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News Economy Jobs Taxes Friday, Jan 13 2012

TPM: Romney’s Conservative Businessman Pitch Runs Into Fire

Jan 13, 2012

On January 13, 2012, Talking Points Memo reported:

Mitt Romney is looking to steady his ship in South Carolina after overcoming a week of tough attacks on his Bain Capital days in New Hampshire. But while Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and assorted Democrats have all gone after him from his left flank on the issue, there are signs that he may have weaknesses on the right as well.

[…]

But a story in the Los Angeles Times today on the aforementioned Steel Dynamics undercuts Romney’s free market pitch by highlighting just how much help it received from the government along the way. According to the article, the company received some $37 million in taxpayer-funded grants and subsidies to build a factory in Indiana. Another steel company that went bankrupt after being bought out by Bain sought a $50 million federal loan guarantee to keep it afloat.

“This is corporate welfare,” Tad DeHaven, an analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute told the LA Times, calling the Steel Dynamics story “an example of the government stepping into the marketplace, picking winners and losers, providing profits to business owners and leaving taxpayers stuck with the bill.”

Read the full story here.


Published: Jan 13, 2012

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