With all the great news out today about how U.S. automakers are pushing factories to the limit because of demand for new vehicles, surely presidential candidate Mitt Romney is praising the auto industry’s comeback?

Well, maybe not. Here’s what he said in the face of the nation’s helping hand to the auto industry a few years ago:

Let Detroit go bankrupt.

Romney opposed federal money spent to aid General Motors and Chrysler in the depths of the recession. Good thing the Obama administration didn’t. From USA Today:

Some plants are adding third work shifts. Others are piling on worker overtime and six-day weeks. Ford Motor and Chrysler Group are cutting out or reducing the annual two-week July shutdown at several plants this summer to add thousands of vehicles to their output.

[snip]

Sales for 2012 are estimated at 14.3 million vehicles, according to IHS Automotive, up from 12.8 million last year.

More car sales mean more jobs for America’s workers—and the auto industry is hiring, including Chrysler, which is adding 1,100 jobs on
a third shift and also just added 1,800 workers in Belvidere, Ill., to make the new Dodge Dart.

As UAW President Bob King points out:

The industry has added more than 200,000 jobs in the last few years and 2011 was the strongest year of industry job growth since 1994. None of this would have happened if Romney had been the one making the decisions.

Creating jobs is what a president should be about.