Vice President Biden today will be reminding voters of the carnage Bain left and of Mitt Romney’s ineffective business leadership.
He thinks that because he spent his career as a “businessman,” he has the experience to run the economy.So let’s take a look at a couple of things he did.
He’s raised it. So let’s take a real hard look at it.
In the 1990s, there was a steel mill in Kansas City, Missouri. It had been in business since 1888. Then Romney and his partners bought the company. Eight years later it went bankrupt.
After a couple of years, because of the way things were being run, the employees went on strike and negotiated an agreement whereby, if anything happened to the company, they would still get their health care and their pensions.
In the meantime, Romney’s management team added debt on the company. When they bought the company it had only $13 million of debt. By the time it filed for bankruptcy, its debt had increased 40 fold to over $533 million.
Even the CEO of the company said it was far too much debt for a company of that size.
I don’t have to tell you in Ohio that in the late 1990s, the steel industry hit tough times. With high payments to make on all that debt, the company couldn’t weather the storm.
And when the company finally filed for bankruptcy, they reneged on their contract with the workers. No health care, lower pensions. Everyone lost their jobs.
But not everyone got hurt. The top 30 executives walked away with $9 million. And Romney and his partners walked away with at least $12 million.
Romney made sure the guys on top got to play by a separate set of rules, he ran massive debts, and the middle class lost. And folks, he thinks this experience will help our economy.
Where I come from, past is prologue.
So what do you think he’ll do as President?