Bush joins 'outsourcing' debate

Financial Times ^ | March 9 2004 | Edward Alden

[CWOJackson]

This should be good for an Orville Reddenbacher moment.

[KantianBurke]

Torpedo tube ready Captain! :>

[Sender]

Wait...unable to get a firing solution...can't tell who's a friendly out there. Just a buncha ships.

[Seth1]

bttt....love to see what happens to this thread.

[CWOJackson]

If only he could have worked Vincente Fox's name into the title somehow the show would already be interesting.

[nobody_knows]

"There are economic isolationists in our country who believe we should separate ourselves from the rest of the world by raising up barriers and closing off markets. They're wrong. If we are to continue growing this economy and creating new jobs, America must remain confident and strong about our ability to trade in the world."

Amen and Amen brother Bush! Go tell it on the mountain!

[Azzurri]

But the administration now appears set to mount a more robust defence of companies that move US jobs abroad.

The Bush political team is beyond woeful if they think defending companies that move US jobs abroad is a viable election year strategy. The Democrats will have a field day with this, I can almost hear James Carville right now. This issue is a political killer for Republicans, no matter how you slice it.

[Seth1]

Maybe the anti-outsourcers have become discouraged and dropped out of the debate?

[CWOJackson]

I think a lot of them are still over on one of the daily "the unemployment numbers are a President Bush lie" threads trying to make a sows ear out of a silk purse.

[Shermy]

LOL! Steel tariffs. How soon his speech writers forget.

[Seth1]

over here!

[blowfish]

But the administration now appears set to mount a more robust defence of companies that move US jobs abroad.

Oh, yeah, That's a winning strategery.

"Those engineering jobs, those are just jobs Americans don't want to do! And our retraining programs will allow our unemployed programmers to develop exciting new careers as...um...uh...Hey, look over there!"

[eskimo]

But the administration now appears set to mount a more robust defence of companies that move US jobs abroad.

Of course they are; the owners have directed it to be so. Those who are positioned to profit from most any outcome don't really risk much by having the future materialize slightly askew of their ideal plan.

[ancient_geezer]

Mr Zoellick told the Senate finance committee that increasing US exports to countries such as China and India, encouraging foreign investment in the US, and helping workers adjust to the loss of some jobs abroad were better responses than "bureaucratic interventions that will increase prices to our people".

One fairly straight forward answer is to get the government off the backs of our manufacturing and exports businesses.

Repealing income and payroll taxes, would give our companies the same advantage that foreign operations have in receiving subsidies rebating VATs their nations impose on their products coming here.

Replacing the income/payroll tax with a National Retail Sales Tax acts the same as applying a revenue tariff on all foreign imports which come into our country today virtually free from any taxation.

Repealing the business taxes in this country removes the tax burden our own exporters & manufacturers with even the costs involved with business taxation. Thus our own export products leave this nation free of not only taxes, but of the costs associated with complying with those taxes.

One very large step to improving trade balances and increasing job markets as well for our one people lay within changing how national taxes are imposed.

 

Rep. Bill Archer, Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee 106th Congress:

• "A recent survey was done, in Europe and Japan, of the major corporations and I was astounded at the results. They were asked, 'If the US abolished its income tax and went to a sales tax, would that have any impact on your decisions?' Eighty percent of the corporations said they would build their factories in the United States of America. Twenty percent said they would move their international headquarters to the United States of America."

That represents the potential of a lot of jobs, and helping to stem the flow of them out of the country.

[adam_az]

Bush is 100% right. To use an analogy, tariffs will save the limb, but kill the tree.

[blowfish]

Limbs don't vote. People do.

[Dane]

Limbs don't vote. People do

And some cut off their limbs, such as a nose, to spite their face.

[KantianBurke]

"LOL! Steel tariffs. How soon his speech writers forget"

Excellent point! A good memory is a politican's worst enemy!

[Williams]

Actually, even the democrats admit the outsourcing ultimately leads to higher U.S. productivity and more jobs here at home. This is because economists overwhelmingly know it to be true. I saw Schumer on recently and he kept admitting it. The best he could do was ask "what if this time it's different and doesn't work like it always has in the past?"

Also, it seems to me manufacturing jobs went overseas a decade or three ago. I doubt there is a major outsourcing crisis, it's just election year media hype. Similar to 9-11 ad "outrage" and pretending the economy is a huge negative when it's now booming.