Orwell was off by 20 years.... outsourcing jobs is good, record trade deficits are good....http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/11/ldt.00.htmlDOBBS: Christine Romans, thank you. Christine will be back with us here later to report on China's unseen, but growing and profound impact on world markets and economies.
My next guest will give a speech next week on Capitol Hill defending American companies that outsource work outside this country. Congressman David Dreier says outrage over American jobs being lost to overseas cheap labor markets is simply unfounded.
Congressman Dreier joins us tonight from Washington.
Good to have you with us, Congressman.
REP. DAVID DREIER (R), CALIFORNIA: Always good to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: The withdrawal by the president of Mr. Raimondo tonight as the manufacturing czar, your reaction?
DREIER: Well, this obviously was a decision that was made in concert with the White House. And Suzanne just reported it didn't have to do directly with the fact that, of 1,000 employees, he had 180 in China. I don't know all the details of it.
But this is a new position that's been established under Secretary Don Evans and I'm convinced they'll have someone there. I mean, I think, Lou, if you look at the issue of manufacturing jobs, we really actually are doing well in many areas. For example, we're right now in the midst of putting together -- we've had it completed and I hope the Congress will be able to vote before too long on an Australia free trade agreement.
Do you know that 93 percent of what the United States exports to Australia today are actually manufactured goods and, under this agreement, 99 percent of them will be able to go terror-free into Australia. So we actually are seeing some improvement. And, also, we've seen a tremendous increase in the number of computer software engineering jobs over the past few years.
And so I think that -- you know, I don't want to say this is much ado about nothing, but I think we've got to look at this issue and realize that we do still have a strong economy. ---snip---
DOBBS: I think it's fair to say Congressman Dreier and I have strongly held and resolute views on the subject which do not necessarily match.
The trade deficit, how concerned are you about it? We haven't been able to run a surplus in this country for more than 20 years.
DREIER: Well, let me tell you, it's such an interesting thing, because you regularly rail about the issue of the trade deficit.
And we need to look at what the trade deficit actually is. What it means is, the United States economy is strong enough, the consumers in this country are strong enough to be able to buy products from other countries throughout the world. That is a strength of ours. And if you look throughout history, when you have a trade surplus, our economy is, in fact, slowing down.
It's during the times that our economy is strongest that we actually have a trade deficit with the rest of the world. It means what we're able to buy vs. what the rest of the world is able to buy from us. And so I think it's very, very clear that our strength is in our ability to be able to have access to products from around the world. The world has access to our consumer market, by and large. And that helps the single mother who's trying to make ends meet by going to Kmart or Wal-Mart or Target to buy toys for her children, clothes for her children.
That improves the standard of living in his country. And so it's our strength that allows us to do that. -----
and the golden shovel for shoveling the largest pile of bushit and for digging the biggest hole goes to......
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