Following up on an earlier item, the Washington Post reported today on Mitt Romney's company investing in "pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components." To understate matters, President Obama and his campaign team have taken quite an interest in the story.
About an hour ago, Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, put out this video, seizing on the controversy.
For its part, the Romney campaign is characterizing the Post piece as "fundamentally flawed" because it overlooks the distinction between "outsourcing" jobs and "offshoring" jobs.
In fairness to the Romney camp, they have a point. As Pat Garofalo and Igor Volsky explained, "The official definition of outsourcing is pushing activities outside of the company that could have been performed in-house. A company can outsource, while keeping the activity domestic. Offshoring is the practice of sending jobs overseas."
Of course, since Romney himself has blurred the line between the two, and Romney the Candidate has bashed the very practices Bain the Vulture Capitalist supported at Bain Capital, the pushback is not without its flaws.
For Democrats, meanwhile, this is seen as an important opportunity, at least in part because it's the kind of issue that will hurt Romney with the same vulnerable, working-class voters he'll need to win overwhelmingly to get elected. Interest in the revelation is even going all the way to the top.
President Obama will directly address Romney's outsourcing at an event in Florida -- raising the visibility of the issue -- and David Axelrod was eager to identify Romney today as the candidate running to be the "Outsourcer in Chief" during a teleconference with reporters this morning.
What's more, Capitol Hill Democrats will "very likely" use the news to refocus attention on Obama's plan to end tax incentives that allow companies to deduct the costs of moving jobs abroad. Don't be too surprised if the president's proposal comes up for a vote in the not-too-distant future, leaving Republicans in an awkward election-year position and leaving Romney with another piece of legislation he doesn't want to talk about.
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They're pioneers and connoisseurs of offshoring -- first the jobs, then the profits (hidden in foreign banks, because of tax avoidance)
Uh, no. Overseas profit pays tax in the country it was produced. The US wants to tax it again, ergo profit stays overseas. Wouldn't you do the same?
Once again the little Shooter comes along to mark the fire hydrant.
Romney has managed to confuse another (shooter)gop voter , the subject is off shoring , you can not get that fact straight right after he said it ..And the romney crew stash money in off shore accounts to avoid taxes all the time , maybe you should look up what you are speaking about before you open your mouth?
The gop today
I continue to be amazed how many on this site do not understand how the real world works. There seems to be a feeling US business works in an isolist world, rather than a global one. Businesses are denigrated because they seek to deliver goods at low cost. If you don't like that, then stop shopping at Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc.
Business markets to a global market. There are multiple reasons ot either out source or off shore - one being to be closer to their customers
U.S. business works in an isolist world, Yes, I agree. We have been excluded in the export end of the deal. President Obama has been the only one to help in that department. Slowly but, surely, at least The Democrats are rooting for the Hard-working Americans. Dirty deeds and their done dirt cheap... Is this what the Republicans want our new motto to be?
Many companies outsource not job's but work. If a work overload occurs they "outsource" some of their overload to other companies,not overseas but right here in the USA.But then there are the companies that "outsource"the work to China, India or other foriegn shores.This is what is called "outsourcing " job's and is what Romney's Bain Capital investment's were very good at.
Seriously, you really think that the reason they outsource is that there is just too much work for The strong hard-working Americans that live here. Who would jump at the chance to do a good honest days' work. This just an easy way to continue slavery. Slavery was supposedly abolished here in The United States.When you call some places now you are talking to someone in India, that's fine but, it just takes longer for us to get any answers from these Companies that outsource. When they outsource a lot of communication is lost. So many times you cannot understand what they're saying and vica-versa. The language gap is so wide that the customer service aspect of businesses is so bad and lacking. The Customer now is never right. and they will hang up on you just to prove it.Outsourcing in the long run is going to cost these large Corporations a lot of money. But, they saved a buck.
If they were actual "job creators" and there's a "work overload," they would create jobs.
Angel I worked for a printing company for many years, we did the printing for many large companies.Any of these companies could have bought their own printing company,but instead they chose to outsource the printing to companies such as mine.Sometime's we got so overloaded with work we had to outsource some of it to other companies in the area or lose the account. Do'nt get so Huffy.
I hope the Romney campaign works really hard to make that distinction. Because I'm sure people who have experienced being laid off (and their families and friends) will happily vote for Romney if they know he wasn't sending their jobs overseas, he was just sending them to low-wage states with few labor protections.
How you gonna win when they done took all your money?
Outsource the frackers and the drillers bring back manufacturing. Obama knows the best thing to do is make it far more expensive to import than export.
Again though, they have the cash and they own Congress so I doubt anyone expects real change.