The Republican National Committee (RNC) Tuesday rounded-up a host of attacks used against President Obama over the past few months in a new Web video, hammering the president for lacking the "commitment and understanding" to revive the economy.
"President Obama believes that 'the private sector is doing fine' and entrepreneurs are successful because of government efforts, not their individual hard work and sacrifice. It is becoming clearer by the day that these aren't gaffes, this is what President Obama believes," said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in a statement.
With the Web video titled, "These Aren't Gaffes," the RNC is jumping on the attack bandwagon against Obama's "you didn't build that" remark, which has been seized on by Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's campaign.
The GOP candidate said last week that the
president's remark "wasn't a gaffe, it was instead his ideology" and
argued that he had a fundamentally different understanding of the
economy than Obama.
"The president does, in fact, believe that people who build enterprises
like this really aren't responsible for it," Romney said. "But in fact
it's a collective success of the whole society that somehow builds
enterprises like this. My view, we have to celebrate people who started
enterprises and employ other people."
The "you didn't build that" line was part of a speech earlier this month
in Roanoke, Va., where the president emphasized the importance of
public-private partnerships in many business ventures.
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you help,” Obama
said. “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped
to create this unbelievable American system that we have allowed you to
thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a
business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The
Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the
Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual
initiative, but also because we do things together.”
The Obama campaign has accused Romney of taking the president's words "out of context."
"Romney’s not telling the truth about what the president said and is taking the president’s words out of context … The president said that together, Americans all built the free enterprise system that we all benefit from," said Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter in a Web video released Tuesday.
The RNC also echoed an earlier video in the new 30-second ad, blasting Obama over reports that he had not met with his jobs council in the past six months.
"It's obvious President Obama's priorities are elsewhere. He would rather focus his time campaigning to save his own job than helping the millions who are struggling in theirs," added Priebus.
The White House fought back last Thursday, saying that the president "continues to solicit and receive advice from numerous folks outside the administration about the economy, about ideas he can act on with Congress or administratively to help the economy grow and help it create jobs."
