Mitt Romney gave Iowans a “cowpie of distortion” when he said he knows how to douse the nation’s “prairie fire of debt,” President Barack Obama said in his first campaign event in Iowa of this election cycle.
On social media: Obama's visit to Iowa
Obama offered a no-holds-barred thumping of Romney on Thursday night, ridiculing his GOP rival’s profit-maximizing philosophy as inadequate for the White House, blasting Romney’s plan for big tax cuts for almost every millionaire in the country, and poking fun at the Republican’s speech in Des Moines 10 days ago.
“You know, he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cowpie of distortion,” Obama said to hoots of laughter from a crowd of 2,500 inside the Knapp Center at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
Obama said Romney wants a budget-busting tax cut skewed to the wealthiest Americans that only will compound the debt.
“Five trillion in new tax cuts? That is like trying to put out a prairie fire with some gasoline,” the president said.
Obama had a double-barreled agenda in Iowa. In an official presidential speech in Newton on Thursday afternoon, he called for extending tax cuts to help keep the burgeoning wind energy industry alive. And in a campaign rally in Des Moines, he said he wants to finish the job he started — and he asked Iowans to be an antidote to polarization and negative advertising.
Iowa has a mere six electoral votes, but it’s among about a dozen states viewed as critical for Obama or Romney, the all-but-certain GOP nominee, to snag the necessary 270 to win the White House.
The president has said he has a sweet spot for Iowa, the state that gave his campaign wings with a victory in the first-in-the-nation caucuses in early 2008. A heavy rain drenched Iowans waiting in a long security line before the event, but the venue was packed, and another 400 people waited outside in an overflow area.
“You know, this journey started in Iowa,” Obama told those outside the campaign rally. “And that’s why we’re going to be spending a lot of time in Iowa this time round.”
Obama has visited the Hawkeye State nine times as president. He was here just a month ago, and this was his third Iowa trip so far this year. Five more Iowa excursions have been racked up by the first lady, vice president and vice president’s wife.
“This is going to be harder than it was the last time,” said Obama, who already has done nine TV advertisements here this year, in comparison with one ad by the Romney campaign. “But Iowa is full of hardworking folk.”
Rival campaigns trade jabs over debt
Obama repeatedly lashed out at Romney during his 42-minute speech, saying the Republican doesn’t see that the policies he’s proposing are “the very policies that got us into this mess,” Obama said.
“What happens is the Republicans run up the tab, and then we’re sitting there, and they’ve left the restaurant and then they point, ‘Why’d you order all those steaks and martinis?’ ” he said. “What he did not also tell you was that after inheriting a trillion-dollar deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law, so now I want to finish the job.”
Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said a president who broke his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term “has no standing when it comes to fiscal responsibility.”
“By the end of this year, President Obama will have presided over a record-shattering four consecutive trillion-dollar deficits and added a historic amount to our national debt. Our children will be footing the bill for his failed policies years from now,” Williams said.
It’s true that the depth of the recession added to the debt, Obama told the campaign rally, as well as efforts to help the auto industry and to make sure not as many teachers were laid off.
“But what my opponent didn’t tell you is that federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years,” he said.
Obama said he wants to pay down the debt in a way that’s balanced and responsible, without shortchanging farmers, asking students to pay more for college or taking away health insurance.
Critical of Romney for business record
The president praised Romney for raising a wonderful family and personal success, but said the goal of a company like Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984, was to create wealth for himself and his investors. Sometimes jobs are created, but sometimes workers get laid off, benefits disappear, pensions are cut, companies go bankrupt and workers are left holding the bag, Obama said.
“That may be the job of somebody who’s engaged in corporate buyouts. That’s fine. But that’s not the job of a president. That’s not the president’s job,” he said. “There may be value for that kind of experience, but it’s not in the White House.”
The stage was set up with a V-shaped catwalk, but Obama didn’t wander down it. He stayed at a podium, framed by two teleprompters.
Obama ridiculed the “corporations are people, too” comment that Romney made at The Des Moines Register’s soapbox at the fairgrounds last summer.
“You can’t solve that problem if you can’t even see that it’s a problem,” Obama said.
Some of the loudest cheers were when the president said Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to this country and that by 2014 the war in Afghanistan will be over.
“After a decade of war that’s cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, the nation we need to build is our own,” he said.
Parties' views differ on wind tax breaks
Earlier Thursday, the winds in Iowa were so strong that Obama couldn’t fly by helicopter between Air Force One’s landing at a Des Moines airbase to his speech at a wind turbine blade manufacturer in Newton.
“So you are definitely in the right business,” he said.
Democratic political operatives agree with Obama’s focus on extending the wind energy tax credit because they think it’s good policy and could hurt Romney by making him look anti-business.
Romney has taken no formal position on it. He has generally said he doesn’t support subsidies.
Obama, and Iowa’s congressional delegation, understand that renewables like ethanol and wind need initial help from the government because they would have a hard time attracting private investments, said Democratic strategist Jeff Link.
“Romney’s approach will hurt him with Iowans because we have witnessed the success of wind energy in creating jobs and producing power,” Link said.
Republican operatives said there’s an argument for not relying on subsidies to prop up a market — and that this election likely isn’t going to hinge on wind.
“I don’t think taxpayer subsidies to alternative energy suppliers will impact the Iowa vote,” said Steve Grubbs, a Republican strategist from the Quad Cities.
Obama was in Colorado and California on Wednesday.
After his Iowa stops, he headed home to Washington on Thursday night.
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