Making "Believe in America" More than a Slogan

In recent weeks, we’ve learned some disturbing facts about Mitt Romney’s overseas investments and practices outsourcing jobs. A recent piece in Vanity Fair detailed that Romney holds significant investments in at least 12 offshore accounts in places like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and in Swiss bank accounts. Multiple news reports of Romney’s offshore investments – and practices shipping jobs overseas – have followed.
Romney could easily clear up the many questions remaining over his foreign investments and business practices by releasing multiple years of his tax returns – a practice started by his father George Romney’s presidential campaign, and followed by every major candidate for president since – but unfortunately, Romney has repeatedly failed to be clear with the American people about his finances.
We value hard work and success – defining characteristics of countless stories that could only happen in America – but we also know that to build an economy that works for all of us, everyone needs to play by the same rules. Romney’s foreign investments reveal his priorities for job creation and economic growth, and how he believes we can rebuild our economy from the top-down. His choices to keep bank accounts abroad and ship jobs overseas paint a very clear picture of an economy that works only for a handful of Americans, but won’t help rebuild our middle class: I’ve never known a Swiss bank account to create jobs, build a bridge, or invest in education.
“Believe in America” has to be more than a campaign slogan. When Mitt Romney says we should let Detroit go bankrupt or hides his money in offshore accounts, voters across the country rightly wonder why his priorities are so far out of touch with the challenges they face. Releasing multiple years of his tax returns and leveling with voters would be an important step toward demonstrating whether Romney believes that betting on the American worker is more than just campaign rhetoric.
President Obama has a plan to continue moving our country forward by betting onAmerica. While our private sector has added jobs for 28 straight months, we have lost over a million public sector jobs in the last 3 years, including 100,000 teachers in the last year alone. Now is the time for Congress to come together and help pass job creation measures in the American Jobs Act, and close tax loopholes that ship jobs overseas by passing the Bring Jobs Home Act, boosting employment here at home. Romney’s plan won’t boost our continued economic growth, and it won’t create jobs and expand opportunity that we need to continue moving our country forward.
 
Jobs.Opportunity. Now.,
 
Martin O’Malley