Candidates' positions are categorized as Pro (Yes), Con (No), Not Clearly Pro or Con, or None Found. Candidates who have changed their positions are listed as Now their most recent position. Candidates are listed by party and in alphabetical order by last name. Black & white photos indicate candidates who have withdrawn or who no longer meet our criteria for inclusion.
Is outsourcing jobs to other countries good for America?
Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, is quoted as stating the following in an Aug. 4, 2011 article "Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson Calls for Fair Tax While Visiting New Hampshire Business Incubator," available at www.garyjohnson2012.com:
"I say we do away with corporate income taxes altogether – which the FairTax would do. That alone will foster more real job creation than all the stimulus and tax code tinkering that is currently being discussed, and would immediately move the U.S. to the head of the class in terms of global competitiveness...
Rather than exporting jobs and losing employers to more friendly tax environments overseas, America would become a magnet for job-creating investment both by businesses who are already here and those who would come here.” Aug. 4, 2012 Gary Johnson
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, stated the following during his Jan. 24, 2012 "State of the Union Address," available at www.whitehouse.gov:
"Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.
We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. So let’s change it.
First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.
Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America...
So my message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away." Jan. 24, 2012 Barack Obama
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, stated the following in the Sep. 6, 2011 article "Fact Sheet: Mitt Romney's Plan to Turn Around the Economy," available on mittromney.com:
"...[Romney will] begin the process of transitioning to a territorial corporate tax system. A territorial system must be designed to encourage multinational companies to bring their profits back into the U.S. and it must avoid the creation of incentives for outsourcing." Sep. 6, 2011 Mitt Romney
[Editor's Note: Prior to Mitt Romney's Sep. 6, 2011 Not Clearly Pro or Con position above, he held a Pro position as indicated in his Nov. 16, 2005 speech at a Forrester Research executive strategy summit in Boston, MA, available in Paula Rooney's CRN.com article "Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's Message: Globalize or Die."]
"I'm not happy exporting jobs but we must move ahead in technology and patents. I don't like losing any jobs but we'll see new opportunities created selling products there. We'll have a net increase in economic activity, just as we did with free trade. It's tempting to want to protect our markets and stay closed. But at some point it all comes crashing down and you're hopelessly left behind. Then you are Russia." Nov. 16, 2005 Mitt Romney
Jill Stein, MD, former Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, was quoted in a Oct. 13, 2011 press release "Green-Rainbow Party Says: Keep Hands off Protesters," available at www.independentpoliticalreport.com:
"The Occupy movement is a cry for change from workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas and young people whose future is being stolen from them by politicians intent on serving Wall Street rather than the people...
The Occupy Wall Street movement is addressing the root of these problems, and the 99% must be heard. Both the Democrat and Republican parties have broken America’s social contract by refusing to remedy — in fact, deliberately aggravating - our economic inequities." Oct. 13, 2011 Jill Stein
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives (R-GA), wrote the following in his 2005 book Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America:
"In the United States, there exists a coalition of union leaders who prefer protection over competition…. This liberal coalition complains about companies’ outsourcing jobs while insisting on corporate taxes that encourage companies to go overseas…
Those who advocate economic isolationism and protectionism are advocating a policy that could help China and India surpass the United States in economic power in our children’s or grandchildren’s lifetime…
If we want the United States to be the multinational headquarters of the world, we are going to have to rewrite our tax laws so that there are no tax disadvantages to an American firm acquiring an overseas competitor… America’s new jobs have been to a large degree higher paying, cleaner, healthier, and more desirable than the jobs they replaced. The insourcing of new jobs is far greater than the outsourcing we hear so much about in political and news media rhetoric.” 2005 Newt Gingrich
Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah, stated the following during his Aug. 31, 2011 speech, "Jobs Plan Announcement," at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating in Hudson, NH, available at www.c-spanvideo.org:
"We must compete our way to prosperity. When I was born, manufacturing comprised 25% of our GDP, today it is down to around 10%, this does not reflect a decline in American ingenuity, or work ethic, it reflects our government’s failure to adapt to the realities of the 21st century economy. We need American entrepreneurs not only thinking of products like the iphone or Segway, we need American workers building those products. It is time for made in America to mean something again." Aug. 31, 2011 Jon Huntsman
[Editor's Note: A July 15, 2011 article in Bloomberg, stated that Huntsman Pacific Chemical Corp., of which Jon Huntsman was a former Vice President and Director, employs more people in China and India than in North America, and that 2,000 of the corporation's 12,000 worldwide employees are in the US. Jon Huntsman declined an interview for the article stating "I am proud of my private-sector experience helping to grow our family business into a a successful, global enterprise that has created thousands of high-paying American jobs... The company’s global outreach brought capital back to America allowing it to greatly expand the number of American employees.”]
