It’s outrageous that despite one of the worst job creation records in history, and despite the 9.9 million Americans still out of work in our jobless “recovery,” the Bush administration has blessed sending more jobs overseas in its annual economic report to Congress.
In the report, the Bush administration admitted that its trade policies favor the outsourcing of good American jobs and the production of goods and services abroad at a cheaper rate than producing it in the United States. “When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make it or provide it domestically.” Lest anyone miss the point, Gregory Mankiw, President Bush’s chief economic advisor, emphasizes: “Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that’s a good thing.”
This point of view is not only completely insensitive to the pain that millions of unemployed workers and their families are suffering, it is also just plain dangerous for our nation’s future. The Bush administration's fiscal year 2005 budget proposes to slash dislocated worker and job training funds funding by almost $1 billion since 2001. These cuts not only harm American workers, they put our competitiveness at risk.
President Bush and his advisors should stem our outsourcing crisis, or the American voters will bring in someone who will.
Contact Guillermo Meneses 202-637-5018
