Romney to fundraiser: 'Big business is doing fine in many places'

Mitt Romney told a campaign fundraiser on Thursday that "big business is doing fine." 

Romney made the remarks as part of an effort to cast himself as a champion of small businesses, which he says have been held under by President Obama's poor handling of the economy, the threat of higher taxes and heavy regulation. 

But the remarks are also likely to raise eyebrows, given the Obama campaign's attacks on Romney as a protector of corporations and the wealthy. 

Romney's remarks echoed Obama's widely criticized comment earlier this summer that the private sector is doing fine, though Romney drew a distinction between big and small businesses. With unemployment above 8 percent and the nation's economy continuing to struggle, Romney argued that big businesses know how to navigate the tax code to do well despite government. 

“Big business is doing fine in many places,” Romney said during a fundraiser in Minnesota, according to reports. “They get the loans they need; they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses.”

Corporate profits increased every quarter since the latest recession until the second quarter of this year, when they declined, according to a recent report in The New York Times. Still, corporations are sitting on cash they have declined to invest in new employees or businesses because of uncertainty about the economy. Many businesses also criticize uncertainty over the tax code, given tax hikes that could take effect in January. 

But the high profits, and Romney's business background, have given President Obama's campaign an attack line on its Republican rival. The Obama campaign has hammered Romney, who founded the private equity firm Bain Capital, for getting around the tax code in many of the ways he described in his Thursday remarks. 

Obama's campaign has charged Romney with profiting from business practices that stepped on employees and cast his use of offshore accounts as unacceptable to average Americans.

"Gov. Romney has long said we need to simplify the tax code, close loopholes and create a more level playing field for American businesses," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told The Hill in a statement. She added that Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) "will be champions for small business, encouraging investment, entrepreneurship and innovation."

Romney did not address that criticism in his remarks on Thursday, but he did write an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal titled: "What I Learned at Bain Capital." 

"My business experience confirmed my belief in empowering people," he wrote, using specific examples of some of the businesses Bain bought or helped succeed during his tenure, such as Staples, Bright Horizons, Brookstone, Wesley Jessen, Accuride, Damon Corp. and Steel Dynamics.

In its attacks, Obama's team has brought up several of the companies Romney mentioned. Romney did not refer to criticism in the op-ed.

"My presidency would make it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get the investment dollars they need to grow, by reducing and simplifying taxes; replacing ObamaCare with real healthcare reform that contains costs and improves care; and by stemming the flood of new regulations that are tying small businesses in knots," he wrote.

Obama's campaign blasted out a "fact check" of the op-ed on Friday morning, countering the results Romney claims for four of the companies mentioned. The campaign has a whole series of videos called "Romney Economics" featuring disgruntled former employees from companies bought out by Bain.

Updated at 10 a.m.

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