US Senator Gets Tongue Tied in India Over Offshoring

Seattle - Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is the latest politician embroiled in controversy on the hot-button topic of outsourcing and offshoring of U.S. jobs and the impacts of corporate globalization.

Baucus’s office strongly disputed the AP story by saying that the Senator was misquoted. “The whole point of my trip is to try to get at the problem of outsourcing and keep and create jobs at home,” said the Senator in a written statement. It went on to say that, “Any job lost to outsourcing is too many, but we can’t kid ourselves or stick our heads in the sand.
Some jobs are going move around in the global marketplace. That’s a reality.”

The original article also reported that Baucus said, "But the world is flat and we must work harder to better retrain our people," rather than resist offshoring, he said. "Offshoring is a fact of globalization.
Opportunities for U.S. companies come from everywhere including India."

The “world is flat” comment could be a reference to the best-selling book “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, who is a New York Times columnist. The thrust of the book is similar to the pro-globalization view shared by many politicians in both parties.

Senator Baucus is one of the nation’s most powerful Democratic Senators. In his position as the ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, he can influence U.S. tax and trade policy. His pro-labor activities have included voting against CAFTA and supporting the expansion of the Trade Act Adjustment Assistance for Service Sector Workers. He is a key Democratic swing voter on trade issues.

The problem with Senator Baucus’ beliefs about globalization is that it facilitates a fast paced race to the bottom. There are essentially two types of Globalization. One which allows people to enjoy aspects of cultures from around the world. I can’t think of anyone who would be opposed to Indian food or Russian Vodka. The other type of Globalization is a scheme which puts the American worker in direct competition with workers who make about one fifth of we make. This is also known as Neo-liberalism. Our governments have lifted the protections of its citizens in favor of protecting the Trans-National Corporations.

This type of Globalization is not competition on an equal basis; but is a slaughter of the American middle class.

What I don’t understand is why do politicians like Baucus want to push Americans out the door? Doesn’t he realize that the middle class carries the brunt of the tax burden? If we cannot pay our taxes, who will? Certainly not corporations. We, the Rabble, are completely unprotected – our livelihoods are in jeopardy while multinational corporations are sheilded by The World Trade Organization.

The solution to Neo-liberal Globalization is simple – we abandon the WTO and go back to the Tariff System that Adam Smith wrote of in The Wealth of Nations.