romney put it in his “Obama’s Government-Centered Society” speech he gave after sweeping the primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C.:
“The president has pledged to transform America. And he’s spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government-centered society. I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of an opportunity society led by free people and free enterprises.”
Obama’s big government approach has resulted in unemployment above 8 percent for 40 months and the weakest economic recovery in 60 years.