Mitt Romney campaigns in Janesville

Talk about it

Mitt Romney told hundreds of people in Janesville Monday morning, June 18, that he expects to carry Wisconsin in November, thus making him the first Republican to do so since 1984. The presidential hopeful said his first job would be “putting Americans back to work.”

Romney, House Budget chairman Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker all took the stage at Monterrey Mills in Janesville. It was part of Romney’s six-state bus tour taking him to smaller towns in states carried by President Obama four years ago.

Media reports estimated the crowd at around 1,000 people both inside the secured speaking venue and outside the plant, where the speeches were shown to an overflow crowd.

Romney made his first visit to the Badger State since winning the GOP primary in April. He said Obama failed to give future generations a fair chance at succeeding after spending “trillions of dollars more than we take in” passing the debts on.

Romney promised to repeal Obama’s health care reform act if the Supreme Court doesn’t do it for him in a major ruling expected this summer.

He said people are starting to “shout out” after losing their jobs or homes, or seeing their incomes decline. He said it debunks the president’s claim that “America is doing fine.”

The Janesville Gazette said up to 60 protestors gathered outside the plant, and that almost as many security people were watching them. After his address, Romney took off for Dubuque, Iowa, where he was schedule hold a rally in a park on Monday.

Modest growth for state economy

Wisconsin’s economy is growing at a moderate rate, according to a report issued Monday by BMO Capital Markets Economics, part of the group that bought the former M&I Bank a year and a half ago.

The report said Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector is still making a modest recovery. Exports are growing at a brisk pace, up 12.5 percent from a year ago. Exports of industrial machinery are the state’s highest on record.

Sherry Cooper, BMO’s chief economist, said Wisconsin has a diverse economy that made it through the recession relatively well. She said employment remains volatile, but the job picture has somewhat recovered since late last year.

Cooper said Wisconsin’s housing market was not as wounded as elsewhere in the nation. She said government jobs fell at a large pace in most of 2011, but the public sector has stabilized recently. Factory employment is up 1.6 percent from the year before.

Tags: news, wisconsin, politics