Taipai Times on Outsourcing

Senator John Kerry has placed the politically sensitive issue of US job exports to low cost Asia at the heart of his campaign, vowing to plug legal loopholes promoting offshore outsourcing.

Both Kerry and his vice-presidential running mate John Edwards said in their nomination acceptance speeches at the Democratic party convention last week that they would move swiftly to curtail shipping of jobs overseas.

Kerry told cheering delegates he would "close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas" and instead "reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs right where they belong -- in the good old USA."

He has promised the most sweeping reform of international tax law in four decades to halt the flow of American jobs overseas. At least 38 state legislatures have or are considering anti-outsourcing proposals.

"We value an America that exports products, not jobs and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job," Kerry said as he placed tax changes to check outsourcing as part of his "economic plan to build a stronger America."

With the unemployment hovering at 5.6 percent, President George W. Bush has come under fire for more than two million job losses during his tenure and a ballooning trade deficit of US$46 billion, highlighting the tensions over moving employment overseas.

Most of the US jobs are going to Asia, particularly India and China as well as Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

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