If this question is for an assignment in school, you might want to see if you can find a copy of a book that came out during Reagan/Bush years (1980s), written by Bartlett and Steele (1990), that has been available on amazon.com, entitled "America, What Went Wrong?" I sent a copy to Bill Clinton during his first campaign for President and he used the book on the campaign trail to illustrate some of the problems caused by Reaganomics (or supply-side economics) coupled with deregulation, one of those problems being the outsourcing of American jobs to Third World nations.
Taxes from American workers and corporations provide income or revenue that is used to provide or repair things in our society (i.e., infrastructure) upon which the American people rely or which they use on a regular basis. The revenue goes into our Treasury to establish the boundaries for spending in the same way that a parent's paycheck does for the family's overall budget. Out of the revenue which comes in, goods and services are purchased and paid for. These purchased goods and services, in turn, provide employment (jobs) for the ones who create them, which generates income for these "creating" people to take home and spend for goods and services their families need, which creates another ripple or layer of jobs that keeps spreading upward and outward throughout our economy in ever-expanding interdependence upon the first revenue-generating layers (our middle-class and low-income workers). Our entire economic system is sustained by our small businesses (which is our "hiring engine" in the middle-class range), and our low- to moderate-income workers, whose revenues generate the rippling effect described above and whose paid taxes create revenues for our government (local, state, and federal) that is used to maintain our nation's infrastructure. Taxes paid by the wealthiest 1.5?f Americans can generate upwards of about $690 billion per year (citing the amount LOST in the very first year, 2001, of the Bush/Cheney/GOP ill-advised TAX CUTS for these wealthiest few), so if the Republicans cut U.S. revenues by at least $690 billion each year through the ill-advised tax cuts for the wealthiest revenue providers and then give the green light (the okay) for major corporations to expand their greed-generated profit margins by moving all their jobs to Third World countries (outsourcing them, in other words), thus displacing thousands of American workers who become unemployed and maybe have to go on Welfare (generated by tax revenues), then where are the government-sustaining, infrastructure-sustaining revenues going to be coming FROM? Middle-class workers now out of work are no longer generating any spending money, and no more tax revenues to bring money into our financial system, and the wealthy (whose taxes COULD help sustain our economy) are not being made to pay their fair share, then how is the goverment supposed to be able to fund our public schools, highway repairs, bridge and tunnel repairs or any other infrastructure maintenance or repairs needed? How in the WORLD can we fund our military and the two wars (one of them illegal)? We have to borrow, which is what the Bush/Cheney (and the Reagan/Bush-Bush/Quayle) administration(s) began doing, creating huge deficit spending---the worst examples being under Bush/Cheney and the GOP which controlled both the House and Senate until January 20, 2007.
The disadvantages of outsourcing include lost jobs for American workers and, eventually, we stop manufacturing anything (lose our manufacturing base) and begin relying on ever more cheap imports (deflation) that flood our markets from the very Third World nations our greedy corporate leaders moved their American companies, setting up massive trade deficits (more imports of foreign-made goods than there are EXPORTS of American-made goods) and as more and more Americans lose their jobs and income, fewer and fewer goods are purchased, so more and more companies go out of business, which means even more people g******d off, until eventually our economy is in deep "doo-doo". Everything is interdependent, interconnected, so if one segment (American jobs) falls, there is a richochet or rippling effect in a downward (imploding) spiral that leads to financial ruin. President Obama has initiated a plan to tax companies that move off-shore at a higher rate than those who remain on American soil, which might be an incentive for bringing these outsourcing companies back, thus putting our people back to work. Hope it works. And also hope this answer helps. Indian, one of the countries to which these greedy-gut corporate leaders outsource, pay workers an average of $300/year! How can U.S.-based companies possibly compete? Answer is, we cannot. Then the Indian-made goods show up in our stores priced far lower than anything Americans could or would make. If more Americans deliberately looked for American-made products upon which to spend what li
Answered By: Armchair Goddess #1 - 3/16/2010 |