ThinkProgress filed this report from the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa

When Standard & Poor’s announced its downgrade of the United States’ credit rating last week, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) presidential campaign seized the opportunity to remind voters that while he was governor, S&P raised his state’s credit rating.

“When I was governor, S&P rewarded Massachusetts with a credit rating upgrade for our sound fiscal management and the underlying strength of our economy,” Romney said in a statement. “That didn’t happen by accident. The president’s failure to put the nation’s fiscal and economic house in order has caused a massive loss of confidence that resulted in an embarrassing downgrade.”

What Romney failed to mention, however, was that his administration persuaded S&P to boost that rating by providing evidence that Romney had increased government revenues by about $1 billion, as Politico’s Ben Smith reported Wednesday.

At the Iowa State Fair today, multiple reporters attempted to ask him about the report after he finished his speech to voters. Romney, however, refused to answer any questions, ignoring S&P-related questions from both ThinkProgress and CNN. At one point, Romney stopped to explain that he would only take questions at pre-scheduled media availabilities, the last of which was held before Politico’s report was published Wednesday:

ROMNEY: If you’d like to answer questions, I’ll be happy to answer at one of my press availabilities.

Watch it:

Romney reiterated that he would not raise taxes if he was elected president. But by dodging the questions, Romney refused to address the fact that taxes did increase on his watch, and that Massachusetts earned its upgrade by taking the balanced approach to spending and revenues Republicans — including Romney — now oppose.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) has been investigating a string of for-profit colleges in his home state, after well-documented abuses were uncovered at the schools. As we’ve noted, many for-profit colleges make the overwhelming majority of their revenue from the federal government, while leaving their students buried in debt and with bleak job prospects. The industry has been fighting new regulations meant to rein in some of its worst practices.

Conway’s investigation has not been met kindly by the schools. “For-profit schools should acknowledge and work to correct the well-documented issues involving high student loan default rates, overaggressive recruiting practices, misleading advertising and high student withdrawal rates. Instead, some schools and their trade associations have opted to lob attacks,” Conway noted in an op-ed. In addition, as the Lexington Herald-Leader reported, one of these subprime schools is actively pressuring its employees to donate to Conway’s November opponent, Todd P’Pool (R):

Executives at a for-profit college under investigation by Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway urged scores of employees at a gathering last week to support his Republican challenger in the Nov. 8 election.

Kayla Porter, a former admissions officer at Spencerian College in Louisville, said she and her colleagues were told during a two-day training summit in Louisville to vote for and give campaign donations to Republican Todd P’Pool.

“I was asked to raise my hand and say yes, I would send money to the campaign of Todd P’Pool. It was a group setting of 150 of my colleagues,” Porter said Wednesday.

Kentucky law “makes it a felony for employers to ‘coerce or direct any employee to vote for any political party or candidate.’” The school’s attorney has, thus far, blown off the charges, saying, “I’m told there were more than 100 people in the room, and so far, only 25 people have donated. I think it’s much ado about nothing.”

The for-profit college industry has been going all out to protect its valuable taxpayer subsidies, while lobbying hard against efforts that it be held accountable for the miserable student outcomes it is producing. And it seems that the industry is also willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that those politicians it doesn’t like are bumped out of office.

To keep her home, Mardee Jerde scrambled to meet her bank’s demand that she pay almost $50,000 in overdue mortgage payments immediately. After a car accident kept her from working for 11 months, she was forced to mail in to the bank the entire settlement that she won from a lawsuit over the crash, leaving the Minnesota resident with practically nothing to live on.

Two days after receiving her $49,825 in the mail, Jerde learned that she would lose her house anyway because Chase Bank had rejected her application for a permanent loan reduction–for the second time. Merde, who had done everything Chase asked of her, felt betrayed:

“If I had known that [the bank would foreclose anyway], I never would have sent that money. I would have been out of my mind. That was given to me to live on. Now I have nothing…The only thing I’ve got bought and paid for is a lot in the cemetery. And I might be camping on it.”

Jerde can reclaim her house if she can somehow pay off her outstanding mortgage balance of over $200,000 by Aug. 23.

Sadly, Jerde’s story is not uncommon. In June, the Obama administration announced that JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America would no longer receive federal funds from its Making Home Affordable Program after the three banks “failed to meet basic program requirements.”

One Making Home Affordable Program — the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) — is meant to help struggling homeowners like Merde by arranging for permanent loan reductions. But as of June, less than 700,000 housing loans have been permanently modified, out of the 3 to 4 million projected. June saw the fewest loan modifications under the program since April 2009.

Minnesota real estate lawyer Carl E. Christensen blames the low numbers on the banks. “The banks put out their hand and say, ‘We’re going to help you,’ and then stab people right in the back,” Christensen said. “Nobody ever gets loan mods. I meet with up to a dozen people a week and have been doing this for two-and-a-half years. I’ve only seen five modifications, and only one that ever gave any substantive benefit.” Yesterday, Chase Bank sold off the home of a U.S. soldier who had returned from Iraq that very same day.

