Biden hammers Romney in Iowa
Vice President Joe Biden was on the campaign trail in Iowa on Wednesday to promote the administration's actions to bolster manufacturing, and attack Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney in the process.
The vice president said electing a Republican from the field of contenders would bring progress in the country's manufacturing sector to "a screeching halt."
"Look, folks, conventional wisdom that manufacturing is dead in this country is dead wrong -- dead wrong -- and we've got to maintain this momentum," Biden told a reported crowd of 450 in Davenport, Iowa. "But if you'll forgive me for saying this, one thing that could bring this momentum to a screeching halt is turning over the keys of the White House to Santorum or Romney."
As Mitt Romney continues to lead the Republican field, the Obama re-election campaign has increased its rhetoric against the former Massachusetts governor.
Speaking at PCT Engineered Systems, Biden said Romney backed policies and made business decisions that encourage outsourcing jobs overseas during his time as Massachusetts governor and as head of Bain Capital.
Biden charged Romney with moving jobs out of two medical device factories in South Florida to Germany and closing down a factory in South Carolina as head of Bain Capital. He also accused Romney of vetoing a bill passed by the Massachusetts legislature that would have prohibited the state from outsourcing its contracts.
"Mitt Romney has been remarkably consistent -- as an individual investor, a businessman, as governor of Massachusetts, and now as a candidate for president," Biden said in Davenport, Iowa. "Consistently wrong."
Biden said the Obama administration has made inroads in revitalizing the manufacturing sector, seeking to take credit for creating 430,000 manufacturing jobs in the past two years. Biden said the administration wants to reduce the manufacturing corporate tax rate by more than 20 percent.
"So look folks, we have a choice in this election: Between our philosophy that believes manufacturing is central to our economy, and their philosophy that scoffs at it," Biden told the crowd.