The day after the close of the 2012 Republican National Convention, Vice President Joe Biden came out swinging at inaccuracies in a speech given by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and calling Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to account for pressuring the government to bail out help his former private equity firm Bain & Company.
For Biden, the Bain attack is a new one, based upon a report filed Wednesday in Rolling Stone. Documents obtained by reporter Tim Dickinson show that Romney settled more than $30 million in debts Bain owed to a bank the FDIC had taken control of by threatening to loot the company's assets for executive bonuses and put Bain into bankruptcy if the government didn't cancel the company's debt for just 30 cents on the dollar.
“You know, he is absolutely against the federal government or any government using funds to save jobs, to save industries," Biden said Friday, speaking to a group of auto workers in Lordstown, Ohio. "It’s bad business, he says. Except when it comes to his business."
"Let me quote from recent reporting," he went on. "'Romney was willing to go to extremes to secure a federal bailout' when Bain Consulting was on the verge of collapse. The way they reorganized cost the government $10 million. Imagine that: It was one thing when a million middle class jobs were on the line. It was another when his own financial interests were on the line. And now they say they care about the middle class?"
Earlier in the speech he also corrected Romney's running mate, Rep. Ryan, who said during his RNC speech that a General Motors plant in his hometown closed down because of President Obama's policies.
"But what he didn’t tell you was that plant in Janesville actually closed while President Bush was still in office," Biden said. "And what they didn’t say is, but for the sacrifices you made, and the courage of the President, all those GM plants would have closed. The 200,000 auto workers who’ve been added to the employment rolls would not be working. And a million jobs would have been lost."
Unlike Obama, Romney suggested that Detroit automakers should be allowed to go bankrupt. "He said if we stepped in to help, GM would be 'the living dead,'" the vice president added.
This video is from ABC News, broadcast Friday, August 31, 2012.
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