President Obama’s campaign has launched a bombardment of attacks on Mitt Romney in recent weeks surrounding the Republican candidate’s tenure with Bain Capital, alleging Romney may have even committed a felony.
A top Obama aide accused Romney of either committing a felony by signing documents indicating he remained CEO of Bain Capital until 2002 or lying to voters when he says he left in 1999 to run the Olympics and was not involved in outsourcing decisions at Bain later.
Romney's version, that he left Bain to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics in February 1999, has been repeatedly verified by Bain employees, The Olympics and numerous independent fact check organizations.
Now the Obama camp is targeting swing states with negative ads characterizing Romney as a “corporate raider,” an “outsourcing pioneer,” and, as President, would be the “outsourcer-in-chief.”
“My job is to think about communities where jobs have been outsourced and so it is not that he has been disqualified because of what he’s done," said President Obama, "I want us to make sure we know what your theory is as to how to grow the economy and that is a question I think about on the issue of outsourcing."
Bain Capital did invest in companies that outsourced under Romney's watch, according to analysis by FactCheck.org. However the Obama team is absurdly hypocritical for putting Romney on the defense on the issue of outsourcing because the president is a huge fan of General Electric and GE CEO Jefferey Immelt, who chairs Obama's council on Jobs and Competiveness.
“I am so proud and pleased that Jeff has agreed to chair this panel — my council on jobs and competitiveness," the president said in a speech, "because we think GE has something to teach businesses all across America. GE has something to teach businesses and corporations all across America."
Maybe GE can teach corporations and businesses how to better outsource. Less than half of GE's workforce is employed in the United States. The corporation, which has 277 plants in 43 countries, employs about 300,000 people and only 131,000 are employed in the U.S. GE paid zero in federal income tax in 2010, according to The New York Times, keeping its profits overseas to avoid the IRS.
Romney’s camp claims that Obama is being dishonest for claiming Bain Capital outsourced jobs on Romney’s watch and plans to get tougher on President Obama by more closely scrutinizing his record at the White House.
“I think when people accuse you of a crime you have every reason to go after them pretty hard, and I am going to continue going after him," says Romney. “I think this is showing a pattern, you just had very bad news on the economic front, with now 41 straight months with unemployment above 8 percent, and what does the president do? He’s going to raise taxes on people, he’s trying to gut welfare reform as we know it. And he launches attacks of this nature, it’s beneath the dignity of his office."
Romney's time at Bain Capital has been a controversial factor in every race he has run-- his run for Senate in 1994, for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and for president in 2008. But this is the first time Romney has been falsely accused of running Bain, at a time when he was in Utah working 16 hours/day to save the Winter Olypmics.
Bill O’Reilly, during The O’Reilly Factor’s Talking Points Memo, revealed the truth behind the president’s claims that Mitt Romney outsourced jobs during his tenure at Bain Capital and calls the Obama administration out on its hypocrisy.
"How can the Obama team be outraged over Romney's outsource exposure when its champions GE, and outsourcing kingdom?" O'Reilly wondered.