Romney's case against Vision2

I'm sure Mitt Romney is too busy with his own campaign to pay attention to a sales tax election Tulsa County, Oklahoma, but several of the Republican presidential nominee's comments about government and business in tonight's third debate suggest he wouldn't support Vision2, the Tulsa County sales tax scheme on the November 6, 2012, ballot, particularly Proposition 1, which would spend over $200 million on building infrastructure and custom equipment to help American Airlines, another $40 million to help IC Bus and Spirit Aerosystems, and create an uncapped "deal closing" fund (at least $52 million, probably closer to $200 million) in which three county commissioners, three suburban mayors of their choosing, and the Mayor of Tulsa would pick companies to benefit from the fund.

Well, first of all, it's not government that makes business successful. It's not government investments that make businesses grow and hire people....

But the president mentioned the auto industry and that somehow I would be in favor of jobs being elsewhere. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks. It was President Bush that wrote the first checks. I disagree with that....

We in this country can compete successfully with anyone in the world. And we're going to. We're going to have to have a president, however, that doesn't think that somehow the government investing in -- in car companies like Tesla and -- and Fisker, making electric battery cars -- this is not research, Mr. President. These are the government investing in companies, investing in Solyndra. This is a company. This isn't basic research. I -- I want to invest in research. Research is great. Providing funding to universities and think tanks -- great. But investing in companies? Absolutely not. That's the wrong way to go.

And that -- and that's why it's so critical that we make America once again the most attractive place in the world to start businesses, to build jobs, to grow the economy....