Insourcing: The Solution
The U.S. presidential election quickly seems to be turning into a battle of “who-outsources-least.” President Barack Obama has taken to referring to Republican candidate Mitt Romney as an “outsourcing pioneer” during his tenure at private equity firm Bain Capital. The Republican National Committee has countered with a new website accusing Obama of enriching foreign firms and workers with U.S. stimulus money.
The concern over outsourcing certainly hits a political nerve among the electorate — and it makes sense during a time of high unemployment. But if the campaigns want to really focus on what accounts for America’s sluggish economy, they should spend less time focusing on who is sending jobs overseas and more on who can actually bring skilled workers into the United States — or keep them there. America’s real outsourcing crisis is not firms moving manufacturing to other countries, but the thousands of potential entrepreneurs and job creators who are prevented from setting up shop in America because of immigration laws.
After years of stalemate, recent weeks have seen a number of developments give hope to advocates of U.S. immigration reform. First, Obama stirred the pot with an executive order on June 15 calling on federal law enforcement to stop prosecuting the offspring of illegal immigrants — children who likely would have qualified for the perennially politically challenged DREAM Act, which would establish a path to citizenship for upstanding people brought into the country by illegal-immigrant parents. Obama’s order at least ensures that these young people can remain in the United States and work without fear of deportation.