jones. i'll be talking to her about social media's impact on the london games in this final weekend of competition. that's coming up at 2:00 eastern time today. and my olympic trip with my dad who made history there in 1948 as gold medalist. that's in the 3:00 eastern hour. much more straight ahead. "your money" starts right now. your politicians se to think the best way to handle the job situation in this country is to tell you what you want to hear. my job is to tell you the truth. this is "your money." an economic storm is approaching our shores from europe. another one is developing in washington. but were politicians refuse to level with you. mitt romney made an audacious promise that during the first four years of his presidency, 12 million jobs will be created. now someone who apparently helped him come up with canard

will join me in a minute. i'll ask him whether mitt romney was absent or sleeping when he approved that claim. but to be fair politicians make a lot of promises to get your vote that they don't keep. we tracked more than 500 promises that president obama made during his campaign in 2008 when he was candidate obama. he's kept 37% of those promises. he's working on 23% of them. he's broken 16% outright and compromised on 14% to get the job done. the rest, some of you like to tweet me a lot and point out the many promises that he hasn't kept. some of those broken promises can be blamed on congress. they are stalled because your lawmakers won't do a thing about them. i blame congress for things, but it's not congress that's going to stand in the way of romney's ridiculous promise, it's the state of the u.s. economy.

12 million jobs over four years, that's what romney is promising. that's 3 million jobs a year or an average of 250,000 jobs per month every month for an entire presidency. i'm going to save my next guest some time. he'll say it's possible and it's been done before during clinton's second term. but that was a very different economy. one that was growing at an average of 4.2% a year. ours is crawling at 1.5%. you see companies need to be on solid footing to be confident enough to hire those people. i'm for big thinking, but instead we get big promises that often end up being lies. i'm joined now by david gergen. but i want to start with kevin hasset. he's one of the authors of the 12 million jobs in four years pledge. kevin, good to see you back

here. you authored this claim. please give me a solid economic basis for creating 12 million jobs in four years, three million a year. on average starting in january 2013. >> right. if you've looked at the study and it sounds like you have a strong opinion about it, the fact is that there are lots of countries around the world that have been tinkering with their economic policies and then we have lots of data what happens when they do that. so for example, governor romney proposed we cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25. now we're about the highest on earth. two countries have higher. but other than that, everybody has a lower rate. clinton increased it by 1% in the '90s, we were in the middle of the countries around the world. so we have had 50 countries changing every two or three

years and we watch what happens when they do that and seen a lot of job creation. if you look at our study, we look at the individual proposals that governor romney made and go to the literature just like a sports show. and then if you add it up, you get that big number you mentioned. of course, it's very important to mention that's conditional on everything happening. >> right. conditional on everything ppening. later in the show, i have them lined up. i have the entire u.s. tax code lined up here. all 73,000 pages of it. that's not going to change in january 2013 no matter what mitt romney wants. here's my question to you. i'm not saying it's impossible to create 250,000 jobs a month. we have done it before. the issue is in order to do that, you have to change things, which means it's not going to happen in the first month or even six months which means creating more jobs. what economic circumstances in this country changes the day mitt romney takes office that would allow for immediate job growth at that pace?

we still have slow economic growth and there are no forecasts for faster economic growth over the course of the next few years. we still have an inefficient tax code. we still have foreclosures and credit problems. so how is it that the world somehow changes and the economic sunshines through the storm clouds because mitt romney becomes president? >> you listed a lot of the major things that we need to address and that governor romney is talking about on the stump. it's absolutely right that if governor romney is elected and then he goes into thewhite house and nobody wants to adopt any of his policies in congress, then one wouldn't expect that all of a sudden businesses would start investing again and things that need to happen to lift the economy. but if romney is elected and he has a congress he can work with, which i think is highly likely, then what's going to happen is he's going to start list pg the

