President Obama is trying to encourage American companies to keep more jobs at home instead of sending them to cheaper labor markets overseas as he seeks to strengthen his economic repertoire and gin up support among middle class voters and unionized workers heading into the election.
Obama will gather academics and business executives at the White House Wednesday to discuss what the administration sees as a growing trend in job “in-sourcing” and increasing domestic investments, White House officials said.
“I don’t want us to just be known for buying stuff from other places,” Obama said. “I want us to be known for building stuff and selling stuff all around the world.”
Obama is seeking advice from the forum on what kind of incentives, such as tax breaks and federal subsidies, can be created to encourage companies to keep jobs in the United States.
“We’ll hear from business leaders who are bringing jobs back home and see how we can help other businesses follow their lead,” Obama said.
Companies invited to the White House — including padlock manufacturer Master Lock, North Carolina company Lincolnton Furniture and software developer GalaxE. Solutions — have all brought hundreds of overseas jobs back to the U.S. over the last couple years, according to administration officials.
Some economists say tax breaks for individual companies won’t go far enough in attracting jobs back to the U.S., and that the forum itself won’t solve anything.
“Nothing will be accomplished [Wednesday] — it’s strictly a show,” Peter Morici, former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission said. “Right now Obama is getting ready to campaign against [Republican Mitt] Romney in an election that is already focused on who is going to do a better job on the economy.”
U.S. companies began outsourcing jobs in the 1980s, attracted by lower labor costs and fewer regulations. Blue-collar manufacturing jobs have since become the most vulnerable to outsourcing.
Romney has blasted Obama’s “job-killing” regulations for driving U.S. companies overseas and he says the president is stifling job growth by encouraging Americans to rely on welfare rather than hard work.
“This president doesn’t understand how the economy works,” Romney said during a campaign stop in Conway, S.C. “It’s time to get a president who does.”
Obama counters that Republicans would roll back the minimum wage, dismantle workers’ unions, lift environmental regulations and let companies “play by their own rules” — all at the expense of the middle class.
“This competition for new jobs and new businesses and middle-class security — that’s a race we can win,” Obama said. “But we can’t win it if we just go back to the same things that got us into this mess in the first place. … We are not a country that was built on the idea of survival of the fittest.”
