Last night, I was watching Lou Dobbs and Commere Secretary Don Evans was on. The transcript is available here:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/17/ldt.00.html
Here are the points that stuck out to me:
EVANS: ...And we expect that there's going to be a level playing feel for the American workers.
DOBBS: A level playing field. As Peter Viles just reported, the Chinese, other nations as well, here in the United States recruiting with American corporations, suggesting that they move their enterprises to China, because you can hire 10 times as many, in the case of the Peter Viles report today, 10 software engineers for each one that you can hire in the United States.
EVANS: Yes.
Lou, listen, we're the most competitive nation in the world. And one of the things my travel across America really rang clearly to me was that we can compete against anybody on a level playing field. And that's true today. And so, when I think about the competition around the world and maybe lower wage rates in other countries, I assure you that this work force of ours in America can compete with anybody in the world, white collar or blue collar, as long as it's a level playing feel, we're all playing by the same rules.
Right now, our workers have got a choke collar around them, not only because of some of the unfair trade practices around the world, but also, quite frankly, Lou, a choke collar just because of some -- health care costs are rising dramatically in this country. The lawsuit burden that these companies face here in America is causing an excess burden on our manufacturers. So I'm not concerned about us competing with the rest of the world, as long as we're on a level playing field.
DOBBS: Well, I love what you said earlier this week. We can compete, blue-collar workers, white-collar works. It's the choke collar we have a problem with.
The choke collar, though, goes beyond health care costs and to litigation costs. It goes to the issue of environmental laws that American business employers have to deal with, as well as their workers. It goes to a host of other issues. The playing field is not level. The American worker is getting simply killed in this environment. Is this something that the administration, that you, Mr. Secretary, are going to deal with right away?
EVANS: Well, we are.
The president is going to deal with it. He has been dealing with it for the first 2 1/2 years of this administration, to begin with., We needed to cut the tax burden on the backs of the American people and American businesses all across this nation. And because of his leadership and three successive tax cuts, we're seeing our economy to begin to pick up steam now. GDP, as you know, in the second quarter was 3.1 percent.
We expect -- most economists expect it to be in the 4 to 5 percent range in the third and fourth quarter. But the president recently came out with an economic growth agenda that focused on the topics that you just talked about, rising health care costs. We need medical liability reform that's come out of the House to his desk. We need an energy bill to get to his desk. We need legal reform in this country to remove the lawsuit burden on the backs of the American people and American workers. And we also need to make tax cuts permanent, because families, as well as businesses, like to plan their future. And it's awful tough to plan your future if you don't know what the rules are going to be in the years head.
So the president was very strong about the permanency and certainty of tax cuts. This is what will create the conditions for more jobs in America. And, as I have said many, many times, the top three economic priorities of this administration and the president, the first one is jobs. The second one is jobs. And the third one is jobs. And we're going to continue to fight very hard for creating the conditions for creating more jobs in our economy.
DOBBS: Mr. Secretary, I think that most of us would, certainly at the very least, hypothetically, sign up for everything that you just said, endorse it, agree with you. I'll stipulate it.
At the same time, we can't grow our way out of the situation we have now. We cannot grow our way economically into a level playing field. That's going to require a number of structural adjustments. What do you and what does the president then plan to do about that?
EVANS: Well, in terms of structural adjustments, Lou, what I would say, we need to enter more free trade agreements with people around the world.
Here, Evans espouses the handful of points the administration always harps on:
- tax cuts (and making them permanent)
tort reform
relaxing environmental standards
Plus more free trade agreements, which is a point I've heard less about than the other three.
This is all being spun from the perspective of the worker, ironically, not the businesses themselves (i.e., management). Ultimately, the three factors above do not directly impact the worker.
The assumption the administration makes is that if they make it cheaper for American businesses to operate, then those businesses will, in turn, hire more American workers, thus creating more jobs in America.
Does anyone else think this is enormous leap of faith?!?!?!
If the gov't gives businesses all these breaks - with no strings attached - then are we to believe that American CEOs will become smitten with a sense of obligation to give something back and thus create jobs in America?
I don't buy this...at all. American corporations are only concerned about the bottom line. I think if you make them richer - by cutting taxes, limiting their legal responsibilities, and relaxing environmental standards - they're just going to continue to ship jobs out and figure they will fatten the bottom line that much more.
Thoughts?