problems and knocking them down one by one and a lot of them are kind of easy to legislate. so it's not the kind of thing that's going to take a staff 10 or 15 months to write a bill so we can look at it. . we could cut the rate today. we cut it from 35 to 25. there's a heck of a lot of stuff that could happen right away. once it does, this is something we talk about in the paper x it's going to bring a lot of certainty back, which we don't have now with the tax code expiring. >> there are a lot of americans that are not going to be interested in you cutting corporate taxes without dealing with the loopholes that make up the pages and that's where it gets bogged down. >> you're always so cheery. >> sorry about that. >> no we like that. politicians make very big promises in election times. president bush said read my lips, no new taxes. president obama and this is the one he keeps getting held to,

the stimulus would make sure that unemployment never rose above 8%. people said that his people said it and they published it. is this the kind of thing that could come back and bite a president romney? >> absolutely. just like obama. but i do think this. kevin has a legitimate argument that we could be doing a lot better than we're doing now. there are a lot of businessmen sitting on cash right now. cash is on the sidelines because of the uncertainty over the election and of the fiscal cliff after the elections. uncertain we're going to get serious about tackling a debt. if you did those things and undertook them in a bold way, you could unleash a lot more economic growth in this country. but the notion of getting 12 million jobs over four years is a great dream. but most economists will say that's a pipe dream. the fact is whatever we do, we

are caught at the tail end of a very different kind of recession. they go back to the analysis of this. financial recessions are deeper than you expect and they last longer than they expect and leave you a hangover. that's what we're experiencing. plus we're in a new global economy. this is hard to compete to create jobs. i think all of us believe we can do better. >> we may disagree on the number of 12 million jobs over three months, but what we agree on is we can do better. we want to discuss how we do better. where's the plan that backs up the claims? even if the claims don't live up to the expectations, i want to talk to you about the campaign. the romney campaign says under obama is not getting better fast enough. plus whether you own your home or squat in your parents basement, i'm going to show you how people are making money off the real estate recovery.

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i told you why i think mitt romney's claim that he can create 12 million jobs in four years is false. now let me show you how hard it would be to do that. romney, like many other politicians, goes on the offensive rusing the rising unemployment rate against president obama. >> in july unemployment went up again and the president is running out of time. under obama's economy, it's just not getting better. >> that is at best a misrepresentation of the unemployment situation. the rate is a favorite talking point amongst politicians. i have been consistent about this for many years. it's a secondary measure of the health of the labor market.

it follows a group of people moving in and out of the job hunt. the monthly payroll numbers, the job creation or loss numbers, are a much clearer gauge of what we are, where we are. the total job creation number is an absolute. everyone can measure it. everyone can feel it. everyone can understand it. so let's throw that unemployment rate out the window. i have been saying this for years and look at job creation numbers. you can see the deep cuts. this was during the recession. at the height of the recession, the end of 2008, 2009 losing somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 jobs a month when president bush left office and president obama takes off. in 2009 you can see things started to improve. job growth fluctuated but started to improve. a lot of that had to do with the stimulus bill. we saw a peak in 2009. and we started to see losses again and then the end of 2010 all the way to now, we have seen

about two years worth of net job gains. romney's promise of 12 million jobs over 48 months means that this economy would have to create 250,000 jobs every single month. that's about this level over he here. it doesn't happen very often. we have only seen a handful of months with that kind of job growth over the last four years. it would take a sharp turn around to all of a sudden be at a steady pace of 250,000 jobs a month. i'm rejoined by david gergen and kevin hassett. he's an author of this claim that 12 million jobs can be created in four years. kevin, you and your co-authors wrote, quote, that americans took a wrong turn in economic policy, end quote. does this mean we can see stronger job creation simply from a political policy change

