WHO LET THE JOBS OUT? WHO IS SENDING JOBS OVERSEAS?

Written by:Jonathon Moseley

Posted:Nov. 30th, 2012

Okay, who stole our jobs?

Democrats accuse Republicans of out-sourcing American jobs. But no one knows how this is happening. Republicans have no idea how they supposedly outsource jobs.

If someone started a petition saying “Let’s repeal section 99 U.S.C. Section 1234 to stop outsourcing jobs,” probably 80% to 90% of citizens and elected officials would rush to sign. The repeal of such a mythical section would probably take 48 hours to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President. But how can you repeal something if you don’t know what you want to repeal?

One of Mitt Romney’s great debate moments on October 3 exposed the Democrats’ charade. Barack Obama called for an end to tax breaks encouraging companies to send jobs overseas. Small problem: There aren’t any such tax breaks. Mitt Romney called him on it. Romney said he had been in business for over 25 years. Romney said he had never heard of any tax break encouraging businesses to send jobs overseas. No one seems to notice that the Democrats want to eliminate a tax break or other laws that they don’t identify.

No one seems to know who is responsible… or how the jobs are disappearing. It’s the mystery of the purloined jobs. No one wants jobs to leave. Yet it’s always someone else’s fault.

Curiously, liberals have no problem with illegal aliens flooding America’s job market and stealing U.S. jobs inside America. So are Democrats concerned about American workers? Or do they simply want to smear and discredit Republicans?

So what’s the real problem… and the solution? We have been losing jobs for decades, sinking into a third-world country. American manufacturing has been in decay for a long time.

Obviously, the Democrats’ War on Business is driving employers out of the United States and pushing jobs overseas. Tea party activists know that well. That is another discussion in itself.

Washington dumps smothering regulations on the economy. Government strangles production and manufacturing through added costs and uncertainty. Lawyers and judges have allowed ridiculous and frivolous lawsuits to strangle industry. Businesses cannot plan and investors will not risk their money when regulation and the business climate are constantly changing. Businesses require certainty.

Unless the Democrats’ War on Business ends, nothing will save the U.S. economy. According to Time Magazine, the USA now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, after Japan lowered its corporate tax rate on April 1, 2012: We’re #1! U.S. Officially Has the Top Corporate Tax Rate. Or Not.

Time Magazine tries desperately to soften this fact by pointing out that the tax rate might not always be the percentage of gross income actually paid in taxes. But that is always true in every other country. Comparing apples to apples, the USA has the highest taxes on taxes on corporations on the planet.

Democrats also try to argue that U.S. taxes aren’t really the highest because the percentage of corporate taxes paid as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is higher in some other countries. But that just means that their economies are smaller and in worse shape.

Americans also need to remember that this represents triple taxation: First investors paid taxes when they earned their money. Then they invest their money. Then the corporation pays income taxes a second time on the company. Then the investor again pays taxes, a third time, on the distribution of dividends or the sale of the stock.

So what is really causing American jobs to disappear? It started as an impulse to help poor and developing countries, when we thought our economy was infinitely resilient. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson gave this a gigantic push. So we lowered our “tariffs” on imports (taxes or duty on imported products) from poor and developing countries. The idea was to help them sell their products and develop their economies.

But then something perverse happened. U.S. factories moved. Instead of purchasing imported products native to poor countries, U.S. factories closed their doors in the U.S.A. and re-opened the exact same factory in another country. They sold the exact same products back into the U.S. market. That’s not what was originally intended.

The giant sucking sound, as Ross Perot put it was fueled by a monstrous lie. Trade treaties and trade regimes started to pretend that products are products of Taiwan if last week they were manufactured in the U.S.A. but this week they are manufactured in Taiwan. Who’re ya kidding? Those are not products of that other country.

Which country a product originates from has enormous legal significance in trade treaties, tariff calculations, and trade laws. So the same product is treated very differently if it is categorized as coming from one country instead of another. The same product can bear two totally different tariff (tax) rates when it comes from one country instead of another.

So the problem is that we pretend that a product manufactured in Ohio last year is legitimately a product of China after the U.S. factory moves to China this year. The product was developed, refined and perfected in Ohio. The intellectual property was developed in Ohio. The expertise and engineering know-how was contributed in Ohio. Market demand for the product broke ground and was developed from Ohio. But after the U.S.A. perfects the product and there is a proven market in Ohio, the cream is skimmed off and transplanted to China.

Ohio Congressional Republican candidate Paul Schiffer proposed legislation in 2010 that Republicans should introduce in 2013. I call it the “Who’re-Ya-Foolin’ Bill of 2013.”

Schiffer’s Bill makes a distinction between native products of a foreign country and U.S. products that were simply transplanted from U.S. factories to the foreign country. Schiffer’s Bill designates “transplanted U.S. products” as not qualifying to be considered actual products of that foreign country within the system of trade laws.

Transplanted U.S. products would not be entitled to the same trade tariffs under Schiffer’s Bill. Under certain conditions, transplanted U.S. products would actually be treated as an infringement of U.S. intellectual property, and subject to punitive tariffs.

One of the reasons for the rise of the tea party is the sense that our national leaders have seemingly lost their minds, by putting their personal interests and special interests ahead of the national good. Nothing is more important than strengthening the country economically.

###

JonathonMoseley

Jonathon Moseley is a Board member of the Northern Virginia Tea Party, and Executive Director of American Border Control. He served as Executive Director of the Legal Affairs Council. Moseley began his political activism as co-chairman of the Reagan/Bush re-election campaign for the University of Florida with Tony Ring, and joined the Speaker’s Bureau for High Frontier (which created Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative for missile defense), later working for High Frontier. Moseley was second in command of the Center for Peace in Freedom under John Kwapisz, which was created by the Heritage Foundation. Moseley has worked in dozens of election campaigns, including serving as campaign manager and treasurer for Christine O’Donnell’s 2008 nomination contest for the United States Senate from Delaware.
He is also a criminal defense attorney in Virginia, also having extensive experience in general litigation of all kinds. He was a missionary to Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, and also taught business there. Mr. Moseley studied Physics at Hampshire College, then earned a degree in Finance from the University of Florida, where he was also a columnist for the university newspaper, and a law degree from George Mason University.

Show full bio

•