'Romney wants to continue tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas,' Plouffe says. Plouffe steps up outsourcing attack

White House senior adviser David Plouffe on Tuesday accused Mitt Romney of having outsourced jobs in both the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts, doubling down on the Obama campaign’s ongoing effort to label the Republican candidate an “outsourcer-in-chief.”

“Mitt Romney wants to continue tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. He would do that as president. This president’s led an effort to put the focus on insourcing and wants to get rid of those tax cuts and will reward those that ship jobs overseas,” Plouffe said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”


“Mitt Romney, it’s clear, in his private sector experience, when he was governor, is someone who practiced outsourcing. Now as president, he wants to say to companies that ship jobs overseas, we’re going to reward you for that,” he added.

The Obama campaign has continued to pummel the former governor as having championed outsourcing, an accusation that the Romney camp has pushed back on. After a Washington Post story in June said Bain Capital had invested in firms that created jobs overseas, the Romney campaign had unsuccessfully demanded that the paper retract the story.

While much of the outsourcing charges have been focused on Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, the Obama camp has also accused the candidate of having outsourced jobs as head of the Bay State.

Vice President Joe Biden said in March: “Despite the fact that millions of taxpayer dollars were flowing to companies outsourcing state services like overseas call centers, he vetoed a bill passed by the Massachusetts legislature that would have stopped the state from outsourcing contracts overseas, state contracts.”

When host George Stephanopoulos pointed out Tuesday that FacCheck.org had questioned the validly of the outsourcing accusation, Plouffe was dismissive.

“The Washington Post did an exhaustive look at this,” he said. “By the way, the Romney campaign … [tried] to get them to pull back this story and they refused to do it, because it’s accurate.”

Plouffe’s attacks came as the Romney campaign and the Republican National Campaign are launching a new effort to counter the outsourcing charges. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is slated to appear in Iowa Tuesday to discuss how the federal stumulus money created jobs outside of the U.S. and also unveil a new website, ObamanomicsOutsourced.com.

Meanwhile, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul fired back Tuesday morning by accusing the Obama campaign of resorting to “dishonest, repeatedly proven false, attacks.”

“If it wasn’t enough to stick families, job creators, and small businesses with a massive tax hike, it seems his campaign is also now baselessly attacking American businesses,” Saul said in an email. “If this president had half the job creation record of Mitt Romney, he’d be running on it and, if his team focused as much energy on job creation as they do trying to tear down his opponent, maybe the middle class would be better off right now.”

The early morning interview also touched on Romney outraising Obama for the second consecutive month in June. Plouffe said his campaign had “assumed all along” that Romney and the RNC would be a formidable force in fundraising, and placed the bulk of the blame on super PACs.

“The real new dynamic in this race is obviously the super PACS. And we have three or four Republican super PACs at any given time spending tens of millions of dollars aimed at the president,” he said. “You’ve got a few very wealthy people lining up, trying to purchase the White House for Mr. Romney, and we’re going to have everybody out there who wants the president to continue on a second term to step up here and help the campaign.”