Mitt Romney stands by Obama swipe on economy

Campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Mitt Romney stood by his charge from earlier this week that President Obama’s policies have deepened the recession and that the recovery has been anemic.

Asked after an event Tuesday whether those statements were contradictory and whether he believed the nation was still engulfed in a recession, Romney noted that the term recession is often used to describe the broader economic downturn, rather than just the narrow definition “that economists use, which is a shrinking GDP.”

“The technical term of the recession is not the one that I think the American people recognize,” Romney told reporters after meeting with New Hampshire business owners at The Galley Hatch restaurant in Hampton.

“I think most of the American people understand that we’re still feeling the effects of the recession, and that the recovery that comes from a recession -- which has been under way for some time -- has not occurred as they would have expected it to occur. This recovery has been anemic. We have not created the jobs we should have.”

The former Massachusetts governor added that Obama has “way underperformed the recovery that was seen under President Reagan, and so the president I think has deepened the downturn, has made it last longer, and what should have been a strong and robust recovery by now has not occurred and you’ve got 20 million Americans out of work or underemployed.”