Romney, Gingrich Address Foreclosures, Joblessness (ContributorNetwork)

Jobs and housing are key issues on the minds of Florida Republican primary voters, the New York Times reported. That's because Florida suffers 9.9 percent unemployment and feels the brunt of the foreclosure crisis. One in 360 Florida homes is in foreclosure, the Times noted. While unemployment is down from its record-breaking 12 percent of December 2010, Florida's tied for sixth highest jobless numbers in the nation.

Here's what the two leading candidates, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, tell Florida voters they will do about joblessness and foreclosures:

Joblessness

* Gingrich told CBS News he would change the unemployment system, requiring workers to undergo training to qualify. Business would fund the programs. "We'd be paying you to improve human capital; we wouldn't be paying you to sit around and do nothing," he said.

* "It's fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing," Gingrich said.

* Gingrich's jobs platform would make temporary tax relief permanent; cut capital gains taxes; cut corporate income tax to 12.5 percent; allow 100 percent new equipment expensing; repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, the Community Reinvestment Act and Dodd-Frank; develop U.S. energy sources; replace health care laws with a "pro-jobs, pro-responsibility" health plan; and reform entitlement programs.

* If president, "?my highest priority would be worrying about your job, not saving my own," Romney said.

* "We have all been distressed by the policies that this administration has put in place over the last two years," Romney said in June. "We have seen the most anti-investment, antigrowth, anti-job strategy in America since Jimmy Carter. The result has been it's harder and harder for people to find work."

* Romney's jobs platform would lower corporate taxes to 25 percent; promote new trade agreements; maximize leasing of existing open energy reserves and evaluate opening new ones; and consolidate worker retraining programs, turning administration over to states.

Foreclosures

* Romney would scale back Dodd-Frank, making it easier for banks to restructure foreclosures, the Kansas City Star reported.

* Gingrich would repeal Dodd-Frank, Business Week noted. "If they would repeal it tomorrow morning, you would have a better housing market the next day," Gingrich said.

* Gingrich told voters Romney profited from their homes losses, the Washington Post reported.

* Romney retorted a blind trust decides his investments. He noted Gingrich took paychecks from Freddie Mac, a lender implicated in the foreclosure crisis.

* Romney opposes government intervention to forestall foreclosure, telling struggling homeowners if a lender won't work with them, they may have to walk away from mortgage debt and start over. He likened foreclosure threat to banks facing going out of business, saying the solution to both is to hit reset, take the loss, and move on.

* Gingrich said the GOP is trying to drown him in mud raised with money from people and companies who foreclosed on Floridians. He said the power structure in Washington would rather manage decay than make changes.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120129/pl_ac/10900295_romney_gingrich_address_foreclosures_joblessness

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