McCain 2008 Opposition Research on Romney’s Economic Record in Massachusetts: Raised $700 Billion in Taxes, Spending Went up 24%, Left $1 Billion Deficit

The hits just keep on coming. After a week of pummeling by the Obama campaign over the Romney campaign’s conflicting record about Mitt’s exit from Bain Capital — did his control over the company end when he “retroactively retired” in 1999, before it outsourced thousands of American jobs overseas, as he claims now, or in 2002, as he claimed in sworn testimony later — now Buzzfeed has obtained the document used to vet Romney as a prospective vice presidential nominee by the McCain campaign 2008.

The entire document is here [Scribd] but here’s the McCain oppo research summary of Gov. Romney’s economic record. It’s no wonder they did not choose him — and it’s too bad Fox viewers will never see this. Their heads would explode!

ECONOMIC ISSUES – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • State spending increased at well over the rate of inflation under Romney’s watch, estimated at 24 percent — more than $5 billion — over Romney’s final three years.
  • Under Romney, Massachusetts dramatically underperformed the rest of the nation in terms of job growth.
  • Romney has been criticized by experts for failing to deliver on issues of business development and economic growth after selling himself as the “CEO governor.”
  • 2006 report issued by quasi-public Massachusetts Technology Collaborative warned the state was losing its grip as leader in “innovation economy” and that tech job growth was alarmingly slow.
  • Romney left his successor to fill a budget deficit exceeding $1 billion.
  • Romney raised state fees and taxes more than $700 million per year, according to independent experts.
  • Romney raised fees by roughly $500 million in his first year alone, a figure that was highest in the nation.
  • Romney quadrupled gun licensing fees and raised fees on first responders, real estate transactions, the blind, golfers and many others.
  • Massachusetts’ state and local tax burden rose more than 7 percent during Romney’s administration.
  • Romney refused to endorse the Bush tax cuts in 2003, telling the state’s all-Democrat congressional delegation he wouldn’t be a cheerleader for the plan.
  • Romney implemented three rounds of tax changes (which he referred to as “closing loopholes”) which increased business taxes by an estimated $400 million per year.
  • Massachusetts’ corporate tax climate now ranks 47th in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation.
  • Romney proposed — then backed away from — a new internet tourism tax that would levy higher taxes on users of sites like Orbitz and Travelocity.
  • Romney enrolled Massachusetts in a multistate compact aiming to end the moratorium on internet sales taxes.
  • Romney took no position on the estate tax issue in 2002 and signed 50 percent increase in state cremation fee, which observers called a “hidden tax on the dead.”

Now would someone please leak McCain’s oppo reserch on Sarah Palin, if there was any?

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