(CNN) - President Barack Obama amplified his campaign's recent attack against Mitt Romney on Friday, calling out his Republican rival over reports that Romney's former private equity firm advised companies on outsourcing American jobs overseas.
"We do not need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office. We need a president who will fight for American jobs and fight for American manufacturing. That's what my plan will do," Obama said Friday at a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida.
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Earlier in the day, his campaign lit up with criticism against Romney after the Washington Post reported that Bain Capital, a firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and left in 1999, had invested in multiple companies that "specialized in relocating jobs." Several of the firms built new facilities "in low-wage countries," especially in Asia.
"(Bain) owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission," the report said.
In his speech Friday, Obama pounced on the report: "Today it was reported in the Washington Post that the companies his firm owned were pioneers in the outsourcing of American jobs to places like China and India. Pioneers!"
Obama's remarks came in a spirited speech to a fired up crowd at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, the same town to host the Republican National Convention in August.
Democrats, particularly Obama's campaign, have pounded Romney over his history at Bain, using the firm as a way to frame the candidate as an out of touch businessman more interested in making profits for the wealthy than creating jobs for the masses.
Arguing that Romney uses his corporate experience as his calling card on the campaign trail, Obama said Friday that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has the wrong ideas about how to turn the economy around.
"The challenge that we have faced for over a decade is that bigger profits haven't led to better jobs, bigger profits haven't led to higher incomes," Obama said.
His senior campaign strategist, David Axelrod, described the report earlier in the day as a "significant moment" in the campaign, signaling Obama's team may continue to use the new Bain offense against Romney in the coming days.
Responding to the report, Team Romney called the article a "fundamentally flawed story," arguing it fails to point out the difference between "domestic outsourcing versus offshoring."
Outsourcing, the campaign argues, is a common practice and can occur domestically without sending jobs overseas. Offshoring, on the other hand, involves shifting work out of house and overseas.
"Mitt Romney spent 25 years in the real world economy so he understands why jobs come and they go," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul in statement. "As President, he will implement policies that make it easier and more attractive for companies to create jobs here at home."
A spokesman for Bain Capital also responded to the report Friday, simply pointing to its successful ventures since its founding.
"Bain Capital's business model has always been to build great companies and improve their operations," the company said in a statement. "We have helped the 350 companies in which we have invested, which include over 100 start-up businesses, produce $80 billion of revenue growth in the United States while growing their revenues well over twice as fast as both the S&P and the U.S. economy over the last 28 years."
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"We do not need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office. We need a president who will fight for American jobs and fight for American manufacturing. That's what my plan will do," Obama said Friday
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How do you explain General Motors' ( i.e., Government Motors...) huge investments this year expanding Engineering and Production as they ramp up manufacturing in China?!?! Why are they any different? Because taxpayers are still invested to the tune of $25 billion!?!?
Romney has been lying to the very people he wants to lead....Bain worked for clients that wanted advice on outsourcing and Bains very business model was a pioneer in outsourcing....You are busted Romney. Go home....
Yes because the U.S. having one of the highest corporate tax rates doesn't contribute to outsourcing
Mexico has benefited nicely from jobs sent to them by the USA. Funny, Mexico got our jobs and they come to the USA to take away our local jobs and thanks to Obama Mexicans can now take our jobs Legally, thanks to Obama rewarding their illegal entry to our country with a Work Permit. Yes, Mexico is very grateful to Obama and Mexicans will vote for Obama to say thank you.
Four and The Door – you are correct, I forgot Ford and Chrysler are in Mexico also. iPad is made in China as well as cell phones and I don't see anyone boycotting the purchase of the iPad or cell phones. This is another gimmick of Obama because he cannot run on his own job performance. He needs to angry, poison people yet people are cheering Obama for giving illegal immigrants from Mexico work permits so they can work in our country and take our jobs. How smart is that of Obama? Well, he will win re-election thanks to the Latino Vote. Complete Gimmick!
No wonder Romney is pushing for a lower tax rate for foreign investment profits. I have asked numerous times for one example of a company that pays 35% in actual taxes. So far all I have ever heard was that Exxon paid 45% but it was false. Exxon paid 17.2% ...So for all you Republicans that believe taxes are too high...Please give me just one example or stop being a stooge for the Globalists...
