John Edwards writes a letter to Bush regarding the loss of American jobs

[SangamonTaylor]

Dear Mr. President:

I read with interest today's article in the Los Angeles Times entitled, "Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas." The article notes the statement of N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of your Council of Economic Advisors, that, "Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade." Mr. Mankiw added: "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing." I noted a similar passage in CEA's report released yesterday.

To my mind, these statements show incredible indifference to our country's job loss. I respectfully request answers from your administration to the following questions:

Is it "a good thing" that some 1 million American jobs have gone overseas since March 2001?
Is it "a good thing" that high-paying manufacturing jobs are leaving America and being replaced with low-paying services jobs?
Is it "a good thing" when companies lay off fairly paid workers in the United States and replace them with workers in other nations who are paid pennies per hour to work in terrible conditions?
Is it a "a good thing" that America's manufacturing sector, which brought us through World War II to unprecedented prosperity, has now lost jobs for 42 months in a row?
Would it be "a good thing" if the current members of the Council of Economic Advisors saw their jobs outsourced to economists elsewhere in America who better understand the need to save good jobs?

I look forward to hearing from you."

[efront]

1. Nice!

nm

[denverbill]

2. Same thing I, many others here, and even freepers have been saying.

Only we've been saying it for months, or years.

I haven't heard one peep from most of the candidates on this issue, or another almost equally important one: illegal immigration. The net result of both job exports and illegal immigration is the same: good American jobs are lost, poor non-American jobs are created.

[Taeger]

7. An interesting aspect to globalization

So, it's no secret that America is hemorraging jobs left and right. Even the "white collar" engineering jobs are going overseas.

But the Indians claim that America's big advantage is in agriculture. Someone has to feed those 1 billion Indians, and America is just the country to do it.

The problem is that all the growth in agriculture employment comes from ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!

I'm re-reading Greg Palasts "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". I'm trying to remember all the points. These globalizers have some pretty slick lines that sound compelling, especially to us folks who actually GIVE A SHIT about living standards overseas.

He has a LOT of dirt on Bechtel in particular. Bechtel owns a firm called IWL that gobbled up water services in "globalized" countries. Then they jacked up the rates and lowered the service level.

They're doing a similarly shitty job in Iraq right now. Just thought I'd pop that off.

[spooky3]

10. Edwards has had this on his website for as long as

I can remember also. You are all on the same page.

[Killarney]

3. thumbs up,edwards!

[ShaneGR]

4. BINGO, good job... and to Kucinich too

Kuch jumped on this like flies to ****, glad to see my guy getting in on it too.

[coloradodem2005]

5. Nice...

...my respect for Edwards went way up. I am glad to see any of these candidates take shrub to task on this hot-button issue.

[DjTj]

6. Edwards said, "What planet are these people from?"

...at his first big stump speech after this report came out.

I was there in Fairfax where he said, "Apparently it's a good thing that American jobs are going overseas. What planet are these people from?"

The crowd loved that.

[AP]

8. CBS spun that as anti-bush populist rhetoric that was backfiring on Edward

they played the clip "what planet..." completely out of the context of the jobs comment.

They're trying to portray him as a hater. On one level, it was kind of cool to see CBS try to spin him out of the race. It's a good sign.

[mlawson]

11. Is CBS trying the "Edwards is MEAN" strategy???

Don't laugh, the 'liberal' media did it to Carter in 1980, when he tried to point out Ronnie's extremism, and it worked. Ronnie would just shrug and say, "There you go again", and everyone said "Awwwwww", and Carter came off the bad guy.

Millions of voters weren't very smart back then, as well. Edwards must attack bush, but it is a thin line; he must be careful, and also, DEMAND that the media report his comments in full. Time for a war room.

[spooky3]

9. I think the first sentence will confuse *.

He may not understand that other Presidential contenders actually read newspapers themselves.

[Patriarch]

12. Interesting

It looks like the pundits were right, outsourcing is going to become a BIG topic this election year.

I love how people keep on saying "well, don't worry about it, we'll just do the next big thing".

Very few people cared when manufacturing jobs went overseas, as a similar rallying cry went out:

"Don't worry about it. We'll innovate the market and come up with new ideas."

White-collar jobs are now going overseas. It's not just programmers and tech support anymore, it's pharmeceuticals, research, etc.

So how exactly will we work on the "next big thing" if all the jobs that we need to get there are being sent overseas?

At any rate, kudos to John Edwards for calling Bush on this. I'm glad that the top two candidates are going to fight outsourcing.

