Mitt Romney sat down with Time’s Mark Halperin this morning, and made a rather remarkable boast about future job growth in a Romney administration.
“Over a period of 4 years, by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent, perhaps a little lower,” the Republican said.
There are, of course, two glaring problems with this. The first is that Romney told voters any unemployment rate above 4 percent is a problem. He didn’t say this years ago; he set this standard earlier this month.
The second is that Romney doesn’t realize what we’re on track to reach that standard anyway. The self-described “numbers guy” told Halperin that his “policies” will “get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent,” but as Travis Waldron noted, “The Congressional Budget Office predicts that unemployment will average 6.3 percent in 2016; the Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile, projects unemployment will hit 6.1 percent and ultimately fall below 6 percent the same year.”
In other words, Romney is promising to deliver results we’re likely to get anyway. The myth of this guy’s competence has been greatly exaggerated. Video by way of our pal James Carter.
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