Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney said his time running Bain Capital taught him how to create a positive business environment.
"When you see a problem, run toward it before the problem gets worse," Romney wrote in a commentary published Friday in The Wall Street Journal.
The lessons he learned during his 15 years at Bain also were "valuable" in helping to turn around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and in turning a budget deficit into a surplus while lowering unemployment when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney said.
"The lessons from that time would help me as president to fix our economy, create jobs and get things done in Washington," Romney said.
A Romney presidency would make it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get investment capital they need to expand by reducing and simplifying taxes, scrapping the Affordable Care Act and by "stemming the flood of new regulations that are tying small businesses in knots."
"I am committed to capping federal spending below 20 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] and reducing non-defense discretionary spending by 5 percent," Romney said in the op-ed piece. "This will surely result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington. But a failure of leadership has created our debt crisis, and ducking responsibility will only cripple the economy and smother opportunity for our children and grandchildren."
President Obama has instituted excessive regulations, proposed massive tax increases, added to the federal debt and "failed to address the coming fiscal cliff," miring the country in "sluggish growth and high unemployment," Romney said.
"I know what it takes to turn around difficult situations," he said. "And I will put that experience to work to get our economy back on track, create jobs, strengthen the middle class and lay the groundwork for America's increased competitiveness in the world."
