Recession: Who is to be blamed?

Editor, The Times:

The United States continues to be in a state of recession, the euro is collapsing and many Western nations are facing a similar situation as the U.S. [“Obama’s blueprint: ‘America built to last,’” page one, Jan. 25].

Listening to current political rhetoric from various presidential candidates, one might believe that President Obama is responsible for the state of recession he inherited. However, one, certainly, can’t blame Obama for the similar state of affairs in many other Western nations. It appears that this recession is larger than the United States; it’s actually endemic to both the U.S. and much of Europe, except perhaps Germany.

Is worldwide recession Obama’s fault? Why aren’t we challenging these presidential candidates when Obama is blamed for our recession when this recession began before he took office and also includes many or most other Western nations as well? It’s more reasonable to believe that no one person is responsible. Perhaps the blame belongs elsewhere.

I’m not aware that Eastern nations — Korea, China, the Philippines, or India, for example — are facing the same financial hardships. I’m also aware that these are countries where major U.S. businesses outsource many of their jobs. I know, for a fact, when I call customer service for many businesses, I frequently talk to company representatives who have accents so thick that I have difficulty understanding them.

While I’m not an economist and I don’t have all the information, my gut feeling is that these presidential candidates are blowing smoke trying to indict President Obama in an effort to protect American businesses.

Based on my limited observations, I think big business, employing cheap labor from overseas, may be just as responsible, or more so, than President Obama. I don’t know where to find expertise in world economy, so, until I understand worldwide economics better, I wouldn’t believe a word from those presidential candidates.

— Devin Gruver, Seattle

President tax plan for outsourcing is misguided

There is much to recommend about President Obama’s State of the Union address. Unfortunately, his proposal to impose a tax on companies that “ship jobs overseas” coupled with tax cuts for those that keep factory jobs at home is misguided and potentially quite damaging to the U.S. economy.

Empirical studies are fairly conclusive in linking the “offshoring” of different production and related activities to improved efficiency for the home country company, along with a faster growth of headquarters’ value added activities and increased employment in technical, sales and managerial jobs in the home country.

There is no reliable evidence that offshoring results in a net loss of jobs in the United States. Rather, the evidence shows that offshoring changes the composition of jobs in favor of higher-paying, education and skill-intensive occupations.

There is no doubt that offshoring hurts the job prospects of less-well-educated and less-skilled workers in America; however, the remedy is not another tax-expenditure program added to an overly complex and inefficient tax code that penalizes economic efficiency.

Rather, the remedy, as elsewhere recognized by the president, is to improve education and training programs so that American workers have the intellectual capital to perform the types of jobs that are created in this country, in part through increased international trade.

— Steven Globerman, professor, College of Business and Economics, Western Washington University, Bellingham

We need to think about our economy

The Jan. 25 edition of The Times included a story about President Obama’s visit to Arizona after his State of the Union speech.

Obama went to Arizona hoping that some credit for Intel’s new Fab 42 plant would rub off onto him. The plant requires about 10-million man hours to build and will employ about 1,000 employees.

What the article didn’t report was that his visit required shutting down the plant’s construction, causing about 3,000 workers to lose a day’s work. The 1,000 new manufacturing jobs in the plant will represent an increase of less than 1 percent in Arizona’s current job base.

Under the administration of Gov. Jan Brewer, Arizona has a balanced budget with a surplus, fundamentals for sustained economic growth, quality education, a competitive tax policy and low regulation. Compare that to our governor and Legislature’s preoccupation with gay marriage while our economy continues to flounder.

Washington state and Obama seem to have a lot in common.

— Nat Webb, Walla Walla

Medicare and Social Security should not be cut

The other night I watched both President Obama’s State of the Union address and the Republican response from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

As a retired teacher, I got worried when I heard Daniels talk about cutting Social Security and Medicare. For most retirees, these are the only ways they are able to pay their bills and stay healthy.

Moreover, I don’t think it was either Social Security or Medicare that created the deficit. To me, we are in debt because big corporations have all these tax loopholes, and millionaires and billionaires actually have lower tax rates than a lot of middle-class folks here in Washington state.

Does anyone really think that our debt is caused by a little old lady who gets $1,000 per month in Social Security (benefits she paid for her whole life, by the way)?

It’s time we stop blaming the victims of this recession — working families and retirees — and instead take an honest look at what needs to change in America.

— Jo Jacobson, field representative, Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans, Gig Harbor