Romney Brackets Bam

Ahead of POTUS's visit to Fort Bragg, Bay Stater blasts Obama's failure to help returning veterans find jobs.

Romney: "Mr. President, it is a disgrace that the unemployment rate for recently returned veterans has increased by more than one percentage point over the past year."

DNC responds, says ex-MA Guv put "forward failed economic policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle class."

Read the rest of the letter below.

Dear Mr. President,

It is good of you to come here to Fort Bragg to greet our brave warriors returning from Iraq. I join you in saluting their service to our country and celebrating their safe return. I join you in expressing our nation’s gratitude to those who suffered grievous injury or made the ultimate sacrifice so that all Americans can enjoy peace and live in freedom. Though I have my differences with your policies, when it comes to honoring the men and women who have served our country, I stand by your side, as all Americans do.

Yet Mr. President, words of welcome to our returning soldiers are not enough. Every one of the men and women who have just come back from overseas has a future to look forward to. Right now, unfortunately, that future is bleak. Those who will be leaving the service will need to find jobs. Yet jobs are extraordinarily hard to find. Here in North Carolina, the unemployment rate is 10.4 percent, and that does not include the many North Carolinians who have given up looking because there are simply no jobs to be had. In the nation as a whole, unemployment has been over 8 percent for 34 months, the longest such stretch since the Great Depression.

Mr. President, you came into office facing an economic crisis. It was not your doing. But after three years, it is plain that your policies have made things worse, not better. You pressed hard for legislation that your team promised would hold unemployment below 8 percent. The price tag on that legislation—the “stimulus” bill—was $787 billion, which vastly expanded our nation’s deficit and contributed to an unprecedented downgrade of our nation’s credit rating. And yet for all the taxpayer money that was spent and borrowed, unemployment remains tragically high.

Mr. President, we are about to enter an election year. Americans will have a chance to decide which direction the country should travel. I am offering an alternative to your failed policies. I am a businessman, not a career politician. From spending more than two decades helping to start new businesses or turning around failing ones, I’ve learned a thing or two about how jobs get created. I’ve also learned a thing or two about how government policies can kill private investment and stifle job creation.

Mr. President, thanks to your policies—from Obamacare to environmental regulation run amok to out-of-control government spending—private investment in America has dried up. You’ve helped turn the federal government into a behemoth that is crushing the American economy. As president, I would repeal your takeover of American health care, eliminate the needless and onerous regulations you’ve imposed, and bring government spending under control. I aim to create a simpler, smaller, smarter federal government, not a federal government that stands in the way.

In closing, Mr. President, it is a disgrace that the unemployment rate for recently returned veterans has increased by more than one percentage point over the past year. It is a disgrace that those who are now returning from Iraq join other Iraq veterans suffering from unemployment above 11 percent. In the face of such economic hardship, fine words welcoming veterans home are insufficient. It is time for a fundamental change of direction. If you won’t or can’t lead our country out of the economic morass you’ve deepened, then I would suggest that it’s time for you to go.