Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency is built on the idea that his success in the leveraged buyout industry and the fabulous wealth he’s accumulated is evidence that he knows how to create jobs and foster economic growth. He argued in Tuesday night’s debate that we should just trust him when he says he can cut the deficit and cut taxes by 20% across the board because of his credentials as a leveraged buyout titan.

The problem with Romney’s argument is that the leveraged buyout business does not create jobs. The tax breaks that the industry relies on, like the discounted tax rate for capital gains and offshore tax shelters, add tens of billions of dollars each year to the deficit.

Today, The Nation is reporting on yet another example of how Romney and the shadowy private investment industry really makes its money—offshoring jobs, taxpayer subsidies and bailouts and cutting workers’ pensions.

With all the great news out today about how U.S. automakers are pushing factories to the limit because of demand for new vehicles, surely
presidential candidate Mitt Romney is praising the auto industry’s comeback?

Well, maybe not. Here’s what he said in the face of the nation’s helping hand to the auto industry a few years ago:

The foreclosure crisis just keeps getting worse. More than 12 percent of residential mortgage loans are in foreclosure or at least one payment past due. Millions of homes have been needlessly foreclosed on because banks have not modified homeowners’ mortgages to affordable levels. On top of this misery, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) funding for counseling to prevent foreclosures has been cut to zero.