Election 2012

Romney Lying About the Jobs He 'Created'

The Romney Unit has been going around saying he created 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital. However...

[Romney spokesman Eric] Fehrnstrom says the 100,000 figure stems from the growth in jobs from three companies that Romney helped to start or grow while at Bain Capital: Staples (a gain of 89,000 jobs), The Sports Authority (15,000 jobs), and Domino’s (7,900 jobs).

This tally obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain. (Indeed, Romney made his comments in response to a former employee of American Pad & Paper Co. who says he lost his job after Bain Capital took it private.)

At least they're admitting to it. ThinkProgress adds:

Bain Capital has been responsible for thousands of layoffs at companies it bankrupted, such as American Pad & Paper, Dade International, and LIVE Entertainment, which Romney’s stat completely leaves out. He’s also taking credit for jobs created long after he left the firm to launch his political career.

Bain's entire thing was to take over companies and fire workers. Yesterday, Kevin Drum analyzed how President Obama might attack Mitt Romney. I believe this job-creation Bain lie will be a central attack.

Oh, and Krugman:

By that standard, everyone who’s spent a lot of time with slot machines is a big winner, since only the pluses count.