The Orbis

Referring to the growing trend in job exportation, N. Gregory Mankiw, the head of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, remarked, “More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that’s a good thing.”

In its four years, the Bush administration has consistently supported outsourcing, arguing that shipping low-skilled jobs overseas allows corporations to increase profits by taking advantage of cheap foreign labor. The higher profits, in turn, allow businesses to invest and expand, which creates jobs requiring advanced skills.

In fact, a recent poll of 100 academic economists conducted by the British magazine The Economist found that the vast majority of those polled believe that outsourcing is not a significant problem for the American economy. Open markets, according to economic theory, promote prosperity for all sides involved.

However, critics of outsourcing have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the growing trend of job exportation, especially in light of the loss of over one million manufacturing jobs that has taken place during Bush’s first term. John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, said that the Bush administration’s free-trade position on outsourcing is, “not only completely insensitive to the pain that millions of unemployed workers and their families are suffering, it is also just plain dangerous for our nation’s future.”

Globalization has allowed American corporations to take advantage of laborers in third-world countries willing to perform menial work for paltry wages, but there is growing concern about how corporations are now shipping more skilled functions overseas at the expense of American workers.

For example, India boasts a rapidly growing IT industry and one of the world’s hottest markets for white-collar work. As a result, American companies have established centers in India to handle tech-support calls from American customers.

Despite critics’ claims that the Bush administration’s support of such trends harms the American worker, the administration actually has little control over whether or not corporations decide to move their operations overseas and replace American workers with foreign laborers.

During the presidential campaign, John Kerry led the opposition by citing tax incentives for sending jobs overseas as one of Bush’s failures. The section of the tax code that Kerry often referred to makes it so an American corporation’s overseas profits cannot be taxed until the profits return to the United States. Corporations then have the incentive to keep profits overseas and reinvest outside of America.

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