American voters must put a stop to it

Pursuant to Edward Nixon’s Feb. 24 letter (“Outsourcing jobs: American workers, customers suffering”), since early 2001, when President Bush took office, the U.S. economy has lost almost 3 million jobs, many well-paying in manufacturing and in the high-tech sector. The Labor Department estimates that 15 ercent of those were outsourced to low-wage countries such as China, Mexico, India and the Philippines.

Yet the president brags that our economy continues to improve! But former Treasury Department official Paul Craig Roberts noted: “In November (2003) the U.S. economy was able to create only 50,000 private sector jobs – almost all in low-paying services … such jobs cannot support families, and most might be filled by recent legal and illegal immigrants.”

In the two-year period ending November 2003, the economy created roughly 500,000 jobs capable of sustaining middle-class lifestyles which, according to Roberts “is offset by the loss of 549,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 12 months. During the second year of recovery, the overall economy experienced a net loss of 183,000 private jobs…”

Bob Davis, general manager of Modern Die Systems, Inc. in Elwood, Ind. concluded, “Our government has set it up so that it’s unprofitable to manufacture here in the U.S. Our country’s entire production capacity will be stripped bare if this continues, and with it will go all of the jobs in small-and medium-sized independent businesses that are the bedrock of the American middle class.”

The Bush administration’s Republican and Democratic allies in Congress have given no indication of reversing this disastrous course. In fact, they are proposing actions that would prove to be even more catastrophic for American workers.

Congress can overrule these irresponsible bureaucratic regulations, but only if enough American voters come to their senses and demand it.

Bothell