in washington. because as you know from being on this show before, i think there's something else at play here including this massive storm from europe that washington can do little about. >> what we have to do is focus on the things that we can have an impact on and other things could happen. there could be months that are bad. the fact is think about the problem this way. suppose that the economy was really struggling like it is now. we had a brilliant tax code. the government had a balanced budget, everything was perfect and we weren't growing. then we'd be scratching our heads. but the fact is that if you look at pretty much any of our poli y policies it's indefensible. everything is broken. and that's kind of almost our best asset. if we go in and do obvious fixes, we can turn tis economy around and deliver a lot more jobs than we have. president obama hasn't fixed anything. so instead of saying, being the

highest corporate tax on earth is bad, let's fix that. he decided to leave the big problems untouched and that's why the growth is so low. >> kevin makes an interesting point. there's so much not working that if you fixed that we could see stronger job numbers. does it get you to the numbers that romney is talking about? >> no, i don't think they do. but we could a lot better. the fact is our economy is back to where it was in terms of gdp from before the recession and we have five million fewer jobs. that's not exactly impressive. we can do better than that. and some of the things that kevin is talking about have to be done like tax reform and getting the deficits under control, but i also think it's true that republicans haven't been very helpful. they have opposed the president when he tried to fix these things. it's been hard for him to deal

with this. he wanted to go for the big bang sort of theory approach to getting the deficit under control. the president ought to do more now. bill clinton said why don't you extend the bush tax cuts for a year. do that before the elections. will mitt romney join president obama in trying to do that? i don't know. kevin, what leadership will you show on the fiscal cliff, for example, if you're elected what are you going to do about the fiscal cliff? >> governor romney has a very detailed plan. he goes after medicare, medicaid, social security. >> would you push that? >> he has all these things on the table. the thing i disagree ith, david, is that i think you're being too kind to president obama. the fact is he had a super majorityn the senate. he could have done anything he wanted and e he decided to take fixing things off the table. if we made a list of the problems he had when we took office, we have less money.

if he had a tax reform that stimulated the economy, broaden the base, lowered the rates and stimulated that way, we wouldn't have the hangover now and we wouldn't have so many problems. >> we can do better. the three of us are agreed. but there are complicated things. maybe the president is getting too much blame and too much credit for what e he can do. love to soo you author some adst that talk about what congress can do and whether some of this can get done before the election. i will go on a limb and tell people to vote for congressman that make a decision to deal with these things before the election and not after. but i may grow hair before that happens. kevin, good to see you as always. kevin hassett, a romney economic advisor. coming up, thousands of pink slips going out days before the election. why it could happen just as the economic storm approaches.

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the fiscal cliff that we are head headed over if congress refuses to act. one rocky area of the cliff is the so-called sequester, which is a stupid name for a stupid thing. $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over ten years. half will come from defense including $55 billion alone next year. jobs will be lost. possibly more than a million defense-related jobs next year. most of them, by the way, are not government jobs. the bulk of the pink slips come from private contractors hired by uncle sam. i don't know if the number is right. but let's say it's in the ballpa ballpark. that would be equivalent, take a look at the red bars, to all of the jobs created this year. i'm not willing to take that chance and your congress shouldn't be either. defense companies aren't waiting around. they are already starting to

prepare for the job losses. why? because of something called the warn act. the obama administration says the act doesn't apply here and that's triggering a plolitical fire storm. before we get to that, you need to know what the warn act is. i want to bring in poppy harlow. tell us what the warn act is. >> most people haven't heard of it, but it's important because if you work for a medium to big-size company, this applies to you. it's technically called the worker adjustment and retraining act. it requires them to send out these notices 60 days in advance if they are going to close a plant or have mass layoffs. so if defense contractors have to do mass layoffs, they may need to send out these notices. so what is it?

