The Kerry campaign web site has a very misleading or simply wrong segment on it about jobs and offshoring
here ...
The Kerry campaign web site has a very misleading or simply wrong segment on it about jobs and offshoring
here:
John Kerry Kicks-Off Jobs Tour
While Bush Sends Jobs Overseas, Kerry Takes Action to Keep Jobs at Home
February 24, 2004
While President Bush continues to send jobs overseas, today Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, elected officials and labor leaders will fan out to Super Tuesday states as part of a nationwide jobs tour to meet and talk with workers about the devastating impact of the Bush economy on middle class families and outline John Kerry's plan to put America back on track ...
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Kerry will hold a two-day dialogue with workers in Ohio and Minnesota. In Ohio today, John Kerry will stand with locked-out workers in a closed steel mill in Struthers and then walk with those workers to a revitalized plant to see first-hand the manufacturing jobs that can be created when communities invest in a working America.
During the tour of the closed Youngstown Sheet and Tube Struthers Works, Rod & Wire Division, Kerry will meet workers who have been recently locked out of their manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing workers in Ohio have struggled to maintain their jobs and wages, losing 160,100 manufacturing jobs since George W. Bush took office. And under George W. Bush's plan to cut overtime pay, another 351,795 workers in Ohio would see their pay cut even as they spend more time away from their families. With high unemployment and a declining manufacturing base, Ohio embodies the President's failed economic policies ....
"When given the chance to compete, American workers are the best. There's no question. But George W. Bush is undercutting the value of American workers and denying our generation the chance to bring America up to her potential," Kerry said.
"Under President Bush's watch, this country has lost 3 million jobs [Ed: 2.4 mil] and our manufacturing workforce is at a more than fifty year low. We've gone from the biggest surpluses to the biggest deficits in our history. He inherited the strongest economy in the world - and brought it to its knees. This President promised that his tax cuts would create 3.9 million new jobs. So far he's lost 3 million. Now, after promising to create 2.6 million jobs this year, even his own Cabinet is telling us not to believe him." ...
This is simply NOT going to wash. While, throughout the web site, Kerry refers to Bush having lost "3 million jobs" - 2.4 million does not round up to 3 million, thanks, this is not the worst dishonesty. Nor is it the worst dishonesty to specifically conflate the job loss issue with the loss of a revenues surplus, as this press release indicates. During a recession, a government can go into deficit ("lose a surplus") and still create jobs (here of the Public Works Administration before?) and it is duplicitous for Kerry to conflate the loss of the surplus with the loss of jobs.
Kerry voted for NAFTA. Kerry supports GATT, FTAA, and Kerry voted TWICE to give Bush fast-track trade pact authority.
John Kerry supports the free trade rules that are offshoring middle class programming jobs, that are offshoring blue collar manufacturing jobs. John Kerry has participated in the removal of jobs from America. John Kerry has been a friend of George Bush, and tried to give him fast-track authority. The rules of so-called "free trade" are what allows job offshoring to happen so quickly. When Alan Greenspan speaks about government leaving its hands off the offshoring of jobs, he refers to "trade wars" and "protectionist measures" as consequences. Jobs offshoring is about "free" trade - the very "free" trade John Kerry has been such a proponent of in the Senate.
It is NOT Bush's policies alone that are sending jobs overseas. It is Bush's and Kerry's policies. The only literally true complaint in the press release is the issue of the attacks on overtime pay. That is a good complaint. But the entire issue of manufacturing and high-tech jobs being shipped overseas, as the title of the press release suggests, has only been made worse by Kerry's unrepentant religious adherence to so-called "free" trade.
The level of dishonesty in this nonsense on his campaign web site is profound, and it is simply unnacceptable to lie like this in the pursuit of the Presidency. We want to believe that Bush is the only Big Liar. Not John Kerry too.
Note to "electability" people: easily countered dishonesties don't make for "electability. If this press release epitomizes Kerry's soon-to-emerge public position on jobs, the Bush campaign will actually be able to respond with: "... but Senator, there are only 2.4 million jobs lost, not 3. What is that, fuzzy math? But Senator, you voted for NAFTA. Why are you complaining about its results? But Senator, you voted twice to give Bush fast-track authority in the last 3 years ... why are you complaining about Bush's trade policies?"
