Contributor

Ray Haynes

Mr. Haynes is an Assembly member representing Riverside and Temecula. He serves on the Appropriations and Budget Committees. [go to Assembly Member Haynes website at California Assembly][go to Haynes index]

Sacramento's Dirty Little Secret
Effect of losing California jobs offshore...
[Ray Haynes] 8/31/04

This year complaints have abounded from my Democrat colleagues regarding offshoring. Offshoring is a derogatory word for "reducing business costs." Or, if you want to be blunt, it means figuring out a way around California's hostile business climate.

Some California businesses have been hit with so many costs and regulations that it is cheaper for them to hire people in India to answer questions (paying the associated telephone costs) rather than hire people in California. Think about it--it is cheaper to hire someone in India, pay the telephone company for the long distance charges, train Indians to speak English, and operate the facility in India than it is to run the same facility in California.

Nobody likes it when jobs disappear, whether overseas or permanently. It's a cliche', but I'm sure the buggy-whip manufacturers were unhappy when the automobile made their jobs obsolete. Typewriter makers similarly had to adapt or go out of business when word processors and computers took over. In fact, computers put a lot more people out of business than just typewriter manufacturers. The efficiencies of computers and the internet have made the jobs of many clerical workers and researchers irrelevant. How many more people would it take in your office to accomplish what you need to do if there were no computers?

But nobody seriously proposes that we eliminate computers so we can create more jobs. Computers have made the jobs of many people irrelevant, but the efficiencies and new markets created by computers have created far more jobs than they've replaced. The outsourcing issue is actually quite similar.

Over the last year, we have heard our leftist friends complain loudly about how this is costing Californians jobs, and how these rotten, "profit-driven" capitalists are exploiting the proletariat in California, destroying lives in their wake. The Legislature demanded a report on this practice, hired a researcher, and then introduced a bunch of laws to "stop" these evil exploiters from this dastardly practice.

That report came out recently, but you didn't hear about it. Why? Because the report said that the practice of offshoring actually helps California's workers. In many cases, offshoring is necessary for businesses to stay in business in California, preserving jobs that would otherwise be lost. In other cases, it saves the business money, money that is reinvested in the business, creating other jobs.

The study found that offshoring also saves California money. Money that can be spent for the poor, or for more cops, or for improved health care, or any other of a number of programs (not the least of which is reducing our horrendous debt). All in all, the report said offshoring is a good thing.

But you don't know that. You want to know why? Because the leftist majority in the Legislature initially refused to release the report. It needed review, they said. They hired the researchers, but they don't like what the researchers said. They don't want the facts to stand in the way of their political agenda. Their solution - rewrite the report, even though it is clear that their agenda hurts the poor, the taxpayers, and the businesses in California.

This is the type of thinking that ran up a $48 billion deficit when the leftists were in charge of everything. The unions don't want business to hire people in other countries, even if that helps Californians. It doesn't fit their desire to line their own pockets with the forced union dues on California workers. The majority in Sacramento owes their power to the union bosses. So--if the union bosses think there is a problem, the Democrats think there is a problem, regardless of the real facts.

They don’t mind the continuing onslaught of illegal aliens taking jobs and driving down the wages of the (primarily) manual labor workforce within the state, but offshoring jobs to keep businesses solvent should be illegal. It doesn't make any sense to me.

This mindset led us down the path to destruction, which we narrowly avoided. We are still seriously injured. The leftists still do the bidding of their union boss masters, regardless of who it hurts. That is Sacramento's dirty little secret. CRO

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