The Obama campaign's assault on Romney's Bain outsourcing is working. Romney's Bain connection rather than being an asset, showing he was a successful businessman, has become an albatross around his neck. The polls show that swing state voters see Romney as using Bain to outsource jobs.
So the Romney campaign and the GOP are fighting back, as they often do, with nastier same medicine the Dems dish out. They're accusing Obama of outsourcing using TARP and other government funds.
The problem is... reality.
Even Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal reports that for the most part, what the GOP calls outsourcing was America buying products aimed at reducing dependence on foreign oil-- parts for wind turbines and the like. The right wing has massively attacked Obama for his attempts to get a US solar energy industry going, with American workers. It's ironic that when his programs use funds for renewable energy, that would stop sending money to the middle east, they get so upset. Then again, Big Oil is who they are loyal to.
The WSJ reports that Korean workers were seen at a factory. Well, it ends up that about a dozen highly specialized experts WERE at the factory a Korean owned factory, setting up in the US, aimed at hiring US workers. The Koreans were there to set up the production and equipment. That's not exactly outsourcing. Here's what the WSJ had to say
One involves a $151 million federal grant that went to help set up a lithium-ion battery plant for electric cars called LG Chem Michigan Inc. in Holland, Mich. The company is a subsidiary of LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea.
A local labor union said that workers saw Koreans taking part in the plant construction. They complained that local workers were being sidelined in favor of Korean nationals on a project underwritten by U.S. taxpayers. The RNC website says this was "work that Americans easily could have done."
But Randy Boileau, a spokesman for LG Chem, said the company "didn't ask people to come over and perform general-contracting labor or craft work. These were highly technical people who were there to assist in the transfer of the [battery] technology.'' During construction, no more than 10 to 12 Koreans were on the job, he said.
Department of Energy spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said the plant is "an illustration of in-sourcing in action." The department's grants, she said, "spurred international companies to move manufacturing plants to the U.S., where they trained and hired hundreds of U.S. workers."
There's spending money in foreign nations to buy goods that help create US jobs and there is the real outsourcing, hiring foreign workers and moving production overseas to replace US workers. Obama did the first. Romney did the latter.
Sadly, this example, that could be used to defend Obama, is also an example of how transnational corporations are gradually sucking the life out of America. This LG Chem company is still a Korean owned company and will not have loyalty to the US. Other nations only allow foreign companies to PARTNER with companies within their nation. That's how China does it. The problem is, both parties in congress are far to corporation friendly. US workers's interests come a distant second to corporate interests.
That could be changed by taking money out of politics and getting the US out of transnational trade agreements. The American people need to make this happen if they are to survive the corporate vampires sucking the life out of the American economy.
