Romney criticizes Obama on outsourcing

Mitt Romney turned the tables today on an oft-repeated attack coming from Democrats, calling President Obama the "outsourcer in chief."

In a speech in Colorado, Romney slammed Obama for providing federal government support to energy companies that do business overseas.

Romney charged that Obama is an "extreme liberal" trying to raise taxes on small-business owners and others who create jobs. Obama called on Congress yesterday to extend for one year the Bush-era tax cuts for people earning less than $250,000 a year.

"If there's an outsourcer in chief, it's the president of the United States, not the guy who's running to replace him," Romney said in Grand Junction.

Romney joins his allies in the Republican National Committee in hitting Obama on creating overseas jobs. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus bracketed Obama in Iowa today and unveiled a website aimed at attacking Obama for spending "billions" of taxpayer dollars on outsourcing jobs.

"President Obama has promised over and over that he would focus on creating 'jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced,' but his record speaks otherwise," Priebus said in a statement released today. "Through his 'stimulus' program, billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers were sent overseas."

The pushback by Romney and the RNC comes after Obama's campaign and other Democrats have repeatedly criticized the presumptive GOP nominee for offshore accounts. Among other things, the Democrats have cited a Washington Post story from June 21 that said Romney's private equity company, Bain Capital, "invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers" to China and India.

The Romney campaign unsuccessfully sought a retraction of the June 21 story.

The RNC is also circulating a Washington Post story out today that reports Obama's critics "primarily on the political left say he has repeatedly failed in other ways to protect American jobs from being moved overseas."

Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said the president's record stands in "stark contrast" to Romney, who "personally profited from investments in companies that were pioneers in shipping American jobs to India and China."

"President Obama has fought continuously to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, fostered incentives for companies to bring back jobs to America and doubled the rate of trade enforcement actions we've taken against China," she said.