500 employees or 33% of the workforce. you need to send these out. here's where timing is so important. sequester, as you said, a stupid name for a stupid thing. that would take effect if it happens on january 2nd. so what's 60 days before that? when would the notices go out? november 2nd, just a few day before the election. so the big question now is does this apply in this case? the labor department came out this week and said, no. they issued guidance which is this quote and they basically said, well, we don't know if it's going to happen so we don't know if the job cuts are going to come so it would be inappropriate to send out a notice. but republicans say, look, that guidance is politically motivated. take a listen. >> the only reason the administration sent out this guidance was to keep people in

the dark about the impact these defense cuts will have until, of course, after the election. >> that's mitch mcconnell. so republicans siding with him on this. the obama administration and labor department saying you shouldn't be alarmed. we shouldn't send out noeltss because we don't know if they are going to come. it's going to be up to the companies. and as you know, if they don't send out the notices and do layoffs, they could get sued. so it will be interesting to see if the companies are going to do this. and it's absolutely political now. saying inappropriate to send the notices out. >> once again, we have uncertainty by employers not knowing what to do and that could cost americans jobs. thank you for a great explanation. what are the defense contractors planning to do? the biggest government defense

contractor says they are reviewing the guidance. their ceo says they may have to layoff 10,000 workers if congress doesn't act. and warn notices are possible it could layoff 4,000 if the sequester happens. joining me is rick mcneil, the president and ceo of lord corporation, which makes critical parts for helicopters. and thomas buffenbarger. rick, you have 2800 employees worldwide. you say you're not laying anyone off yet. how does congress's inability to act effect jobs? are there plans for hiring off the table right now? are there contingencies for laying people off? >> yes, we're looking at different scenarios, but it's very difficult to understand

where we're going because until we understand how that 55 million cuts will occur and the cuts beyond that, it's very difficult to plan and decide what you're going to do. so we're not only having an issue, but our suppliers that supply castings and forgings and machinists parts are not hiring, they are not spending capital to expand in areas where expansion is needed. so there's just a lot of uncertainty out there right. >> thomas, critics say the defense industry is sounding the alarm on job cuts and the warn act because its trying to protect profits. in your case, i imagine, you're interested in protecting jobs. >> i certainly am interested in protecting jobs and mr. mcneel is correct about the difficulties he faces as the union is in the same position. we're confused by the

pronouncements of the government as to when this is going to kick in, if it kicks in. we know we have to abide by the law. we're going to represent and defend our members. if there is going to be a significant, catastrophic in my opinion, economic event, we expect warn notices to go out. some states such as new york have a 90-day threshold. so notices could come out in october. this is the weirdest event i have ever seen in congress. the earlier clip of leader mitch mcconnell who is responsible for the mess we're in right now with all the members of our congress quite frankly have put a great industry, one that contributes significantly to our gross domestic product and to a good standard of living in this country. they have put all this in

jeopardy. >> here's the question. i know that unions and employers agree on a lot of things. the two of you gentlemen are on the same side of this issue. these are nonstrategic cuts that are going to cost jobs. so what would you prefer happen based on the guidance issued by the labor secretary and the obama administration that the warn act doesn't apply to sequester? should people like rick, you know, issue the warn notices when they they think they might have to lay people off? what would you prefer happen in this case? >> i believe in having informion and putting it to use. and right now, the notices we have seen come from the government have come from at the lower levels. i haven't seen any signature attached to this. so i'm preparing for the worst. and i think our employer base is preparing for the worst too.

if a company doesn't issue a warn notice and we have this event occur, the fiscal cliff, then i'm going to represent our members taking our employers on for failing to follow the law. now do i think it's right? probably not. the employers are as confuse d s we are about the whole situation right now. >> i think we're all agreed that this is one of the more puzzling -- the weirdest things we have ever seen going on determining the employment of a million or more americans. richard mcneel and thomas buffenbarger, thank you. we have a lot to talk about in the tax code. exceptions from everyone from homeowners to big oil. that's it. those aren't numerous versions of it. that's the tax code. the u.s. tax code. probably the most complicated federal tax system on the

planet. maybe even in the galaxy. e we all want to reform the mess. i'll tell you how we're going to do it on the other side. lowed to be frivolous. ah ok, move my 4 o'clock today to tomorrow. change my 11am to 2. [siri] ok marty, i scheduled it for today. is that rick? where's rick? [siri] here's rick. oh, no that's not rick. now, how's the traffic headed downtown? [siri] here's the traffic. ah, it's terrible, terrible! driver, driver! cut across, cut across, we'll never make it downtown this way. i like you siri, you're going places. [siri] i'll try to remember that. so how much do we owe you? that'll be $973.42. ya know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want is to spend too much on your mortgage. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze.

