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Romney Campaign Press Release - Are You Better Off After Four Years of Obama?

September 02, 2012

"This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right. But this president cannot tell us that YOU are better off today than when he took office. America has been patient. Americans have supported this president in good faith. But today, the time has come to turn the page." – Governor Mitt Romney

In October 2011, President Obama Said That Americans Were Not Better Off Than They Were Four Years Earlier:

In October 2011, President Obama Confirmed That Americans Were Not Better Off Than They Were Four Years Earlier. QUESTION: "There are so many people who simply don't think they are better off than they were four years ago. How do you convince them that they are?" OBAMA: "Well, I don't think they are better off than they were four years ago." (ABC News, 10/3/11)

Today, Governor Martin O'Malley Said Americans Are Not Better Off Under President Obama:

CBS's Bob Schieffer: "Can you honestly say that people are better off today than they were four years ago?"   Gov. Martin O'Malley: "No, but that's not the question of this election." (CBS's "Face The Nation," 9/2/12)

White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe Wouldn't Say Yes Or No If Americans Are Better Off:

ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "But yes or no, are Americans better off today than they were four years ago?"  White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe: "Listen, George, they did a good job of reciting all the statistics everyone's familiar with. I think everyone understands we were this close to a great depression. Because of the leadership of this President, we staved that off. We're beginning to recover. We have a lot more work to do. We need to grow jobs more quickly. We need to grow middle-class incomes more quickly. But, the question for the American people is, which path are we going to take? If we take Mitt Romney's path, economists have looked at this, the recovery would slow down, we wouldn't produce jobs. He would give huge tax cuts to people like himself and send the bill to the middle class and seniors. So, the question is, we're going to be far worse off if Mitt Romney is elected president and he gets a chance to enact the same economic policies that created the mess in the first place." Stephanopoulos: "So, it sounds like, a year ago, the President told me, I don't think Americans are better off than they were four years ago. You still can't say yes."  Plouffe: "Well, we've clearly improved George from the depths of the recession. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. We're now gaining them. The unemployment rate was around 10, it's come down. We're beginning to see a manufacturing sector emerge. One of the great bright spots right now is we're adding manufacturing jobs. The American automotive industry was close to extinction. Mitt Romney would've let it go away, by the way. We wouldn't have an American automotive industry if he was president. President Obama secured that. We're beginning to really make progress in alternative energy and things like batteries. We've made a lot of progress from the depths of recession. we have a lot more work to do. And that's the question we're going to lay out for the American people is, the Romney path would be the wrong path for the middle class, the wrong path for this country. We've got to continue to recover not just from the recession, but again, how do we build an economy from the middle out so that we have an economy, tax policy, all centered on how do we make the middle class more secure in this country." (ABC's "This Week," 9/2/12)

Obama Campaign Senior Advisor David Axelrod Wouldn't Say Yes Or No If Americans Are Better Off:

Fox News' Chris Wallace: "David, can you honestly say that the average American is better off today than they were four years ago?" Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod: "Here's what I can say, Chris. I can say that we're in a better position than we were four years ago in our economy in the sense that when this president took office we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The quarter before he took office was the worst quarter that this country has had economically since the Great Depression and we are in a different place, 29 straight months of job growth, 4.5 million private sector jobs. Are we where we need to be, no. But the problem with what Governor Romney said is, for three days they never offered anybody a plausible alternative. He spoke for 45 minutes and never really offered any real ideas for how to move the economy forward for how to lift the middle class. And in that sense I think his convention was a terrible failure. He never talked about the principle planks of his own plan; he never talked about his five trillion tax cut skewed to the wealthy, never talked about turning Medicare in a voucher program. There were so many things that he didn't talk about and people walked away, those voters who were trying to decide, and they said what alternative is he offering?" Wallace: "But you keep talking about Romney. I'd like to talk about the Obama record and I want to put some statistics up on the screen. Unemployment was 7.8 percent when the president took office; it's now 8.3 percent. Median household income was almost $55,000; it's now less than $51,000. Gas was $1.85 a gallon when he took office, now its $3.78, almost double. The national debt was $10.6 trillion and it may go past $16 trillion this week. So just looking at the president's record and those statistics, David, is the average American better off than four years ago?" Axelrod: "Chris, as I said to you before, I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's gonna take some time to work through it." ("Fox News Sunday," 9/2/12)

Mitt Romney, Romney Campaign Press Release - Are You Better Off After Four Years of Obama? Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/302611

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