Vice President Joe Biden heads to Ohio Wednesday where he will kick off a two-day swing through the state with a speech comparing the president’s economic vision to Mitt Romney’s record as head of the private equity firm Bain Capital, a theme the campaign has pushed this week with the release of a new ad featuring workers who lost their jobs when a Bain-owned plant shut down.
Speaking at M7 Technologies in Youngstown, Biden will stress the work the president has done to bolster manufacturing in the region and help the middle class. “Jobs are starting to come back,” Biden will say, according to prepared remarks to be delivered at noon. “And the ones that are coming back are the kind you can build a middle class life on. Manufacturing jobs.”
Biden also plans to go after Romney’s record at Bain Capital, which includes several instances of companies and factories shutting down under Bain’s watch. Biden will use the example of GST Steel, a Kansas City plant that shut down after being bought by Bain, that is also the subject of a new ad from the Obama campaign. From Biden’s remarks
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.
Biden’s message — and the campaign’s message — is that “Romney Economics” is about helping out the people at the top, while Obama’s goal is to strengthen the middle class.
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?