Ron Paul, US Representative (R-TX), stated the following in his 2011 book Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom:
"A lot of protectionists thoughtlessly push protecftive tarrifs purely as a job program meant to protect noncompetitive domestic industries... The moral hazard of protectionism is that the less efficient will not be motivated to become more efficient in order to survive. Conplacency and inefficiency set in...
I believe everyone has a right to spend his or her own money any way they see fit, whether it be on foreign or domestic goods. If tennis shoes from China cost $20 but $100 if manufactured in the United States, why punish the poor for the sake of protecting domestic industries?
Chinese production uses low-cost labor for sure, but they're jobs that working-class Chinese egerly seek; they are never forced to work as slaves...
What many here don't want to admit is that much of our labor is priced artifically higher as a consequence of minimum wage laws, unemployment benefits, and compulsory unions, while prices are pushed higher as a consequence of excessive regulations, taxation, and government-caused inflation.
Protectionist measures don't solve the problems; they only protect the status quo that keeps us from being competitive in many industries." 2011 Ron Paul
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, stated the following in a speech titled "Gov. Rick Perry's Remarks to the Collin County Delegation," delivered Feb. 19, 2007 in Collin County, TX, and available at governor.state.tx.us:
"Today our economy demands 11,000 graduates a year in the fields of electrical engineering, engineering technology and computer science, while our colleges produce half that number. Why not fill those jobs with Texans instead of outsourcing them to India and China? That's why we have created a $40 million Texas Technology Grant proposal, so students will have access to not only the jobs of the future, but the skills that will prepare them." Feb. 19, 2007 Rick Perry
[Editor's Note: In addition to his Not Clearly Pro or Con statement above, we have provided another Not Clearly Pro or Con statement from Rick Perry's Nov. 8, 2010 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, available at dailyshow.com:
"Jon Stewart: Would you criticize Texas companies for outsourcing jobs?
Rick Perry: Seriously, do you want to live in India or do you want to live in Texas?"]
Buddy Roemer, former Governor of Louisiana, stated the following during an Aug. 15, 2011 speech to the National Press Club in Washington, DC, available at buddyroemer.com:
"...America is in trouble. Twenty percent of its workforce – 25 million Americans – are out of work in this 'recovery,' or have quit looking, or are underemployed. We have a million fewer jobs than we did 12 years ago, and the jobs we have pay less. We have given away our manufacturing jobs. We don't make things any more. We distribute them – bad trade.
'Made in America' is an endangered species... We must level the playing field against those nations who compete unfairly, choosing to steal our best jobs while they use child labor, forced labor, prison labor, no work, safety, health or environmental standards, hidden barriers to the flow of trade and even currency manipulation." Aug. 15, 2011 Buddy Roemer
Rick Santorum, former US Senator (R-PA), stated the following during an Oct. 8, 2011 interview, "An Interview with Former Senator Rick Santorum," available at www.americanthinker.com:
"One of the reasons manufacturing jobs have gone down is the tremendous innovation in the workplace. Since the days of the large factory are gone, we are now talking about small business and additions to existing plants to create a competitive edge. We need to create an atmosphere where innovation can successfully create jobs by changing the regulatory and litigation environment. This hostile attitude has to change, especially since other countries are friendlier to innovators. Boeing is a very good example since they are trying to bring high-tech manufacturing jobs to South Carolina; yet this president is saying no because South Carolina is not using unionized workers. If we are going to have that kind of heavy government on behalf of organized labor, they will play hardball, and we will lose those jobs. They will go overseas where it is easier." Oct. 8, 2011 Rick Santorum