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tax code? no problem. this is just one piece of it. it's 73,608 pages. you just need to quickly leaf through the first one. it's full of tax breaks and loopholes that congress slips in for interest groups that back them to encourage economic behavior in a way that the government wants. the the last time the tax code was reformed ronald reagan was president and that took years of back and forth in congress to pass. since then, 15,000 changes have been enacted. 14 temporary tax breaks have multiplied into 132 temporary tax breaks that are renewed time and time again. last year the government collected $2.3 trillion in revenue, $1.1 trillion from

individual income taxes, $181 billion from corporations. there are many on the right that think that's already too much. so what would real tax reform actually look like? number one on the agenda would be rethinking hundreds of tax breaks that allow a multibillion corporation, let's say general electric, to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 14%. how do you make getting rid of tax breaks more appetizing? you create lower income tax rates for everybody. the theory is that if more people pay lower rates, uncle sam gets more or maybe the same. another point of contention is that the lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a lower rate than normal income that most people make. president obama's bipartisan debt commission proposed taxing capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, but at new lower rates. joining us to discuss what the

tax code should lo like we have steven moore, writer at "the wall street journal" and something of an expert on wanting lower taxes. and david johnson is a columnist at reuters, who uncovered loopholes in the u.s. tax code. his newest book will be entitled "the fine print: how big companies use plain english to rob you blind." steven, let's start with you. what's the biggest thing needed to be done to reform the tax code? what's the important thing we can all agree on in tax reform? >> thank you for letting me talk about my favorite subject. i love the way you introduced this segment. albert einstein said the most complicated thing in the universe is the federal tax code. so the idea of simplifying the code and making it more

pro-growth as we did in 1986, it worked really well. you and i have crossed roads many times. but i bet the three of us could agree on one concept. low rates, broad base. that's the kind of hallmark for a good tax system. the tragedy is we waited now almost 25 years to see a new reform that brings the rates down and clears out all the pollution. david has written on this extensively. we can do much better than the code that we have now. >> david, pick it up from there. do we agree on low rate, broad base? >> yes and no. the most important principle is that it has to be progressive. that's a 2500-year-old idea and it gave birth to democracy. that's the less you have, the lower your tax rate, the more

you have the higher your tax rate. there are lots of things we could decide for a base. but progressivety has been argued. as long as we follow that principle, i think, yes, i would agree broad base and lower rates and get rid of the favors across the board including the home mortgage interest deduction. >> i'm going to stop you right there. that's exactly the first place we're going to run into a problem. if i tell my viewers we want corporations to pay more, i bet most of them will say, yeah, the fat cats should pay more. don't touch my mortgage interest deduction. that's where it becomes political. let me take it back to stephen moore. i heard you agreeing with progressive. you think that's okay. now we have to take the 74,000 pages down to, i don't know, 500

pages. that means cutting out a lot of things people want. >> that's right. and i've always believed that this is the ultimate washington versus america issue. america, businesses, households want the simpler system that's easier to comply with that doesn't, you know, take weeks to figure out your tax burden. but nobody in washington, nobody in this town i'm in now wants tax reform. none of the lobbyists want it. none of the members of congress want this. if you look back at 1986, you remember this david, people said this can't work. and you know what, a miracle happened. they got rid of a lot of the pollution and all of those loopholes in the tax system. they cut the rates almost in half. so what i'm saying is i think 2013, i really believe it's the year when all the stars are going to be aligned and we're going to get this done. in part, because the whole

