GOVERNMENT

Romney: “We didn’t just slow the rate of growth of our government, we actually cut it.”—Mitt Romney, 2012

The Reality:During Romney’s term as governor, state budget spending increased every single year.

State spending under Governor Romney increased by more than $6 billion:

2004: increased $409 million
2005: increased $930 million
2006: increased $1.8 billion
2007: increased $3.3 billion

During Governor Romney’s term, state government employment grew at six times the rate of private sector jobs.

Instead of rooting out waste, Governor Romney tried to eliminate the state agency tasked with finding fraud and waste in government.

Associated Press, 2/27/03

The state bureaucracy grew while Romney was governor, and he filled important positions with party loyalists and allies. As he was leaving office, Romney appointed his communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, to a housing board that would have earned him a lucrative state pension.

Boston Globe, 11/23/06

Did he make government smaller and simpler—no, it looked very much like what it did four years earlier. … There was very little reform to show for his four years.

—Michael Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
Salon, 12/31/11
The Promise: Mitt Romney said his time in the private sector had given him the experience he would need to streamline government. The Record: The state bureaucracy grew while Romney was governor, and he was unable to rein in government spending.
View the Romney Economics Timeline