Obama Team Targets Romney over Taxes, Republicans Cry Foul
Sunday, 08 Jul 2012 06:23 PM
By Newsmax Wires
Republicans on Sunday morning news programs attacked President Barack Obama’s handling of the U.S. economy, saying recent reports suggest it’s weakening, while Democratic defenders urged patience. “There are almost a half a million more people unemployed today than four years ago,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a television interview on “Fox News Sunday,” two days after the Labor Department reported the worst quarter for corporate hiring in more than two years. “Fire Obama and hire Romney. That’s the best stimulus program for the country.”
As the November presidential election approaches and voters’ views of Democrat Obama’s performance solidify, the economy is lacking the job growth needed to bring down the unemployment rate. Joblessness, which held at 8.2 percent in June, has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest such stretch since monthly records began in 1948.
The Labor Department’s figures showed employers added 80,000 jobs last month, less than the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, after a 77,000 increase in May. Payrolls excluding government agencies rose 84,000 after a 105,000 gain in May.
Obama, speaking July 6 at a campaign stop in Poland, Ohio, said the new jobs were “a step in the right direction” though the economy has to grow “even faster.” Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the jobs report “another kick in the gut.”
Not Working
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the economy needs to be the focus of the campaign. What Obama is doing “is not working” and discouraging private businesses from boosting payrolls, he said. Democratic defenders of the White House said today the severity of the financial crisis that sent unemployment to 10 percent in 2009 will require more time for a full recovery.
“It takes a while to dig out of that hole,” said former White House spokesman and Obama campaign aide Robert Gibbs on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. Gibbs also attacked Romney, accusing him of outsourcing U.S. jobs when he was at Boston-based Bain Capital LLC, which he co-founded.
Romney’s experience “has been in owning companies that were called ‘pioneers of outsourcing,’” Obama said July 5 while campaigning in Maumee, Ohio. “My experience has been in saving the American auto industry, and as long as I’m president, that’s what I’m going to be doing.”
Polls show that linking Romney to the outsourcing of U.S. jobs is an effective approach with voters in the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Obama will end the trip.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama's campaign and top Democrats called on Mitt Romney to release more personal tax records and raised questions about his offshore assets that the Republican challenger's campaign condemned as an "unseemly and disgusting" character assault. Democrats and Republicans tussled over the economy, but it was Romney's offshore assets that Democrats seized on during the Sunday talk shows in their quest to portray him as a wealthy man out of touch with ordinary Americans. Romney faces Obama in the Nov. 6 election and polls indicate a close race.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz raised the issue on "Fox News Sunday" as her interview time ran out.
"I'd really like to see Mitt Romney release more than one year of tax records, because there's been disturbing reports recently that he's got a Bermuda corporation, a secretive Bermuda corporation that no one knows anything about, investments in the Caymans, kind of Swiss bank account."
"Americans need to ask themselves why does an American businessman need a Swiss bank account and secretive investments like that?" Schultz said.
Obama campaign adviser Gibbs, on CNN's "State of the Union," called on Romney to release years of back tax records to allow scrutiny of his adherence to tax law. Asked whether Romney had broken the law, Gibbs said, "Well, we don't know."
"The one thing he could do ... to clear up whether or not he's done anything illegal - whether he's shielding his income from taxes in Bermuda or Switzerland - is to do what every other presidential candidate's done, and that's to release a series of years of their own tax returns," Gibbs said.
"This is a guy whose slogan is: 'Believe in America' - and it should be 'Business in Bermuda.' That's what Mitt Romney's all about," Gibbs said.
Romney's campaign fought back.
"The Obama campaign's latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting," said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman.
The Associated Press has reported that an offshore company based in Bermuda has helped bolster Romney's wealth even though it did not appear on his state or federal financial reports for 15 years.
The Obama campaign released an online video on Sunday raising questions about Romney's offshore accounts. "Mitt Romney could be the first president in history to stash millions offshore so the American people deserve an explanation as to why he chose to invest in other countries known as tax havens rather than the United States," the campaign said in a statement.
'DISHONEST ATTACKS'
Saul defended the Republican presidential challenger, saying, "Mitt Romney had a successful career in the private sector, pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable organizations, and served numerous causes greater than himself."
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