President Barack Obama's campaign got a huge political gift on Monday when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared that he liked "to be able to fire people."
During a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Nashua, New Hampshire, the former Massachusetts governor touted the idea of Americans buying their own insurance instead of it being provided by employers.
"I want people to be able to own their own insurance," he explained. "That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them."
"I like being able to fire people that provide services to me," the candidate added.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt tweeted a simple three character response: "!!!"
At an event in Rochester, New Hampshire on Sunday, the multimillionaire told voters that he also had also worried about getting a pink slip.
“I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired,” Romney said. “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”
The Wall Street Journal determined that Bain Capital, a venture capital company founded by Romney, forced about 22 percent of the companies it acquired to file for bankruptcy or shut down completely, “sometimes with substantial job losses.”
A Super PAC supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is planning to release a 27-minute film attacking Romney for his record of "killing jobs for big financial rewards" during his time at Bain.