system is a train wreck. >> 2013 is the year i'm going to be mistaken for brad pi trk t. let me ask, should the tax code involve incentives put in by the government for people to behave a certain way to do certain things? >> the tax code inherently does that. if you tax wapages and profits, you get a different set of incentives. so by its nature, a tax system creates incentives. they have gotten completely out of hand and more importantly, tiny favors. but the number one thing we need to get rid of is we now have a system that favors corporations over domestic ones. it lets big companies siphon profits and send them to tax havens and requires american companies to pay taxes in full. we need to stop that discrimination against domestic,

which tepid to be family-owned businesses. >> stephen moore, should a company that makes computer chips be taxed at a different rate than those making potato chips? >> no. every industry should be treated, you know, on a level playing field. i agree with what david said we shouldn't give breaks to multinationals. one problem i have with the tax code is what we're doing is favoritism towards a french company versus an american company because companies are paying lower statutory rates. but i think that this can get done. i think david is right in a progressive way. in 1986 when we lowered the tax rate from 50 to 28%, we saw the percentage of taxes paid by the rich increase. so this can work in a way i think we can all agree on. >> we definitely had a smart conversation on tax form. >> it's going to happen in 2013. i'm betting my life on it. >> i'm going to get a pet

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a ray of hope in this economy. that's real estate. most indicators suggest home prices have bottomed out and are heading higher while interest rates, as you know, remain at all-time lows. that's great if you can refinance or buy a house or even sell a house that you've been

stuck under water with. but a lot of pple aren't looking to buy a home. they can't get a loan or aren't ready to buy. there are other ways to play the real estate recovery. many are sharply higher this year. all beating the s&p 500, which itself is up almost 12% in 2012. but it's not just residential housing showing promise. commercial real estate, at least in some parts of the country, is showing a comeback of its own. most of us in the united states are not in the market for an office park but you can get a piece of commercial real estate through reits. they are bought and sold like stocks. they have a ticker symbol. they own and operate income-producing properties. office parks, malls, apartment buildings, you name it. they are required to pass along income to shareholders in the

form of dividends, much more than in a bank account. i'm joined by steven leib. you say it can be a shelter in an economic storm. i've been warning of an economic storm. you have to find shelter where you can. they are an interesting idea for people not in a position to buy property. >> you're right. and the shelter in a sense like plum creek. they produce timber and things you need to build houses. and they have obviously been through the worst of times. i mean, their business has really not been very good at all. one thing has held steady for that company. they are a dividend. you have continued to collect dividends through this entire period of time. and the stock is actually recovered. it never went down as much as the s&p, but even when it was down at its lowest point, you were collecting enough money to pay for the groceries.

that can be a valuable thing. >> i talked about lumberly kwi day tors. if you're building, you need wood. when you chose to go to college, it depended on where you might get in. there's a new determinant. it's what the housing looks like. >> american college campuses. this is growing at 25% or 30% a year. they are paying 3%. the advantage you get is not only are you getting the grocery money or gas money, but you're also getting increases in the rents of up to 20% or 30% a year. they must pass all this money they make. >> that's part of the tax structure. >> if the rents are going up or they are putting up more houses everywhere in the country, they are going to pass more money through you. and their dividend has grown 20% a year through these horrible times. so you can afford to step up

from hamburger to steak when you start buying at the grocery store. >> and you buy them like you'd buy any stock. >> great conversation. stephen leeb, thank you. coming up, the storm clouds from europe and the fiscal cliff on the horizon, should you be in the stock market at all? we'll talk about that on the other side. just plug this into your car, and your good driving can save you up to 30%. you could even try it without switching your insurance. why not give it a shot? carry on. now you can test-drive snapshot before you switch. visit progressive.com today. it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters.

