Our guest blogger is Anne L. Thompson, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project Action Fund.

Bucking conventional GOP opposition to raising the minimum wage, former Governor Mitt Romney said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that he favors raising the minimum wage automatically each year so that it keeps pace with inflation.

Asked his position on the minimum wage, Romney responded, “My view has been to allow the minimum wage to rise with the CPI [Consumer Price Index] or with another index so that it adjusts automatically over time.” When asked if he would support that policy as president, he responded, “I already indicated that when I was governor of Massachusetts and that’s my view.” Watch it:

At a subsequent campaign event in New Hampshire, former Speaker Gingrich clashed with Romney on the issue. When asked if he shared Romney’s position, Gingrich said, “No, and I’m surprised that’s his position.” Watch it:

Romney’s support for indexing sharply contrasts with recent Republican-led efforts to weaken minimum wage laws in states such as Maine, Ohio, Florida, and Missouri. In Florida and Missouri, legislators have taken direct aim at statutes that provide for annual indexing of the minimum wage. In New Hampshire, Republicans in the state legislature overturned Governor John Lynch’s (D) veto to pass legislation making it harder for the state to raise its minimum wage.

Romney’s statement reaffirms a position he first took when running for Massachusetts Governor in 2002, but later appeared to back away from when he ran for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. While Romney’s support for raising the minimum wage to keep up with inflation is a step in the right direction, President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage by more than $2 and subsequently index it to inflation goes significantly further toward restoring the value of the minimum wage, which has declined dramatically in the last 40 years.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama endorsed raising the federal minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011 and then indexing it based on the Consumer Price Index. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, Obama’s proposal would generate more than $60 billion in new consumer spending, helping to boost the demand our economy desperately needs to recover. Currently, the federal minimum is just $7.25 per hour, or roughly $15,000 a year for a full-time worker. If it had been indexed based on the Consumer Price Index since 1968, it would be approximately $10.40 today.

Recent polling found that two-thirds of Americans — a bipartisan majority — support raising the minimum wage to $10 and then indexing it to inflation to keep up with the rising cost of living.

On the trail, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney often touts that his former company, Bain Capital, created 100,000 jobs, even though his campaign has yet to provide supporting evidence. Fact-checking outlets have called the claim “shaky,” “short on evidence,” and “untenable,” and Romney’s campaign may now be backing off the assertion.

But last night, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) — who gave her much-sought after endorsement to Romney — told Fox News host Sean Hannity that it’s not fair for people to hold Romney accountable on the jobs claim:

HANNITY: Newt’s saying, though, that the governor’s record, whether or not he created 100,000 jobs net net net is fair game. Do you agree with that?

HALEY: You know, with all due respect to Mr. Gingrich, no. I mean –

HANNITY: It’s not fair to ask? That’s not fair?

HALEY: Well, I think what you have to understand is what does the private sector do? I come from a business background. I know that when times are tough, we have to make hard decisions — we never want to let people go. have to let people go. And when times are good, you love to expand.

Watch it:

Romney’s campaign has already admitted that the 100,000 number is, for all intents and purposes, bogus. Perhaps that’s why Romney himself has been revising his job creation claim downward over the last few days.

The Federal Reserve yesterday released transcripts from 2006 (full official transcripts of Fed meetings are released five years after the meetings occur), which shed some light on how badly the Fed misinterpreted the housing bubble. “I really believe that the drop in housing is actually on net going to make liquidity available for other sectors rather than being a drain going forward, and that will also get the growth rate more positive,” said then Fed member Susan Bies. “Housing is a relatively small sector of the economy, and its decline should be self-correcting,” added Janet Yellen, now the Fed’s vice chairman.

Dallas Fed Chairman Richard Fisher said that, “as one CEO told me, the only subject that has been more analyzed than the housing situation is the birth of Brad Pitt’s baby.” Chairman Ben Bernanke, meanwhile, predicted “at worst, an orderly decline in the housing market,” while now Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (then president of the New York Federal Reserve) said, “we think the fundamentals of the expansion going forward still look good.”

The Fed’s perspective is perhaps best summed up by Gary Stern, then president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, in a March 2006 meeting:

I thought I would comment a bit more on two issues in particular—one is housing—where I wonder if the significance of potential developments might not be being exaggerated a bit. I certainly agree that changes in housing prices, up or down, feed into household wealth and through that into consumer spending. I think that’s a perfectly acceptable story. So if housing prices go down or level off, they will have that effect on wealth and potentially on spending.

But there seems to be a view that, in some sense, an exogenous pronounced decline in housing prices is possible, maybe even likely, and that this could be more devastating for the economy. It’s not that I would quibble with that story, but I would wonder about its likelihood because it seems to me more likely that housing is the tail rather than the dog in this. That is, as long as employment continues to go up, incomes continue to go up, and mortgage rates remain relatively moderate, then I would expect that we would avoid severe difficulties in housing except for a few markets that are particularly inflated at this point.

From the transcripts, it becomes clear that Fed officials thought the economy supported the housing market. But it was actually the other way around: the housing sector was supporting the economy. Meanwhile, the nation’s biggest banks had entwined themselves (via the housing market, which they were helping prop up with predatory subprime loans) to such an extent that when housing finally declined, the whole system fell apart.

Seeking to counter charges of “vulture capitalism” from his fellow Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney’s campaign plans to release an ad today defending his time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he headed, citing several companies that Romney’s firm purchased and apparently turned around.

But at least one of the companies mentioned in the ad became profitable thanks to government subsidies and a special tax assessed on local residents.

In 1994, Bain invested $18.2 million in Steel Dynamics, becoming the largest domestic equity holder in the company. Five years later, it sold its stake for $104 million, walking away with $85 million profit. In the intervening years, the state of Indiana and DeKalb County pledged $37 million in subsidies and grants for a new Steel Dynamics mill. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

The county promised $23.4 million in property tax abatements and tax increment finance bonds, as well as a new income tax to generate economic development funds. The latter was required by the state, which shelled out another $13.6 million in tax credits, energy grants, workforce training and funds for roads.

A new quarter-percent tax on DeKalb County residents financed infrastructure improvements such as roads and railroad exchanges that benefited Steel Dynamics.

Indeed, while Romney and conservative allies have pilloried GOP candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for “attacking free enterprise,” even Romney has spoken out against the kind of so-called “corporate welfare” and “crony capitalism” that Steel Dynamics engaged in.

Romney regularly uses this line of attack against President Obama, saying in New Hampshire last week, “Capitalism, free enterprise works. Crony capitalism does not. This president has engaged and is engaging in crony capitalism.” But as the LA Times noted, “The story of Bain and Steel Dynamics illustrates how Romney, during his business career, made avid use of public-private partnerships, something that many conservatives consider to be ‘corporate welfare.’”

It’s also worth noting that the new ad defending Romney and Bain makes no mention of the 100,000 jobs the company supposedly created — a figured the campaign has often touted without being able to provide supporting evidence. A number of fact-checking outlets have cast doubt on the figure, though it’s unclear if the campaign is backing off the claim or chose to leave it out of the new ad for a different reason.