Romney Blasts Obama's Approach To Fiscal Stability

President Barack Obama’s approach to solving the nation’s financial emergency has been nothing more than “one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history,” according to potential Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

In an Op-Ed for the New Hampshire Union Leader, the former Massachusetts governor blasted the president and the administration for failing to lead the country out of the fiscal mess it’s currently stuck in. 

“The administration has massed the debt worse, hindered economic recovery and needlessly cost American workers countless jobs,” Romney wrote. “We are not on a sustainable course… The only way to avert [a fiscal crisis] is to take action that is rooted in the need to reduce spending.”

Romney has been a clear front-runner among the extensive line-up of Republican 2012 potentials, according to recent polls. In a McClatchy/Marist poll, Romney led all Republican candidates with 18 percent support from likely voters and fell by just one percentage point to Obama, raking in 45 percent support versus Obama’s 46 percent, the smallest margin by any GOP presidential hopeful. 

“The Obama administration may not be serious about addressing the problems that have caused the S&P downgrade, but in less than two years the voters will reel us whether the will issue a decisive downgrade of their own,” Romney said. 

Obama, Pelosi Are Top Targets At Values Voter Summit

By Kyle LaFleur— Talk Radio News

Crisitism of President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) were at the top of the list for those who spoke during the morning session of this year’s Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC.  

“The President and his fellow-travelers in Congress implemented the most anti-growth, anti-investment, anti-jobs measures we’ve seen in our lifetime,” said former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R).

“He called it ambitious. It was reckless.”

Romney, a candidate for president in 2008 who many assume will run again in 2012, was joined by a number of Tea Party darlings including fellow 2008 candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R), Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

“Mort Zuckerman wrote this year in June, that he said that Barack Obama seems to be uncomfortable leading other nations,” said Huckabee, “I think Mr. Zuckerman is half right, and half wrong. I think the real issue is that he is uncomfortable leading this nation. He treats the White House like an ivory tower and for all practical purposes a classroom experiment.”

The conservative speakers assailed Obama and Democrats in Congress for their handling of the economy, and the BP oil spill, as well as upcoming votes on the New START Treaty and a repeal of the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.

Inhofe told members of the audience that they must take action to prevent Congress from doing away with DADT.

“A lot of people feel that you can’t stop it,” he said. “But you can stop it. And when you’re doing it you’re not doing it for me, you’re not doing it for you, you’re doing it for these kids, the next generation.”

Among those scheduled to speak later today are conservative cable host Sean Hannity and surprise Delaware Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell (R).

Romney: Obama Should Have Focused On Jobs First, Not Health Care

By Antonia Aguilar - University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

The Obama administration should have attempted to spur job creation prior to pursuing health care reform, according to Massachusetts' former Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in the last election cycle.

“Given the priorities that we faced at the time of his inauguration, I probably wouldn’t have suggested spending all that time... devoted to discussions on health care,” said Romney during an appearance before the National Press Club. “The first [priority] had to be to get the economy back on track and create jobs.”

Romney charged that current proposals intended to stimulate job creation have thus far served more as deterrents to investors within the private sector.

“I think this has been the most anti-investment, anti-entrepreneur, anti-employment, anti-job agenda since the days of Jimmy Carter," said Romney. "It has prolonged the recession and made it more difficult for us to recover."

Romney proposed deficit reduction, energy independence and education investments as remedies for the nation's economic woes.

The former governor is widely considered a presidential contender for 2012.

Romney: Obama Has Failed So Far

By Travis Martinez
University of New Mexico- Talk Radio News Service

Mitt Romney doesn’t think the last eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency have been successful. In an hour-long speech to hundreds of Republicans last Saturday, Romney said that Obama has failed with healthcare reform, economic redevelopment, stimulus funding and foreign relations.

What President Obama has done these past eight months [stimulus and bailout packages]... has not strengthened America,” said Romney at the 2009 Family Research Council Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. “To strengthen the economy and create jobs the President has to stop trying to borrow the country out of a debt problem... don’t repeat the stimulus, repair the stimulus.”

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate, criticized Obama's approach to foreign policy. Last week, the Obama Administration made headlines when it was announced that the U.S. will scrap the 2007 European missile defense program. Romney called the decision “alarming, and dangerous... We should never cut corners in our military and intelligence agencies,” he said.

With healthcare, Romney said that reform would make a healthier and a stronger nation, but without a public option and less government control. He cited successful reform in Massachusetts that was implemented without a public option. “The right answer for health care is not more government, it’s less government,” said Romney. “As a Republican, I worked very hard to reform health care in my own state... It does teach an important lesson that you can get everyone insured without a public option.”

Romney did not talk about his future career in politics, but said: “The voters are going to make their intentions clear in the 2010 elections.”

Soldiers Silencing the Critics

By Courtney Ann Jackson- Talk Radio News

Since World War II, the success of American soldiers in actions abroad has preserved freedom for millions of people, according to former Republican Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney. At a Heritage Foundation event Monday, Romney noted the upcoming 65th anniversary of D-Day and said American soldiers have shouldered the burden of defending freedom since World War II. The event was meant to commemorate those who served and to criticize the Obama administration for cutting funding from the Defense Department budget.

“Because of what America did in the 20th century, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who now live in freedom-who, but for the price paid by the United States, would have lived in despair. I know of no other such example of national selfishness in the history of mankind. That is why America is the hope of the earth.”

The broad military plans of the Obama administration are also troubling to Romney, who was a 2008 presidential candidate. He is concerned that Obama will look to the military budget for the largest cuts in the process of reforming the financial system.

“ The right way to scale America’s defense budget is to add up the requirements for each of our missions, beginning with strategic defense,” he said.

He laid out other defense missions that he felt the U.S. should be focusing on such as: fighting and winning land wars and counter-insurgencies and providing counter-insurgency support for nations under threat from Jihadists.

“We cannot allow the economic crisis to conceal the very real threats to our nation’s security. We cannot ignore the intentions of competitors who would replace America’s leadership with their own, and set back the cause of freedom,” Romney said.

The demands of all U.S. defense missions involving U.S. soldiers are not covered in Obama’s planned cuts for the department, Romney said, do not equal budget cuts. He believes a $50 billion increase in the modernization budget is needed. He noted that Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also repeatedly said that is a necessary increase.

He concluded by saying, “Providence has blessed us and trusted us to safeguard liberty; in a time of confusion at home and challenge abroad, let ours be the voice of clarity and good sense-confident in our cause, and faithful in the care of freedom.”