Thursday, Jan.12, 2012
Is Mitt Romney really a Massachusetts Moderate like some make him out to be?
Well, it's a lot of bull plain and simple. And this is directed at you, Newt Gingrich and especially to those liberal media outlets who paint Mitt as one.
You can decide after reading the facts about Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts from '03 to '06. With me being a life-long resident of my state, I have seen many governors come and go. But I've yet to see a governor like Mitt Romney who fought for the taxpayers and who saved them from enormous tax increases under an 85 percent liberal legislature.
Here are just some of the facts while Romney governed in which are hardly told:
1) Mitt worked for free during his four year term as governor of Massachusetts and threw his salary into the $3 billion deficit he faced.
2) During the height of a recession caused by the 9/11 attacks on our country, Mitt turned a $3 billion deficit into an $800 million surplus without raising your everyday taxes.
3) Illegal aliens were banned and ordered to be deported out of Massachusetts after Mitt mandated a policy to rid them, only until Gov. Patrick abolished his mandate when he became governor in '07. And since then the state tanked in any category you could think of.
4) Mitt mandated a state-run health care policy which insured all Massachusetts residents. It only effected the two percent who weren't insured and saved the taxpayers billions of dollars at the time, because it also didn't allow rich people and illegal aliens to show up at our clinics to claim free health benefits at the expense of taxpayers. And most important, Mitt's health care mandate did not cost $1 trillion and it didn't drain billions of dollars from Medicare unlike Obamacare will eventually do.
5) Mitt cut taxes 19 times and vetoed 800 bills under an 85 percent liberal legislature while he governed Massachusetts.
6) It took a driver to be killed in one of our Big Dig tunnels for the liberal Massachusetts legislature to give Mitt full control of the $15 billion Big Dig project after he fought so hard for. In return, Mitt fired head honcho Matt Amorello for his mismanagement of the project who overseen faulty construction work on the tunnel, which eventually led to a huge cement ceiling block to fall and crush a driver to death. This was just one out of the many structural defects that occurred under Amorello. The original price for the project was $2.5 billion and ended up being $13.4 billion over budgeted. Most of the cost over runs that torched taxpayer's wallets occurred under Amorello.
7) Under Romney, 40,000 jobs were created during tough economic times. When Romney was sworn in as governor in January 2003, Massachusetts was reeling from the end of a deep recession. With an economy more pegged to technology than most states, Massachusetts took longer to recover. At the time, the state's unemployment rate was at 5.6 percent, compared with a low of 2.8 percent just two years earlier before Romney became governor.
The jobless rate would keep rising through Romney's first year in office with a weak economy, topping out at 6 percent in August after his first year. By December 2006, Romney's last full month in office, it had fallen to 4.7 percent thanks to job creation. A drop of less than 1 percent, meaning the addition of about 40,000 jobs, may seem like a modest achievement during a very tough recovery period after the 9/11 attacks on our country. The fact is Massachusetts ended up being in a lot better shape than many other states across the country under a Romney leadership.
So these are just some of the facts while Romney governed in Massachusetts regardless of what else you are hearing about him.
Again, I will stress the fact that Romney became governor during the height of a recession caused by the 9/11 attacks and governed Massachusetts under one of the most liberal legislatures on the planet. Such a legislature was 85 percent Democrat. And such accomplishments by Romney proves to me that he is more of a conservative than what Newt Gingrich and the liberal medias paint him as.
I find it to be alarming that truths of one being's record are simply being distorted. Mitt was no Massachusetts Moderate.
In this July 2006 photo, Massachusetts Turnpike
Chairman Matt Amorello talks to reporters about
his forced resignation by Gov. Mitt Romney; this
after a cement ceiling panel came crashing down and
crushed a driver to death in the I95 tunnel.
(DNN File Photo)