Jayson: You need to get better informed. The corporate "rate" may seem high but no one pays it. Loopholes galore in the tax code for corporations.
I said warning warning for presdient obama so just I want to know what about frauad check scam from afrcian amercian
People are complain against frrauad check scam with vote support for persdient obama
You know why this is important, don't you? It's not because private business outsources jobs to foreign countries, it's because one of the advocates of it wants to lead the country. Private business's will always look at the bottom line, mostly because morality has no business in business. If Romney wanted to someday run the country, he should have made better moral business decisions long ago.
Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black! Obama has outsourced jobs his entire term and with his latest amnesty speech, he has managed to outsource all after school jobs historically filled by American youth.
Romney has off shore bank accounts to dodge paying taxes, he has a record, which by the way is a legitimate business model of outsourcing jobs after all the point of venture capitalism is to make the most money for the investors. It sounds to me that we do not need someone dodges taxes and outsources jobs for President.
I just don't think Romney is bright enough to be president. I mean come on folks we just got rid of Bush 4 years ago and I'm starting to think GW is head and shoulders above mittens in the IQ department.
What Obama doesn't understand because it just isn't in his realm of experience is how simple the answer is for getting manufacturers to do more of their manufacturing in America. Make it more attractive to do it here easier and at the right price than to do it somewhere else. At the end of the day, that's the only answer. Think about that and you will start to understand why Mitt Romney's experience will be so valuable in the White House. Fortunately he is the Republican nominee.
All of the jobs that were shipped abroad out of greed helped to weaken our economy here.True patriots care about their fellow Americans.Romney has shown himself to be very hypocritical on this.
Don’t blame Romney his trainers are wrong people
Example
2012 May full month Romney got media training from FOX news round the clock
2012 June Romney couldn’t answer “Face the Nation” SAD
Romney does not have a chance of winning the election. On face the nation radio show, Romney said that if Iran did not stop enriching uranium, he would go to war with them. MORE of our American men and women will be dead at the hands of the Repubs again.
@Four and The Door
"We do not need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office. We need a president who will fight for American jobs and fight for American manufacturing. That's what my plan will do," Obama said Friday
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How do you explain General Motors' ( i.e., Government Motors...) huge investments this year expanding Engineering and Production as they ramp up manufacturing in China?!?! Why are they any different? Because taxpayers are still invested to the tune of $25 billion!?!?
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GM is SELLING THE CARS IN CHINA! Even you should be able to make the distinction.
Romney will NOT win this election. Repubs you can not descriminate against an American group in the RED states , whether it be Latinos, Blacks, Women, Students, Gays, etc, and expect them to vote for you in the general electon.
Fight for America's jobs??????
Republicans, you can not MAKE Americans like Romney, he is so out of touch with even the middle class he does not have a chance of winning the general election
What is worse, outsourcing to another country and keeping prices/costs low or Administration policies that make the jobs just go away? Jobs are lost, either way, but at least there may be a benefit with the former, no?
@Myviewis
Mexico has benefited nicely from jobs sent to them by the USA. Funny, Mexico got our jobs and they come to the USA to take away our local jobs and thanks to Obama Mexicans can now take our jobs Legally, thanks to Obama rewarding their illegal entry to our country with a Work Permit. Yes, Mexico is very grateful to Obama and Mexicans will vote for Obama to say thank you.
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Eleven Republican Congressmen from border states petitioned Congress this week to make it faster and easier for Mexican workers to get work permits. It seems those "jobs Mexicans are taking" are too hard for Americans to accept and the crops are going un-picked, the chickens un-plucked, and in the case of the fat-cats, the pools un-cleaned and the beds un-made.
Who would work on Romoneys yards?
Not only is Romney's "business experience" outsourcing American jobs to a foreign shores. As Governor he outsourced jobs in child support, food stamps, and unemployment insurance out of the Country. Made a horde of money, gave his son's 100 million tax free. Stashes some of it in the Cayman Islands.
What a Patriotic American!
ford and GM are building plants in china -you need a president that will say you can build there but you will not sell here–and romney,s not the guy