Romney Warns College Students: Don’t Believe Everything You Hear
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(WESTERVILLE, Ohio) — Mitt Romney warned an auditorium of college students and faculty not to believe everything they hear during the upcoming election cycle, saying that sometimes what politicians say is “not a perfect example of what they’re going to do.”
“You’re challenge in all this is you will hear words from people running for office that sound great, but sometimes what people say is not a perfect example of what they’re going to do,” said Romney, who spoke at Otterbein University. “Sometimes appearances do not conform with the facts, or reality or track records.”
“I love what, was it John Adams, who said that facts are stubborn things,” said Romney. “Words are easily malleable but facts, they’re stubborn. And so I suggest that in the campaign ahead and in the campaigns of various officers running for various positions ahead, that you consider not just the brilliance of their words, but also the facts of their record and what they’ve done and that will be the best predictor I believe of what they’ll do going forward.”
“You look at the campaign of 2012, you’re gonna hear a lot of words, but you’re going to have an opportunity to also look behind the words at the facts,” he added.
Romney hosted a roundtable discussion with seven students on the cusp of graduation prior to delivering a guest lecture to a larger group. The trip marked Romney’s second trip to swing state of Ohio since becoming the presumptive nominee earlier this month.
Romney spoke about student loans – loans that several of the students in the roundtable indicated they benefited from – only briefly during his speech, explaining to the group how the upcoming generations will end up paying for the debts accumulated now.
“You look at your student loans—but you should also have, in addition to your student loans, an understanding of the federal loans you’ve got, that you’re going to inherit,” said Romney. “And that there is a party, and a stream in this country, that says, ‘Let’s keep spending and spending and spending and build up the national debt’ and my generation will never pay it back. We’ll be dead and gone. That interest and that principal gets paid by you guys.”
“And for year after year after year, your income taxes are going to include a very substantial amount to pay the interest of the debt that we’re accumulating now,” he said. “That’s why it’s so critical, in my view, for you to consider what’s in the best interest of not just yourself, but of America, over the coming century, and it is to stop the excessive overspending.”
Last week, Romney indicated that he would support Congress in temporarily extending the current low rate on subsidized student loans due to the state of the economy.
Accusing the president of attacking successful Americans, Romney urged students to borrow money from their parents if they need to do so to succeed in starting their own businesses.
“Even now, I believe you’re watching a president who is trying to deflect and divert from his record by trying to find ways to, if you will, attack fellow Americans, between rich and poor, and other dimensions,” said Romney. “This kind of divisiveness, this attack of success, is very different than what we’ve seen in our country’s history.”
“We’ve always encouraged young people, take a shot, go for it take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business,” he said.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio