The Restore America Project

Gingrich's attacks on Mitt Romney's work at Bain Capital amount to an attack on the long held conservative principle of economic freedom.

Particularly in the past few days, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has been taking heavy fire over his work at Bain Capital, a private equity firm. These attacks have largely focused upon the so-called “creative destruction” of jobs that is perpetrated by private equity firms in their attempts to rescue flailing companies from the brink of collapse. However, upon analysis, these attacks on Romney’s record are utterly unfounded, and they reveal a frightening willingness on the part of struggling candidates to betray their values in order to win the nomination.

Romney’s time at Bain Capital was enormously successful for both Bain and the companies it assisted. During Romney’s tenure at Bain, a certain office supply store received investment funds and guidance from Bain Capital. Over 1,500 US stores and 90,000 jobs later, Staples Incorporated is one of the world’s most successful office supply outlets in existence. Sports Authority, a sports equipment store, gained over ten thousand jobs thanks to Bain Capital’s financial and consultative interventions in the business.

Of course, some of Bain’s ventures were not all that successful. Sometimes, after cutting jobs and performing restructuring, the private equity firm could not keep their client companies afloat. However, this is simply the nature of a freedom-based economic system. Bad decisions, poor ideas, changing markets, and just plain bad luck can cause otherwise promising enterprises to implode. In an economic system of choice and freedom, this is a fact of life, but over the long term, job losses caused by capitalism are recouped and reversed by the innovative, dynamic nature of a freedom-based economy.

The idea that economic freedom is the best means of creating jobs is a crucial cornerstone of conservative political thought. Despite this, Republican candidates have been distancing themselves from this critical principle in order to improve their chances in the nomination race. Newt Gingrich, who has likened himself to Ronald Reagan in his efforts to further the values of economic freedom, has been Romney’s most vocal critic regarding Bain Capital. In fact, Newt’s super PAC released a 27-minute hit piece on Romney’s time at Bain Capital that featured numerous stories of disgruntled employees who lost their jobs when Bain Capital restructured their employers’ companies. Another presidential contender, Rick Perry, has called Romney a “vulture capitalist,” yet is a self-proclaimed supporter of economic freedom and capitalism. Given these remarkably liberal stances, I am concerned that both Gingrich and Perry are giving up their conservative values in favor of attacking Mitt Romney, the front-runner of the GOP race. This is very worrisome yet ironic; both Perry and Gingrich have attacked Romney for flip-flopping, and now they are doing so themselves!

Economic freedom sometimes means making tough choices that lead to the loss of jobs, and unfortunately, Mr. Romney has had to make a lot of these hard decisions. However, it is important to remember that over the long term, a freedom-based economy creates an abundance of innovation and jobs. Romney’s competitors need to put aside their petty attacks and give Mitt his due for his positive work in the private sector as a partner at Bain Capital.

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