Romney Calls Firefighter, Teacher Line of Attack ‘Absurd’
Published at
Ethan Miller/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Mitt Romney was asked Tuesday morning about his claim last week that Democrats say shows he wants to eliminate jobs for firefighters, policemen and teachers.
Romney called it a “very strange accusation” and “completely absurd” in an interview on Fox News.
“Of course teachers and fireman and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn’t pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen,” Romney said. “So obviously that is completely absurd, but he’s got a new idea though and that is to have another stimulus and to have the federal government to try and bail out cities and states. It didn’t work the first time. It certainly wouldn’t work the second time.”
Last Friday, Romney said of President Obama: “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin?”
The Obama campaign immediately pounced on the statement saying it shows how much the presumptive GOP nominee is out of touch.
What the Romney campaign criticizes as a “second stimulus” is actually a legislative package that proposed infrastructure projects and state aid to hire teachers and first responders.
Romney responded to the new report out Monday that the median home income in this country has fallen 39 percent in just three years, bringing Americans back to where they were in about 1992. He answered, “the American people are facing really tough circumstances,” before citing examples from the campaign trail of couples trying to retire, but not financially being able to.
“Look, people are having hard times in this country and the president needs to go out and talk to people, not just do fundraisers go out and talk to people in the country and find out what’s happening,” Romney said.
The presumptive GOP nominee was also asked about comments the president made on Friday when he said “the private sector is doing fine” in a press conference at the White House. Obama later clarified his comments saying, “it’s absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine” and explaining that’s why he held the press conference.
Romney said the president has “had a number of very revealing comments that show just how far out of touch he is with what’s happening in the country.”
“Yesterday, he said among other things that he didn’t realize that Obamacare is having any impact on small business,” Romney told the hosts of Fox and Friends, then pointed to a survey done by the Chamber of Commerce that shows small businesses are less likely to hire because of the president’s healthcare plan.
“Then of course his comments that the private sector is doing fine when at a time when you see the growth of economy below 2 percent for the first quarter and you have about 15 percent of Americans out of work or stopped looking for work or are underemployed,” Romney said, before again repeating the charge that keeps going back and forth between the two candidates, that the “president is really out of touch with what’s happening in America.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio