Re. by John M. Kunst, Jr., opinion, June 2

When President Obama came to office, the economy was losing 700K jobs a month and was in the middle of the worst recession our country has ever experienced. Since then, his policies completely reversed that trend. The economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs and 27 consecutive months of positive job growth. Yes, President Obama’s “job is to figure out how everybody has a fair shot.” This means having an opportunity for a good education. It’s having parents with a job. It means hiring the teachers that have been laid off and fixing a crumbling infrastructure. Kunst refers to an advertisement where Bain purchased a successful steel company in Kansas City. They purchased the company by investing a small amount of capital and then had the company take out debt (leverage) to maximize their returns. Then the next year Bain Capital extracted much more than they had invested, but the company still had the huge debt. Do you think that debt made the company stronger? It did not. Consequently, when the US steel industry tanked, so did the company, with no thanks to Bain. Debt can do that to a company, even after those responsible for it leave. Is that the kind of experience we want in a president?Kunst calls the government bailout of GM and Chrysler unnecessary. Most economists think it would have been a disaster for all of us without the bailout.Finally, Kunst brings up European socialism. He obviously sees the world through the prism of Fox, but we do have an example here. Last year the Europeans made a huge mistake with austerity when what was needed was stimulus. This year they’re going into recession. Is that what we want?