Romney: "Freedom on the ballot"
CHICAGO -- Declaring that "Our economic freedom will be on the ballot,'' in November, Mitt Romney denounced President Obama's economic polices in a speech characterizing the administration as a mounting threat to the nation's prosperity.
"The Obama administration's assault on our economic freedom is the principal reason why the recovery has been so tepid,'' Mr. Romney said at a speech at the University of Chicago. "If we don't change course now, this assault on freedom could damage our economy and the well-being.''
In a speech delivered just hours before the polls open here, Mr. Romney never mentioned his rivals for the GOP nomination. While offering relatively few details of his own economic proposals, the Republican front-runner concentrated on an indictment of the president's fundamental understanding of the economy and the culture that shapes it.
"We see this attack on our freedom in every corner of the economy,'' Mr. Romney said as he criticized the president's call for higher rates on upper income taxpayers, the Dodd-Frank legislation that increases oversight of financial institutions and an overall regulatory approach that he contended was stifling business.
"For every regulation, there are unintended consequences, underestimated costs, and unwanted influence from special interests. And, of course, the bureaucratic impulse is to make more rules, never to reduce them,'' he said. "All those regulations erode our freedom and stifle prosperity.''
Mr. Romney spoke at a university where Mr. Obama had been a law school faculty member, just blocks from the Hyde Park neighborhood where the president lives and he told the university crowd that the president was a champion of crony capitalism.
"When the government invested $500 million in Solyndra, you can imagine that scores of other solar energy entrepreneurs and enterprises either lost their investors or failed to find any,'' he said. And returning to his critique of the administration's bailout of the auto industry, he said, "When General Motors shares were directed to the UAW, political payback replaced the rule of law, and the rule of law is fundamental to economic freedom.''
Mr. Romney mocked a recent speech in which the president had invoked the spirits of such figures as the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison.
"The reality is that, under President Obama's administration, these pioneers would have found it much more difficult, if not impossible, to innovate, invent, and create,'' he asserted. "Under Dodd-Frank, they would have struggled to get loans from their community banks. A regulator would have shut down the Wright Brothers for their 'dust pollution.' And the government would have banned Thomas Edison's light bulb _ Oh yeah, Obama's regulators actually did just that.''
He neglected to point out that the federal pressure to increase light bulb efficiency is rooted in legislation passed in 2007 under the Bush administration.
Mr. Romney spoke here in response to an invitation from the University. Administrators said that the other presidential candidates had also been invited but so far none had accepted.
"The Obama administration's assault on our economic freedom is the principal reason why the recovery has been so tepid,'' Mr. Romney said at a speech at the University of Chicago. "If we don't change course now, this assault on freedom could damage our economy and the well-being.''
In a speech delivered just hours before the polls open here, Mr. Romney never mentioned his rivals for the GOP nomination. While offering relatively few details of his own economic proposals, the Republican front-runner concentrated on an indictment of the president's fundamental understanding of the economy and the culture that shapes it.
"We see this attack on our freedom in every corner of the economy,'' Mr. Romney said as he criticized the president's call for higher rates on upper income taxpayers, the Dodd-Frank legislation that increases oversight of financial institutions and an overall regulatory approach that he contended was stifling business.
"For every regulation, there are unintended consequences, underestimated costs, and unwanted influence from special interests. And, of course, the bureaucratic impulse is to make more rules, never to reduce them,'' he said. "All those regulations erode our freedom and stifle prosperity.''
Mr. Romney spoke at a university where Mr. Obama had been a law school faculty member, just blocks from the Hyde Park neighborhood where the president lives and he told the university crowd that the president was a champion of crony capitalism.
"When the government invested $500 million in Solyndra, you can imagine that scores of other solar energy entrepreneurs and enterprises either lost their investors or failed to find any,'' he said. And returning to his critique of the administration's bailout of the auto industry, he said, "When General Motors shares were directed to the UAW, political payback replaced the rule of law, and the rule of law is fundamental to economic freedom.''
Mr. Romney mocked a recent speech in which the president had invoked the spirits of such figures as the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison.
"The reality is that, under President Obama's administration, these pioneers would have found it much more difficult, if not impossible, to innovate, invent, and create,'' he asserted. "Under Dodd-Frank, they would have struggled to get loans from their community banks. A regulator would have shut down the Wright Brothers for their 'dust pollution.' And the government would have banned Thomas Edison's light bulb _ Oh yeah, Obama's regulators actually did just that.''
He neglected to point out that the federal pressure to increase light bulb efficiency is rooted in legislation passed in 2007 under the Bush administration.
Mr. Romney spoke here in response to an invitation from the University. Administrators said that the other presidential candidates had also been invited but so far none had accepted.