Anti-outsourcing measure passes despite opposition by Kyl and McCain

by Mike Sunnucks

The Business Journal, March 8, 2004

An anti-foreign-outsourcing measure has been approved by the U.S. Senate as worries continue to grow over the shipping of U.S. jobs to cheaper foreign markets. The Senate has approved a measure that restricts federal contractors from moving jobs offshore and imposes similar prohibitions on states and their contractors.

The proposal was attached to a larger bill and passed 70-26.

Arizona's two pro-free trade senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, voted against the measure. All the no votes to the measure came from Republicans, although some GOP lawmakers joined Democrats in the winning majority.

Major U.S. employers, including several with a large presence in the Valley, are getting heat of late for shipping manufacturing, computer and support jobs to India, China and other Asian markets. There are several anti-outsourcing bills in Congress and state assemblies. Tucson Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva is a co-sponsor of one of the measures that has been introduced in the U.S. House.

Foreign outsourcing and exporting of jobs is being blamed for sluggish national job growth and losses in Arizona's manufacturing, semiconductor and call center sectors. It's also become a top issue in the presidential campaign. MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, has begun running television ads in Phoenix and other key markets critical of President George W. Bush's economic policies and record.

See: http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2004/03/08/daily2.html

For more: http://www.senate.gov and http://www.moveon.org

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Outsourcing is bad, insourcing is better

by Josephine Hearn, jhearn@thehill.com

The HILL, March 9, 2004

Stung by Democrats' attacks on the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas, Republicans have begun to emphasize "insourcing" -- a catchy new term that describes the friendlier flip side of free trade.

Insourcing is the movement of foreign jobs to the United States. Conventionally known as foreign direct investment, insourcing has risen in recent years as more foreign firms set up operations in America. . .

. . .Thea Lee, chief international economist at the AFL-CIO, said: "I think everybody welcomes inward foreign direct investment, especially when people pay good wages and don't bust unions and so on." But she cautioned that current trade numbers showed that even with insourcing, U.S. workers were on balance losing. "In terms of international engagement, we are on the losing end of that equation," she said.

Outsourced jobs outnumber insourced ones by 3.4 million, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

See: http://www.thehill.com/news/030904/insourcing.aspx

Outsourcing is a very minor part of the economy. Try harder, victicrats...sooner or later you'll find a half-truth that sticks with voters.