Romney adviser: Obama to blame for public sector job losses

An adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday said that President Barack Obama's policies were at fault for jobs cuts in the public sector -- even though the GOP hopeful recently blasted the president for wanting to hire more firefighters, police and teachers.

"He's the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world," Bay Buchanan told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "He had to take some responsibility for the economy that his policies have created after three and a half years. Take a little responsibility. Show a little leadership."

O'Brien wondered how much of a problem it was for the campaign that Romney had recently criticized Obama's call to cut back on the hiring of firefighters, police and teachers.

"Those three groups -- firemen, policeman and teachers -- are critical to society," Buchanan explained. "This idea that Obama has no responsibility. In [his] own ad, he really indicts himself. He says 450,000 local and government state workers have been laid off. Why do you think they're being laid off, Mr. President? Do you not understand when the economy is suffering, when we are having the situation we're having today with this slow, slow, almost no growth in the country sometimes, that he is impacting? His policies are impacting what's going on in the state and local."

"If Barack Obama could just do half the kind of job that Mitt Romney did [as governor of] Massachusetts, this country would be thriving."

During a press conference on Friday, Obama had called on Congress to pass a jobs proposal that would prevent layoffs and rehire public workers like police, firefighters and teachers.

“The truth of the matter is 3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone,” the president told reporters. “The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government.”

At a campaign stop in Iowa that same day, Romney blasted that assertion.

“For the president of the United States to stand up and say the private sector is doing fine is going to go down in history as an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a president who’s out of touch,” the former Massachusetts governor charged.

“And his answer for economic vitality, by the way, was, of course, pushing aside the private sector, which he said is doing fine,” Romney continued. “Instead, he wants to add more to government. He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policeman, more teachers.”

“Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did! It’s time for us to cut back on government!”

Watch this video from CNN's Starting Point, broadcast June 11, 2012.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)