Outsourcing Caused State Deficits, Not The Unions

Excellent article, but makes common mistake of blaming the problem solely on Republicans and conservatives.  Remember, Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA, but has made no steps in that direction.---rng

An interesting solution to a very pressing problem.-------lee

from politicususa.com

March 22, 2011

By Ray Medeiros

The American population is beginning to awaken to the harm corporations have done to the American worker by shipping our jobs to low wage countries like China and India. The outsourcing of American manufacturing has put a damper on our state budgets. The budget deficits are not caused by unions and their pay packages as the conservatives want you to believe, it is simply caused by lack of jobs. Every time a factory closes, it reduces revenue going to the state, and ultimately causes deficits. In the last ten years 2001-2011 the United States has lost 58,000 factories.

According to Alliance for American Manufacturing,

1. The U.S. lost at least $245 billion in manufacturing wages in the last decade due to 5.5 million lost manufacturing jobs. That doesn’t even include the “ripple effect” through other sectors.

2. Ending China’s currency manipulation would create more than 1 million jobs, add to economic growth, and reduce the budget deficit by $500 billion over the next six years. 

3. If California had held its share of manufacturing jobs from 2000-2007, its state budget would be in balance.

Unfortunately there are those who still adhere and believe the conservative free trade mantra is good for everyone. The Wall Street Journal editorial board sides with the World trade Organization and Communist China over American businesses and workers. In the editorial WSJ states;

“Amid all the bad news in the U.S.-China trading relationship, a recent World Trade Organization ruling comes as a breath of fresh air. An appellate panel in Geneva has sent Washington back to the drawing board with regard to a particularly unfair bit of trade “enforcement.”

     Apart from the Wall Street Journal’s applauding of the decision of the globalists, many manufacturers are looking to come back to the United States due to rising logistics and transport costs. In a report by Accenture, 61% of manufacturing executives surveyed said they were considering moving their supply to the demand market in which was the ultimate destination.

     “But now that oil and transportation prices have gone up, productivity gains are not as big as they were, and there are issues around risk in supply chains, companies are starting to go where the customers are, instead of where the raw materials are.” -Matt Reilly, Accenture’s managing director of process and innovation performance. 

      Once these factories come back to the United States, the deficits will begin to disappear. People will begin to go back to work and the attack on unions by the conservatives would be seen as an attack on middle class America and not about deficits or spending at all.

 to read original article and comments