The unemployment rate went down as I was governor of Massachusetts. We were losing jobs every month when I came into the state.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
More people on unemployment benefits is not success in America, fewer people on not because we kicked them off but because they have been able to get a job in the private sector, because government got out of the way.
Our tax policies, the tax relief and reform we passed in 2003 and 2005, helped get government out of the way of America's entrepreneurs, and our unemployment rate is now lower than it was in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.
In my right-wing politics of the time, I held that unemployment was usually the fault of the unemployed.
I was the governor that drew a tough, tough straw. I was governor during the worst recession since the 1930s, and I had to cut $5 billion from the state budget.
The unemployment rate has effectively not gone down from where it was at the peak of the recession. The only reason it's gone technically from 10 percent to 8 percent is so many people are discouraged and have quit work.
I just remember all those days in the unemployment line, stressed out over when my next job was coming.
Let me tell you the story about Massachusetts under Governor Romney. It did fall to 47th out of 50 in jobs creation. Wages went down when they were going up in the rest of the country. He left his successor with debt and a deficit, and manufacturing jobs left that state at twice the rate as the rest of the country.
I served in the state Senate for six years with retiring Gov. John Lynch. During that time, we had the fourth-lowest unemployment rate in the country.
I spent the better part of my developing years in Massachusetts.
We've lost 400,000 jobs in Michigan because of downsizing.