Governor Deval Patrick praises Barack Obama’s economic achievements
WASHINGTON — Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues today lavished praise on President Obama and his economic record, following what Patrick characterized as a “productive and encouraging’’ meeting with the president and his economic team.
“This is a president who saved the auto industry from extinction, the financial industry from self destruction and the economy from depression,’’ Patrick told a group of reporters gathered in front of the White House.
The governors were in town for the National Governors Association winter meeting. Patrick was joined by governors from Washington, Connecticut, Vermont, Colorado and other states to tout Obama’s jobs record — hailing no less than three times in eight minutes the 3.7 million jobs that have been created over the last two years.
“These Republicans running for president are so depressing,’’ said Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. “Cheer up. We’ve got some good news: a great president creating jobs and governors who are seeing job creation in their core revenue.’’
Washington Governor Christine Gregoire spoke about Obama’s visit last week to the Boeing company, where she said his policies focused on increasing manufacturing jobs are happening on the ground. She commended his recent tax proposals to offer tax incentives for corporations to keep jobs in America.
“The president understands where America can get those middle class jobs going again,’’ Gregoire said.
Dan Malloy, governor of Connecticut, cast Obama as a hero for creating back-to-back years of manufacturing job growth.
“What we see is an America on its way back because we made an election decision a few years ago that turned out to be really quite extraordinary,’’ Malloy said. “This president is accomplishing things that quite frankly most people didn’t think were possible.’’
Amid all the flowery talk, there was one moment of tension when a reporter grilled Patrick on how he reconciled his role as the president’s campaign ambassador with his role in pumping up the mortgage bubble when he served on board of a holding company for Ameriquest Mortgage, a controversial subprime mortgage lender.
“It was work I was asked to do to help them deal with some of their fair lending issues and I’m proud of that work,’’ Patrick responded. “I don’t think anyone is proud of that part of the housing crisis which was caused by those so-called liar loans.’’
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