[nancyharris]

13. Glad to see Senator Edwards joining the Kucinich platform

But as long as he supports NAFTA and WTO this is nothing but political rhetoric. Just what does Senator Edwards intend to DO about the job loss in America? All well and good to blame President Bush but once he is president just what is it he intends to do?

[spooky3]

14. he doesn't support them

go to JohnEdwards2004.com for answers to your questions.

[AP]

15. Edwards started in '98 on an anti-NAFTA platform.

And what does he intend on doing? Reign in the corporatocracy. We're losing jobs because big bus wants to drive up unemployment, to devalue labor, so that corps can see bigger profits, with people living off of debt as wage slaves.

Edwards knows the score.

[nancyharris]

16. What?

<” Reign in the corporatocracy.”

More empty platitudes. How will he do this? What laws does he want passed? What changes does he believe need to be made in the tax code? Where will the jobs come from? Please a few answers to real questions and a bit less pandering for easy votes.

I see nothing on his web site that indicates he is against NAFTA and the WTO. According to his web site his plan is to “offer tax incentives for companies to manufacture here in America”. OH GREAT! Just what we need. Give the corporations MORE tax breaks!

[spooky3]

17. Why don't you do some work before you criticize?

No one said anything about NAFTA or WTO positions being articulated on his website. He was not in the Senate at that time. YOU are the one claiming he supports them; YOU need to show the evidence that he does. You have NOT done so. You also claim he has taken positions from Kucinich, with no evidence to support that claim.

You can, however, read about his positions AND THEIR SPECIFICS regarding trade policy and see the extent to which they consistent or inconsistent with NAFTA or WTO. You can find other info by googling if you really are interested.

What I did say was that the answers to your other questions were on his website, and they are. So are answers to the questions you are now proposing. Since you seem to have difficulty finding them, maybe this will be helpful:

"Just what does Senator Edwards intend to DO about the job loss in America? All well and good to blame President Bush but once he is president just what is it he intends to do? (then repeating...) How will he do this? What laws does he want passed? What changes does he believe need to be made in the tax code? Where will the jobs come from?"

http://www.johnedwards2004.com/economy-create.asp

excerpt: "Our country needs to enforce the trade agreements that we have on the books." "As president, Edwards will be a tough negotiator on trade, and will only negotiate trade Agreements that meet these basic principles: (then articulated)" "He will give a 10 percent tax cut to corporations that produce goods here and keep jobs at home. Edwards will stop corporations from getting tax cuts for renouncing their citizenship."

If you do not believe or understand how tax policy affects corporate behavior, you need to take some business courses.

http://www.johnedwards2004.com/corporate-responsibility.asp

This page spells out at length how he would cap executive pay and enact a workers' and shareholders' bill of rights to redistribute power as two examples out of many.

http://www.johnedwards2004.com/budget-and-taxes.asp

This page leads you to information about his specific tax proposals to encourage homebuying, saving, and retirement accounts. It also describes how he would eliminate the unduly beneficial treatment of unearned (investment) income for high income taxpayers, cut "corporate welfare" subsidies, control HMO misbehavior and many other proposals.

There are quite a few other links on the website. You can follow them for more information.

[SangamonTaylor]

18. there ya go spooky, beat me to it!

[nancyharris]

19. Much like Senator Kerry, Senator Edwards’s rhetoric

does not match his record or his actions. I refer you to thomas.loc.gov where one can see how Senator Edwards votes on each bill during his term in the US Senate.

The facts are that he voted in favor of the China trade agreement (HR444), in favor of the Vietnam trade agreement (HJRES51), in favor of removing common goods from security export trade regulations (S149) and voted AGAINST a trade agreement with 70 countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean that would require them to meet eligibility requirements protecting freedoms of expression and freedom of association (HR434). In ALL of these trade bills Senator Edwards voted WITH President Bush and the Republicans. On one hand he has righly criticised the president's trade policy but on the other hand he has enabled it. He may indeed talk about getting tough in trade negotiations but his actions don’t support his words.

The reason companies rely on overseas labor is because it is cheaper to do so and thus more profits to be made. They do not have to pay high wages but as importantly they don’t have to pay Social Security, pension or health benefits. Senator Edwards says he will give “TAX BREAKS” for companies to hire American workers. Well… that tax break would have to be extremely substantial to overcome the profit margin realized by off-shoring labor.

The answer to the off-shoring of American jobs is not to give corporations more tax breaks but rather to pull out of NAFTA and WTO trade agreements and apply tariffs on the importation of goods from American companies that manufacture their materials outside the United States.

Read a few of Congressman Kucinich’s speeches if you would like a lesson in real-world non corporate economics.