(For more on the campaign, go to ELECT.)
June 14 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney dismissed an economic policy speech President Barack Obama planned for today, urging business executives to ignore "soaring and eloquent" rhetoric and focus on joblessness during Obama's term.
"My own view is that he will speak eloquently, but that words are cheap, and that the record of an individual is the basis upon which you determine whether they should continue to hold on to their job," Romney told about 100 executives at the Business Roundtable quarterly meeting in Washington yesterday. "We have 23 million Americans that are out of work, or stopped looking for work or underemployed. That is a compelling and sad statistic. These are real people."
In an address today at a community college in Cleveland, Obama plans to sketch out "Romney Economics" as a series of policies that would damage the economy and hurt the middle class, including handing tax cuts to the wealthy and wiping out rules for Wall Street.
About the same time at the other end of Ohio -- viewed by both campaigns as a crucial battleground for the November election -- Romney plans to speak at a manufacturing tool company in Cincinnati.
Definition Fight
The dueling speeches underscore the fight between the Democratic president and his presumptive Republican challenger to gain the upper hand on the economy, with each defining the other's economic vision and record in a negative light. They are also competing to paint one another as out of touch with Americans facing hardships in a sluggish recovery.
Romney, 65, said yesterday that Obama's agenda has been hostile to business, heaping burdensome and costly regulations on industry. That, he said, has led to "a tepid and unfortunate recovery" as Obama advocates tax increases that would further hurt company profits.
He also said Obama, 50, has failed to stem budget deficits or rein Medicare and other federal entitlement programs, complicating firms' ability to plan for the future.
As his audience of business executives sipped iced tea and dined on lunches of salmon, couscous, salad and fruit tarts, Romney reprised a June 8 comment by Obama that Republicans are using as a cudgel against the president to argue he doesn't understand the nation's economic woes.
Not 'Doing Fine'
"He said, as you know, just a few days ago that the private sector is doing fine, but the incredulity that came screaming back from the American people has caused him, I think, to rethink that," Romney said.
Obama in his speech today, Romney said, will change course and "acknowledge that it isn't going so well, and he'll be asking for four more years."
The president has sought to limit the fallout from his remark, saying later on June 8 that it is "absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine."
Obama's campaign yesterday accused Romney of distorting the administration's record.
Romney "made dishonest after dishonest claim about the president's record and failed to offer any new ideas of his own," Lis Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement on the Republican's speech yesterday.
Government's Role
Romney, a former private-equity executive who co-founded the Boston-based firm Bain Capital LLC, said his approach toward business would be a stark contrast with Obama's. Aside from securing the nation, Romney said, the government's main responsibility "as it relates to the economy is to make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs and innovators, investors, job creators."
"Government has to be the partner, the friend, the ally, the supporter of enterprise, not the enemy," he said. "Too often, you find yourself facing a government that looks at you like you're the bad guys, and if you're hiring people, and employing people and paying taxes, you're the good guys. I want you to do well."