Looking at real outsourcing benefits to America.
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We've got some outsourcing statistics here for you from Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor: In the past year in America, employers have eliminated about 300,000 jobs in the U.S. in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere. Yet, about eight or nine million -- nine million! -- Americans currently work for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies.
Now, people talk about outsourcing a lot. The anxiety belies the numbers, and you can look at it, well, any number of ways. We in-source more jobs from foreign countries by four to five times than we outsource. We in-source about 6-1/2 million jobs, outsource, you know, 300,000 this year, and we're talking about a total of 140 million jobs overall of this country. It's a wash. In fact, it's a net gain, which is the point. If we're going to talk about outsourcing and we're going to be consistent about it, if we're going to stop outsourcing, we're going to build a wall around the country and no foreign companies can build factories here and employ American workers at the same time. You know, "outsourcing" has now come to be a bad word, and the Democrats are trying to associate outsourcing in this way. They actually want people to believe that the Bush administration wants Americans to lose their jobs so that American companies can profit more.
That is the insidious implication behind this outsourcing argument that the Democrats advance. And once again, throughout all of this, throughout all John Edwards' appearance last night and most of his comments, there is a decidedly America-is-to-blame kind of problem. There's a doom and gloom about his whole outlook as there is with John Kerry, and you always find America -- and particularly American corporations -- are to blame for everything with these people, and I just don't think this is the time people to want hear that.
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rushlimbaugh.com
Outsourcing anxiety belies facts, Chao says
Labor secretary touts jobs at foreign-owned companies.
Published Thursday, September 2, 2004
NEW YORK (AP) - Anxiety over the overseas outsourcing of work by American businesses is refuted by the number of jobs that have actually been moved elsewhere and ignores the millions of jobs that foreign companies have created in the United States, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said yesterday.
Chao added that she wasn’t trying to sound "callous." Rather, "I’m trying to get out the facts," she said.
In the past year, employers have eliminated about 300,000 jobs in United States in favor of cheaper labor in other countries, Chao said.
Yet about 9 million Americans currently work for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies, she said.
"People talk about" outsourcing "a lot," Chao said in an interview after stumping for President George W. Bush before Missouri delegates at the Republican National Convention. "The anxiety belies the numbers."
The labor secretary’s comments come after the Bush administration drew criticism for an economic report in February that stated that offshoring jobs "makes sense."
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is among those who have criticized Bush for American job losses to overseas workers. Kerry’s economic plan includes the elimination of federal tax credits for companies that send jobs overseas.
A Kerry campaign spokesman called Chao’s comments "stunning."
"Between Elaine Chao saying that people are being overanxious and Arnold Schwarzenegger calling people worried about losing their jobs ‘girlie men,’ I think it’s pretty clear the Republican Party and George Bush and his allies are out of touch with the anxiety" workers feel, said Kerry spokesman Bill Burton.
During a convention speech Tuesday night, Schwarzenegger declared: "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: ‘Don’t be economic girlie men!’ " The line was a reference to a Saturday Night Live spoof of him that he also used against Democratic California legislators earlier this year.
Chao said the Bush administration is concerned about every lost job, but realizes job shuffling is part of a dynamic economy that constantly requires workers to get new training. She said the Bush administration spends $23 billion on over 30 job training programs.
"We understand the concern and the anxiety on this issue," Chao said. "My point also is we live and work in a worldwide economy. ... If we isolate ourselves from this worldwide economy, we will put in jeopardy the 9 million jobs that Americans currently hold" in foreign-owned companies.
In Missouri, Democrats also have attacked not only Bush, but each other over outsourcing practices. State Auditor Claire McCaskill accused Gov. Bob Holden of acting too slowly in bringing back a government call center from India to the United States. McCaskill defeated Holden in the Aug. 3 Democratic primary.
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