Obama Attacks. Whiffs.
Saturday, September 13th, 2008
Looks like Obama did go on the attack today:
“Just ask the machinists in Pennsylvania who build Harley-Davidsons,” Obama said of McCain’s record. “Because John McCain didn’t just oppose the requirement that the government buy American-made motorcycles, he called Buy American provisions ‘disgraceful.’ Just ask the workers across this country who have seen their jobs outsourced. The very companies that shipped their jobs overseas have been rewarded with billions of dollars in tax breaks that John McCain supports and plans to continue.
“So, when American workers hear John McCain talking about putting ‘Country First,’” Obama said, “it’s fair to ask –- which country?”
ABC’s Jake Tapper says this is the “dictionary definition” of attacking someone’s patriotism. I don’t think so, though I’d guess my definition of patriotism is different than others’. Obama’s questioning McCain’s loyalty to American workers, not to American ideas.
But it is a cynical example of demagogic, ignorant, class warfare economics. “Outsourcing” isn’t the cause of the sour economy, though it may well be contributing to the slowdown in places like Ohio and Michigan (but more than making up for it elsewhere in cheaper goods and services). But what’s causing the outsourcing? It’s of no coincidence that the states losing the most manufacturing jobs also tend to be the states with the least business-friendly tax laws and regulations. America’s highest-in-the-world corporate income tax probably isn’t helping, either.
Look at it this way: It says a lot about the U.S. tax and regulatory burden when a company determines it’s actually cheaper to close a plant, build a new one in a developing country, train new workers, and absorb the risk of less secure institutions like property rights and the enforcement of contracts in that country than to continue to do business in the U.S.
Oddly, one part of Barack Obama’s economic plan is to offer tax breaks to businesses willing to relocate plants they’ve moved overseas back within U.S. borders. Here’s an idea: If that plan will actually work, why not just lower the overall tax burden to the point where the companies won’t relocate in the first place?
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