– Sarah Bufkin

GOP 2012 presidential contender Mitt Romney today spoke at the Iowa state fair, before a key Republican debate tonight and an upcoming Iowa straw poll. At the end of his speech, a Q&A session quickly devolved into a shouting match.

The first questioner asked Romney if he would raise the cap on payroll taxes, so that the rich pay more into the system. Romney — who has a net worth of more than $200 million — said that raising the payroll tax cap for Social Security was tantamount to “attacking people because of their success”:

You know, there was a time in this country when we didn’t celebrate attacking people based on their success and when we didn’t go after people because they were successful.

A second questioner asked Romney “what are you going to do to strengthen Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare without cutting benefits.” Romney’s response, after briefly shouting at the questioner, was “I’m not going to raise taxes. That’s my answer.” The rowdy crowd at the Iowa State Fair interrupted his answers to chant “Wall Street greed.” Watch it:

When it comes to raising the payroll tax to shore up Social Security, “completely eliminating the cap without increasing benefits actually creates a long-term surplus, and eliminating the cap while increasing benefits comes close.”

This week, GOP leaders named their six appointees to the newly-minted fiscal “super committee.” A cursory look at their “not-so-super” resumes will leave the majority of Americans who want to see tax rates on the wealthy raised less than enthused. Indeed, all six members signed anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes under any circumstances.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R), who oversaw the tripling of the U.S. deficit as President George W. Bush’s OMB director, actually ran on the idea that “any tax increase would hurt the fragile economy” However, Portman indicated on Monday that he’d be open to raising revenue by “getting rid of tax ‘preferences’” and “stuff that doesn’t make sense”:

Portman said tax increases, particularly while the economy is ailing, should not be part of the deficit fix, but he did not oppose raising revenue by getting rid of tax “preferences,” including certain loopholes, credits, deductions and exclusions. Some conservatives see eliminating them as backdoor tax hikes.

Calling himself “a hawk on tax reform,” Portman said the supercommittee has an opportunity to reform the tax code, “get rid of the stuff that doesn’t make sense and lower the rates.”

“Tax reform ought to be done,” he said. “It will generate more revenue.”

Indeed, there is more than $1 trillion in wasteful “preferences” hidden in the federal tax code which, if cut, is far less harmful to the economy than gouging the social safety net. Closing frivolous or unnecessary loopholes for the oil and gas industry, for hedge fund managers, for corporate meals and entertainment, for corporate jets, for vacation homes and yachts, and for horse breeders could save taxpayers billions. In another positive move, Portman also signaled again that defense cuts “need to be on the table.”

Whether he stays open to closing loopholes during negotiations, however, remains to be seen, since anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist is effectively dictating to Republicans that they cannot close a single tax loophole, even if it it would entice Democrats into agreeing to much larger spending cuts. Indeed, after learning of Portman and the five others’ appointments, Norquist said “your wallet is safe.”

Our guest bloggers are David Madland, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Nick Bunker, special assistant with the Economic Policy Team at CAPAF.

Tuesday night, Wisconsin Democrats won two state Senate seats in recall elections, but fell short of picking up enough seats to gain a majority in the state Senate. While this outcome is a setback, Tuesday night’s events are extremely encouraging for those who care about workers’ rights and the middle class.

In attacking collective bargaining rights, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and his fellow Republicans unleashed a historic recall effort. Since 1908, there have only been 20 recall elections for state legislators, and only two of those efforts were successful. By winning two recall elections last night, supporters of workers’ rights doubled the total amount of recalled legislators. Matching over 100 years of history in a few months is something to celebrate.

The elections also need to be taken in the context of where they took place. The senate districts were all solidly Republican. Jessica King’s victory over Sen. Randy Hopper happened in a district that hasn’t elected a Democratic state senator since 1936. Rep. Fred Clark came four points short against Sen. Luther Olsen in a district that hasn’t elected a Democratic since 1896.According to the New York Times’ Nate Silver, Walker won the six recall districts by an average of 13 percentage points, while only winning the state by 6 percentage points.

Merely making significant gains in these districts would have been impressive, but Democrats managed to win two seats and take another race down to the wire. If attacking workers’ rights caused such a backlash in solid Republican districts, imagine the impact in more politically competitive districts that were not eligible for a recall election this year.

Taking the state Senate would have been an amazing success, but what would it have accomplished? Senate Democrats would be able to block Gov. Walker’s agenda with greater ease, but they wouldn’t be able to restore collective bargaining rights to public sector workers. Winning back rights for those workers requires recalling Walker and taking back both of the legislative houses.

Voters have shown that they care about workers’ rights and will not stand idly by as politicians attack the middle class. This feeling is not limited to Wisconsin. Residents of Ohio have collected enough signatures to place repeal of Senate Bill 5 on the ballot. And perhaps most importantly, the national public has engaged in a discussion about workers’ rights and been reminded of how important collective bargaining and unions are to creating the American middle class.

Supporters of workers’ rights should be encouraged by these events. The results of last night’s elections were impressive, but they are just the beginning, for Wisconsin and the rest of the country.