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Jewish World Review Aug 13, 2012 / 25 Menachem-Av, 5772 Speech Romney should give on Bain By Deroy Murdock
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Mitt Romney cannot run from his record at Bain Capital. So, he might as well give this speech: Ladies and Gentlemen, You have heard plenty about my previous life as a rich businessman. Yes, I made some $250 million in free enterprise and am proud I did – just as Berry Gordy is proud that he produced millions at Motown and Steve Jobs was proud he yielded billions at Apple. Like these respected and wealthy entrepreneurs, I added value, delivered products and services that people wanted and created thousands of careers along the way. At Bain Capital, my team and I took small and sometimes struggling companies, injected cash and – eight times out of 10 – made them blossom. Among our triumphs: • Bain seeded Staples with $650,000. Its 1,500 stores now employ 88,000 people who generated $25 billion in revenues last year. • Bain helped Sports Authority boom from 10 stores to almost 700 outlets and 15,000 employees. • Brookstone reportedly was in "dire straits" before Bain's 1991 investment. It then opened 104 new shops, hired 741 people, and tripled net sales from $95 million to $270 million by 1999. Atop private money, we added our management expertise to help our portfolio companies refine, manufacture and sell their market offerings. When we succeeded, we enjoyed the fruits of our labors. When we failed, we internalized our losses. Contrast our venture capitalism with President Barack Obama's "venture socialism," as Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., calls it. Obama has "invested" $34.7 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees for "green" companies. The Energy Department boasts that this money has created 60,000 jobs. That equals $578,333 per position. This is nine times the private-sector cost. Even worse, at least 10 of these companies took your tax dollars and then went broke. Beyond Solyndra and the $528 million it flushed down a solar toilet, consider these Obama-led bankruptcies: • Raser Technologies got a $33 million stimulus grant. Its geothermal ambitions turned to steam, and it went bankrupt in April 2011. • Ener1 received a $118.5 million government grant to make electric-car batteries. It lost power last Jan. 26. • Aptera scored a $150 million federal loan to make three-wheeled electric cars. It drove into a ditch last Dec. 2. Your taxes sponsored at least six similar Obama-backed bankruptcies. Using my Bain skills, I hope to turn around another distressed enterprise: the American economy. The growing and uplifting economy that most of us remember can rise again. The key is to starve and sedate the federal government that expanded for decades, became fat under President George W. Bush and then, under Obama, grew morbidly obese and openly hostile to job creators. How, specifically, can we reverse this damage? For starters: • An optional, 15 percent flat income tax would put today's flaccid 1.5 percent growth on steroids. So would cutting America's uncompetitive 35 percent corporate tax rate to 15 percent. Capping dividend and capital gains taxes at 15 percent also would electrify business investment and expansion. • A moratorium on new regulations and a critical review of Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley and other impenetrable laws would loosen and remove the red tape strangling American companies. Repealing and replacing Obamacare would be a powerful remedy. • Freeze federal spending for one year, and then cut it 1 percent every year thereafter. Obama's 49.7 percent increase in U.S. national debt (from $10.63 trillion at his inaugural to $15.91 trillion today) bought America nothing. Enough! I have a secret weapon to make this plan succeed: the American people. We can inspire the world again with our products, inventions and ideas. First, we must pry Uncle Sam's unaffordable, dream-crushing boots from the necks of enterprising men and women. I have maximum confidence that when Washington once again is the home of our servants and not the mansion of our masters, this republic's emancipated citizens will reconstitute the economy, the society and the nation that we love, remember and miss so much.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here. Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
• 07/20/12: Obama's green projects bleeding red • 07/13/12: EPA, why fine oil firms over fantasy biofuel? • 07/06/12: How about remembering Mexican victims of 'Fast and Furious'? • 06/29/12: Health-care victory will give Obama headaches • 06/22/12: Mitt Romney, get on bus • 06/18/12: The 'racist' Florida vote purge obeys federal law • 06/08/12: Scott Walker's win should propel big reforms, stiffen pols' spines • 06/01/12: Regulators regulate, and that's a problem • 05/25/12: WWII hero Karski to receive U.S. Medal of Freedom • 05/18/12: Not the behavior of normal Americans • 05/18/12: Spacemen to NASA: Cool it on global warming • 05/04/12: Libs want to plunge the penthouse • 04/27/12: Obama and company are pushing hard on the pedal for deadlier cars • 04/20/12: We don't need no stinkin' budget? • 04/14/12: New Reasons to Hate Obamacare • 04/06/12: Team Obama plays energy policy for laughs • 03/30/12: Twitchy Dems need to let workers put tax-cut money in retirement funds • 03/23/12: Why not $100-an-hour minimum wage? • 03/15/12: The real (high) cost of Obama's health care act • 03/09/12: Race-baiting Dems oppose voter ID • 03/02/12: Forget kids --- today's debt hurts adults • 02/24/12: Dems arise against Obamacare • 02/17/12: The voting dead are understated • 02/10/12: Holder takes on 'racist' photo-ID cards: Prejudice is widespread --- even Obama backed them • 02/03/12: On tax plans, Gingrich trumps Romney • 01/27/12: Photo IDs can protect elections, let dead rest • 01/20/12: Romney runs hot and cold on global warming • 01/13/12: Economic freedom declines in U.S. • 01/06/12: Time to yank off Mitt's mask • 12/23/11: Boehner hands Dems a gift • 12/15/11: The U.S. could learn much from Hong Kong • 12/09/11:$687 billion is available to Congress free of strings • 12/02/11: Obama criticizes Wall Street but takes money from it • 11/18/11: Puerto Rico shows Washington the way • 11/11/11: Take heed, America: In Ohio even left-wing unionists voted to repeal ObamaCare • 10/28/11: Thanks, Netanyahu, for surge of hardened terrorists • 10/24/11:The Obama Spend-O-Rama • 10/17/11: Cain stakes his viable claim just by showing up • 10/07/11: Green jobs are national scandal • 10/04/11: Obama proudly declares class war • 09/23/11: Obama wrong about ‘Do-Nothing’ Congress • 09/16/11: Obama needs Ryan's vision on jobs • 09/09/11: Reaganomics trounces Obamanomics • 09/02/11: Labor leaders to Obama: Stop killing jobs • 08/26/11: Pro-market Perry vaults over Romney in GOP race • 08/19/11: Some rich Americans will not rest until Washington boosts their taxes • 08/12/11: Hope, change and free birth control for all • 08/05/11: Debt deal does virtually nothing • 07/21/11: Dems pro-choice on abortion but little else • 07/15/11: Debt deception: If only Dems were honest and GOPers were courageous • 07/08/11: Congress' war on light bulb blows up
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