Romney Campaign Press Release - In Case You Missed It: Romney on President Obama's Magical Misery Tour

"The fact is it's been a pretty rocky road. He has not got the job done. And he's hoping that by three days on a bus, he can make up for hundreds of days of failure." – Mitt Romney WLS 890 AM Chicago Don Wade & Roma Show

August 17, 2011

Listen To Audio Here: http://mi.tt/opfe1w

Transcript Of Mitt Romney On "Don Wade & Roma":

DON WADE: "You look very well. You know, we've been talking this morning earlier about the president's bus tour and asking people to name the bus. Even Chris Matthews criticizing the president's bus tour and I think you came up with the best name for that tour and I don't know that anybody's bettered the name: The Magical..."

ROMA: "Misery."

DON WADE: "...Misery Tour."

MITT ROMNEY: "Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's no question about it. We would not be seeing the president on a bus tour had his first 932 days in office been successful. The fact is it's been a pretty rocky road. He has not got the job done. And he's hoping that by three days on a bus, he can make up for hundreds of days of failure."

ROMA: "The President has promised a specific plan. In fact, he has announced that he's going to make a speech next month with a specific plan to boost the economy. And my question is when so many people are unemployed, why do you think the president is waiting until next month?"

MITT ROMNEY: "Well, I guess that's a darn good question. And you asked the question why was he so misguided for the last, well almost three years? You know, he came into office and job one was to get America working again, but instead of focusing on that, he focused on Obamacare, cap and trade, and Dodd-Frank bill and all these other things he wanted to do and each of those made the economy softer; made it harder for us to recover and, you know, I think the reason he's taking the time to wait for his next speech on the economy is that he, frankly, doesn't know what to do. He hasn't spent his life in the private sector. He doesn't understand how jobs come and go. And, he's looking for help. And the right answer is for him to step aside and let somebody help guide the nation that understands how this economy works."

DON WADE: "Governor Romney, the president is telling car manufacturers how to sell cars. Now I imagine your father, in the car business for so many years, listening to the president, would have quite a reaction. The president said you can't just make money on SUVs and trucks; you have to understand the market. People are going to try to save money. What does it say that the president seems to think he knows more about the car buying market than car manufacturers?"

MITT ROMNEY: "Well, you know, it would probably be helpful if he were to stick to the job that he was elected to do which is not to try and guide General Motors or Chrysler, but rather, guide the nation's economy. And frankly, what he has done, by adding to the deficit by massive amounts, by putting in place Obamacare, which is a massive new entitlement, by scaring the dickens out of the financial sector with this Dodd-Frank, with all sorts of new regulations, he has made it more difficult for the economy to reboot. So, you know, I guess if you can't do your own job well, you try to look around and see if you can do someone else's job for them, but I'm afraid it would be wiser to spend his time going into the office, pulling in some leadership on both sides of the aisle and saying 'Look, let's get this economy going again.' And the right way to do that is to pull back the heavy-hand of government in the lives of our citizens and in the life of economy."

ROMA: "But Obama, our president, is saying he reversed the recession until he was hit by bad luck. He said the Arab spring uprisings, the tsunami in the Japan, the European debt crisis, those were all just bad luck and he couldn't have foreseen that."

MITT ROMNEY: "Yeah, well what he could have foreseen is that Obamacare would cause the health care sector to put on its brakes, that Dodd-Frank would cause banks to pull back on their lending, that cap and trade and stacking the National Labor Relations Board with labor stooges would cause industries that hire a lot of people to stop hiring. What he could have foreseen was that massive deficits—as far as the eye could see—we're now talking about trillion dollar plus deficits for the next decade—that that would cause investors to pull back from creating new industries and new jobs. What he could have seen is that actions he took did not help this economy and actually have prolonged the recession and made the recovery even more tepid. You take responsibility for the things you do wrong. I think the slogan on his desk should no longer be 'the buck stops here.' It's now 'the buck stops somewhere else, please.' And the truth is, the American people are going to hold him accountable."

DON WADE: "Governor Romney, I want to play eight seconds of the President from yesterday. This is yesterday on his bus tour he said this."

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "When I came into office, I knew I was going to have a big mess to clean up. And frankly, the mess has been bigger than I think a lot of people anticipated at the time."

DON WADE: "So, he is still blaming George Bush."

MITT ROMNEY: "Yeah, I think you're right. I think this president, by going around on his bus, he's going to still try and see if he can't rekindle the good old days, which was when he was campaigning. But, let me tell you, the campaign's over Mr. President. It's now time to lead. And he's had it almost three years now to lead. You know, he was on the Today Show right after his inauguration and he said on the Today Show, he said 'if I can't get this economy turned around within three years, why, I'll be looking at a one-term proposition.' And he's right. It's a one-term proposition. I'm here to collect on that by the way. He cannot simply get away by blaming George Bush for a tough economy. There have been other presidents who had recessions, but they've got the country to turn around and grow again. And this president hasn't and as a result you got some 25 million people in America who are out of work or stopped looking for work or who have got part-time jobs that need full-time employment. This presidency has failed. The president knows it. And he hopes that by driving around in an extraordinarily fancy bus, that the American people are going to forget how fully failed his presidency has been."

DON WADE: "Governor Romney, President Obama's Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack yesterday said that they should be putting out more food stamps because food stamps, long explanation, but basically he believes food stamps are stimulus. Do you believe food stamps are a stimulus to the economy?"

MITT ROMNEY: "No, I certainly don't. I believe that food stamps can help people in real need. But I certainly believe that to get the economy going you want to get private sector small business people, large business people, investing in America, investing in hiring people. And food stamps are just fine for those in need, but they certainly don't do that. I think that there's some folks like Tom Vilsack and President Obama himself that imagine that if you just throw money at people, that somehow that will make the economy better. But were out there borrowing money from the Chinese, to hand out money here, and that is not going to get America working again."

ROMA: "Governor Romney, if you were president today, would you call Congress back in to session immediately?"

MITT ROMNEY: "The first thing I'd do is go back to my office immediately. If I were president today, I wouldn't be looking to go spend ten days on Martha's Vineyard. Now, Martha's Vineyard is in my home state of Massachusetts so I don't want to say anything negative about people vacationing there. But if you're the President of the United States, and the nation is in crisis, and we're in a jobs crisis right now, then you shouldn't be out vacationing. Instead you should be focusing on getting the economy going again. And yeah, go back to the office yourself, pull back members of Congress, and focus on getting the job done. This action of somehow, this is campaign time and vacation time, is exactly the wrong dose of medicine for the American economy."

ROMA: "Governor Romney, do you think the super committee is a sound concept?"

MITT ROMNEY: "It doesn't strike me as something that, Roma, that's going to solve the issues that we face. It's been people, that in some cases with folks that have been highly partisan. We'll see what they come out with. The advantage of the super committee is that its report is going to be not amended, it's going to be voted up or down. And so, there are some procedural advantages of the effort. But I do not support the deal that was done. The idea that we're either going to have to raise taxes or cut the military, is in my opinion, like saying 'are you going to cut off your right arm or your left arm'? The right approach was for the president to agree to cut federal spending, to cap federal spending as a percentage of the economy, and to agree to a balanced budget. If he were to do those things, you'd see the confidence return to our economy, businesses beginning to grow and hire again."