Mitt Romney is focusing all of his campaign’s energy on a single pitch: He claims that his experience as a vulture capitalist gives him the skills to turn our economy around. But his record in government so far proves that isn’t the case. After all, his vaunted experience as a hedge-fund manager didn’t do anything for the state of Massachusetts:

As the nation’s economy grew and the median income rose, under Romney, Massachusetts plummeted from 36th to 47th out of 50 states in job creation, and the median income declined.

In fact, some simple research shows that the economy in Massachusetts lagged behind the economy of the nation as a whole for every single month Romney was in office.  In the graph to the right, the blue line represents the US economy, and the red line represents Massachusetts. Both lines show the percentage change in jobs versus the previous year. Romney’s Massachusetts consistently underperformed the nation as a whole.

The fact is, Romney’s experience working for Bain Capital hasn’t proven a useful tool for creating a strong economy. That really should come as no surprise, since his private-sector experience was all about laying off middle-class workers to create paydays for billionaires. The Obama campaign put it well:

In the private sector, Romney focused on profits for his shareholders—not creating jobs. As governor, Romney cut jobs training and economic development programs—and as unemployment dropped across the U.S., Massachusetts lagged behind.

Mitt Romney is running on his record as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital. At the same time, though, he’s screeching that it’s somehow out of bounds for Barack Obama to point out that his record consisted largely of reaping profits for super-rich investors by laying off workers. In a further contortion, while it’s apparently beyond the pale for Obama to discuss Romney’s record, the Romney campaign is advancing a demonstrable lie about Obama’s record:

Mitt Romney’s campaign events and the firepower of American Crossroads will both focus this week on President Barack Obama’s jobs record as a way to fight off charges about the Republican candidate’s private-sector experience, with a Romney aide attacking the stimulus as “the mother of all earmarks.”…

A senior campaign aide said Romney will argue that Obama has actually subtracted jobs…

But he hasn’t. That’s just another one of the countless lies Romney has built his campaign around. The facts are the facts. Obama reversed the plummeting economy that he inherited, and there are now more jobs than at the beginning of his presidency. 

One would think the facts would count for something, but they don’t. Our lapdog media has dutifully reported Romney’s latest lie, just as they have dutifully reported all of his lies with virtually no scrutiny, and just as they dutifully reported his outrageous assertion that his business record should somehow be off limits for Obama.

So here’s the truth you won’t read in the legacy media. The numbers clearly show that we have had significant job growth under Barack Obama. Mitt Romney doesn’t know how to create jobs, he only knows how to create profits for the super-rich. His proposals for the economy would give billions to the rich while slashing government programs that benefit the rest of us. That’s exactly what leveled our economy in the first place.

There are those out there who say the government can’t do anything to help the economy. They say the government just makes things worse, and it should back off and let private markets sort themselves out. These people — people like Mitt Romney — argued that we should let the automakers go bankrupt, despite the more than one million jobs that would have been lost. Today, our thriving auto industry is the best proof of the effectiveness of government intervention:

The automobile industry has been a consistent bright spot in the American economy over the last several months, as automakers have added jobs to meet growing demand. And news from the industry is only getting better, as new estimates expect automakers to sell 14.3 million cars in the United States in 2012 — 1.5 million more than they sold last year.

Factories for both foreign and domestic automakers are now working “at maximum capacity” and the industry is adding shifts and jobs to keep up with that rising demand, the USA Today reports…

If folks like Romney had had their way, not only would the auto industry not be adding jobs, we’d be over one million jobs in the hole.

According to a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Mitt Romney’s proposed budget would lead to a brutal 40-percent cut to Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. In fact, Romney’s cuts would be even larger than those in Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare.

The CBPP analysis was based on Romney’s four-part formula that guarantees massive cuts to programs that are important to all Americans. Just read the following and try to think of a way he could achieve his goals without massive cuts to our safety net:

1. Cap total spending
2. Increase defense spending
3. Cut taxes
4. Balance the budget

Romney wants to balance the budget, but simultaneously cut taxes for the rich and increase military spending. The only way to achieve that is with massive cuts to programs like Medicare and Food Stamps.

As we all know, the Republicans have been fixated on ending Medicare for a few years now. If Romney is elected, they will take trillions of dollars from Medicare and redistribute it to the richest Americans. In other words, he’ll continue to do just what he did at Bain Capital — prey on ordinary Americans to enrich the privileged few.

Late last week, Mitt Romney has another one of the very-frequent moments when he reveals what a privileged life he has led:

At a “lecture” for students at Otterbein University in Ohio today, Mitt Romney told students that, his friend, Jimmy John, started a business by borrowing $20,000 from his parents at a low interest rate. Romney suggested anyone in the audience could do the same:

This kind of devisiveness, this attack of success, is very different than what we’ve seen in our country’s history. We’ve always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.

Yeah, just borrow $20,000 from your parents! No problem.

As always, Romney seems completely oblivious to the fact that not everyone in America has these sorts of opportunities. This time, though, I think the gaffe reveals more than just how out-of-touch Romney is. In fact, Romney’s casual assumption that anyone can just borrow $20,000 from their parents is related to the central fallacy of the Republicans’ economic policies.

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Mitt Romney lies constantly. It’s really unprecedented in presidential politics, but since the beginning of the campaign, he’s been lying compulsively. And what’s worse, the media regularly lets him get away with it.

Romney has become so brazen that he even lies when the truth is easily verifiable. In an interview on CNBC last night, Romney blatantly lied to defend his campaign’s decision to hide his copious overseas income*:

KUDLOW: Why not release your tax returns? Why not go back 10 years?

Gov. ROMNEY: Well, we’ve had people run for president before, and they’ve released two years. John Kerry released two years of taxes.. I’ve released one already, put the estimate out for the next year. We’ll have two years of taxes..

In fact, John Kerry released not two years of returns, but 20.

Romney obviously knows he’s lying. Either he knows that Kerry released two decades’ worth of tax returns, or at the very least he knows that he has no idea how many returns Kerry released, and he’s just making stuff up on the spot. And surely he knows that folks like ThinkProgress are watching. But he doesn’t even care.

That’s not a campaign strategy — it’s a pathology.

*At least, we can only assume Romney’s returns would show massive amounts of overseas income that he paid no US taxes on. Why else would he be going to so much trouble to conceal those returns?