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lately. the s&p 500 up nearly 12% year to date. i read your tweets. i know you don't trust the stock market and you're not alone. money has been rushing out of the stock market and into savings accounts. since the beginning of the year investors have pulled more than $64 billion from u.s. stock mutual funds, that's on top of billions more last year and the year before. at the same time hundreds of billions -- >> this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, everyone. i'm fredericka whitfield in

atlanta. we want to take you to ashland, virginia, why? five hours after presumptive republican presidential candidate mitt romney there announces his choice as a running mate paul ryan, now the two are appearing there. let's listen in to paul ryan. >> hey, randolph, macon, thanks for your hospitality. i've got some good news and i've got some bad news. why don't we get rid of the bad news first, okay? president obama is the president of the united states and the good news is that on november 6th he won't be any longer. [ cheering and applause ] and here's why we have come to a

very crucial moment in our nation's history. we are at that proverbial fork in the road. we have a choice of two futur ahead of us. we know that. president obama, with his party firmly in control the first two years got almost everything passed into law that he wanted, and now we're living under those policies. now we're witnessing a nation in debt, further in doubt, deeper in despair. now we're see a country where after the recession this so-called recovery is the worst we've seen in 70 years. unemployment above 8% the entire time. we have had the largest deficits and the biggest government since world war ii. nearly one out of six americans today is living in poverty. that's the worst we've seen in a generation. household incomes are down, unemployment is up. you know what the good news is?

it doesn't have to be this way. we can turn this thing around. we can get this right. [ applause ] >> you know how we do that? we elect a leader. we elect a leader because right now we need leadership. we don't need attack. we don't need blame. we need leadership, and we need someone of a principle, someone of achievement and someone of integrity. that man is standing next to me. his name is mitt romney and he's going to be the next president of the united states. [ applause ] >> that's right. [ applause ]

>> take a look at leadership, experience, integrity. successful man in business starting businesses, turning around and failing businesses at an astounding success rate. i'm proud of that. we're proud of that because when americans succeed we all succeed. [ applause ] >> it's country asked him to save the olympics and he did it and we're all proud of that moment [ applause ] >> whether he's governor of massachusetts, the credit of massachusetts was upgraded for the first time in our history, the credit rating of america under president obama was downgraded. when he was governor of massachusetts unemployment went down. under barack obama, it's gone up.

and when he was governor of massachusetts, incomes, household incomes, family incomes went up. they've gone down $4,000 over the past four years. now president obama cannot run on this record. it's a terrible record to run on, and he didn't change. i've served in congress this whole time. he didn't tack to the middle and he didn't do things that were centrist. he stayed hard left. so if you can't learn his record and he didn't moderate, what's he got left? he's going to divide and distract this country to win an election by default and you know what? we're not going to fall for that. [ applause ] >> we see that hope and change has become attack and blame, but we know better and being here in

this great state of virginia, a state that those of us who are all americans are in debt to, the cradle of so many of our great founders, one of the best said our rights come from nature andnature's god. they don't come from government. that's the idea of this country. >> we believe in liberty. we believe in freedom. we need to exercise it and each generation has its chance. this is our generation's defining moment. it doesn't matter what generation you come from. this is the most important election in your lifetime. we are at that proverbial fork in the road, and so what we have here is a man who has met and is right for the moment and that man who is right for this moment to get us on the right path off of the wrong path is the man who is about to be the next

president of the united states and that is governor mitt romney. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> thank you. you stay here. you stay here. you stay here. >> wow! what a crowd! thank you so much. >> wow! thank you, ashland, wow! you guys are great. olympics. it's an honor being here with you today. people keep telling me this is the center of universe. people in washington think that's true of them, that is not true. this is the place. this is the place. what an honor. it's an honor to be with you and to have you spend some time with the next vice president of the united states and myself and it's an honor to be with your governor, what a great leader. you are so lucky to have a person who understood what it takes to bring jobs back to virginia. virginia