President Obama is facing increasing deficits, not only in his spending habits, but in the facts. The Obama campaign is trying to frame former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as the “inventor” of outsourcing American jobs to other countries.
The President wants to reward companies for bringing jobs back to America. Mitt Romney? Not so much: http://t.co/G4SP8PzY
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2012
FACT: As governor, Romney signed a $160,000/month contract that used taxpayer money for a consumer call center in India.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2012
FACT: In 2004, Gov. Romney vetoed a bill that would have banned state contractors from outsourcing state work overseas.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2012
Romney’s buyout firm helped increase profits for investors by moving American jobs overseas: http://t.co/iDbs39So
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2012
A major news organization had a well-timed hit piece on Romney about the outsourcing charge just as the Obama campaign ramped up the messaging. What a coinkydink!
The president’s critics on Twitter are fighting back against this attack on Romney.
@BarackObama I though the private sector was doing fine? Your latex Gallup pole would say america strongly disagrees with you #startpacking
— Dan Frames (@RedzTheRuckus) June 22, 2012
Most importantly, the claims by the Post (and echoed by the Obama campaign) have been soundly rebuked by the American Enterprise Institute blogger/columnist James Pethokoukis.
Just how badly did the WaPo blow its outsourcing hit job on Romney today? Pretty badly http://t.co/hK56gTyo
— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) June 22, 2012
Recommended
Pethokoukis writes:
And that’s it. That’s the big story that’s supposed to derail [the] Romney campaign, I guess. Instead of the headline “Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas, ” perhaps the WaPo headline should have been something different.
Some more accurate options:
– “Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that expanded overseas … after he left”
– ”Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that had international employees before it bought them”
– “Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that created foreign call centers to deal with foreign customers”
And it’s also just bad economics to suggest offshoring is necessarily a job killer. As this study suggests, “Increased globalisation of manufacturing processes does not necessarily imply a hollowing-out of domestic production … Firms that go abroad expand employment at home relative to non-globalizers.”
You know it’s bad when the Washington Post — the same newspaper that ran the anti-Romney hit piece this morning — has to give the Obama campaign the dubious “4 Pinocchios” for its deceptive “outsourcing” attack.
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