Mitt Romney’s Delicate Dance on Jobs

If there’s one thing Mitt Romney wants you to remember as he campaigns for President, it’s that he’s all about putting people to work. “You’d have a President who has spent his life in business—small business, big business—and who knows something about how jobs are created,” the Republican candidate recently told voters in Florida. Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul says the candidate’s business experience means he is better equipped than his rivals or President Barack Obama to “focus on job creation.”

What Romney doesn’t mention in his speeches is that he also knows a thing or two about eliminating jobs. Romney made his fortune sitting atop Bain Capital, a Boston private equity firm he co-founded in 1984 and ran until 1999. With cash from wealthy investors, Romney bought and sold companies at a rapid clip, sometimes helping to build them up and creating hundreds or thousands of jobs, sometimes taking them apart and sending employees packing. Whether the businesses boomed or filed for bankruptcy under his watch, Romney and his investors often came out ahead.