Romney can’t be trusted — Obama
NASHUA, New Hampshire, (AFP) — President Barack Obama, campaigning in tiny New Hampshire yesterday, slammed his Republican rival Mitt Romney’s record as governor of neighboring Massachusetts, saying he is a man voters can’t trust.
Just 10 days out from the November 6 presidential election, Obama was in the small US state for the second time in two weeks because it is the only one in the northeast where the two White House contenders are running neck and neck.
Though it has just four of the 538 electoral college votes, which ultimately decide the winner, Obama was scrambling to lock in as many as possible as polls showed a tight race.
Romney “has been out here making a lot of last-minute promises lately,” Obama told a crowd of 8,500 at a school in Nashua.
He “said he’s all about fighting for the middle class. Said he would cut taxes for everybody,” Obama said. “The problem is we heard those promises before” when Romney was governor of Massachusetts.
The president went on to say that Romney, once he took office, pushed through a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited 278 of the of the state’s wealthiest families before raising taxes and fees on middle class families “to the tune of $750 million.”
“He raised fees — he raised fees for marriage certificates and fees for funeral homes. So there were literally cradle to grave tax hikes and fees. And when he left office, there were only three states in the country that had created fewer jobs than Massachusetts,” Obama argued. “So this is a guy who has a track record of saying one thing and doing something else.”
Nashua is just 34 miles from Belmont, a Massachusetts town where Romney owns a home. Romney’s campaign team is based in Boston, capital of the state where he was governor from 2003-2007. On November 6, Massachusetts looks likely to go with Obama, as do most of the New England states.