Mitt Romney sits down with CBS and slams Newt Gingrich as "a very wealthy man" who is "not a middle class American" because he spends so much money at Tiffany's:
Newt Gingrich has wealth from having worked in government. He's a wealthy man, a very wealthy man. If you have a half a million dollar purchase from Tiffany's, you're not a middle class American.
Well, one thing's for sure: We won't hear a word from any of the establishment chumps who accused Newt Gingrich of socialism when he took a shot at Mitt Romney wealth. But just because they are hypocrites doesn't mean Romney is wrong; his point isn't just that Newt Gingrich is out-of-touch, it's also that Newt Gingrich got wealthy thanks to his access to government.
The thing is, this wouldn't be Mitt Romney if it weren't also the case that he has taken advantage of his ability to work the levers of government in his favor. Check this out, via Nexis, from the October 25, 1994 edition of The Boston Globe:
Republican Senate nominee Mitt Romney's rescue of a business consulting firm was achieved in part by convincing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to forgive roughly $ 10 million of the company's debts, according to sources close to the deal and federal records obtained by The Boston Globe.
Romney, whose business acumen has been the cornerstone of his campaign, has said saving the Bain & Co. consulting firm from the brink of bankruptcy in 1991 was the accomplishment that most convinced him he had the mettle to be a US senator.
Bain & Co. and the FDIC agreed to the deal after months of intense negotiations. Moreover, bankers say debt forgiveness is relatively routine when a company is at risk of collapse.
But the $ 10 million cost to the FDIC raises the question of whether Romney's success, as well as the resurrection of Bain & Co., came partially at the expense of the federal agency that protects US bank deposits.
Ultimately, Romney turned his successful negotiation of the $10 million federal debt forgiveness into a $4 million profit for his investors and himself. I don't know if they celebrated by going to Tiffany's, but I'm pretty damn sure it's something Mitt Romney doesn't want to talk about in the middle of his current battle with Newt Gingrich.
