By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : President Barack Obama is having good fun over his likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s campaign splitting hairs between “offshoring” “outsourcing” to defend his alleged export of jobs to India and China.
“There was an article the other day in The Washington Post about how Mr. Romney’s former firm – this is what gave him all this amazing success – was a ‘pioneer’ in offshoring jobs to China and India,” he said a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday.
Raising the issue for the third time in less than a week, Obama recalled amid laughter that “And when they were asked about it, some of his advisors explained, no, there’s a difference between offshoring and outsourcing.”
“I’m not kidding, that’s what they said. Those workers who lost their jobs, they didn’t understand the difference,” he said amid applause pouncing on the Post report that Bain capital, an equity firm co-founded by Romney had sent jobs to countries like India and China during his 15 year tenure there.
“But the point is, we don’t need somebody who’s a pioneer in offshoring or outsourcing. We need a President in the White House who’s going to, every single day, be fighting to bring jobs back to the United States, do some insourcing, put folks back to work here,” Obama said.
The president made similar comments about his Republican opponent at a campaign event in Durham, New Hampshire Monday and yet another one at Tampa, Florida Friday.
In defending Romney’s record at Bain, his spokesperson Andrea Saul provided Obama another handle when she said the “fundamentally flawed” Post story did not differentiate between offshoring – sending jobs overseas – and outsourcing – employing another firm to do work previously done in house.
Citing filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Post reported last week that “Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialised in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.”
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])