Columnist Andres Oppenheimer thinks that President Obama’s campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney for outsourcing jobs is “intellectually dishonest,” and that Romney’s response blasting Obama as being “the real outsourcer-in-chief” is “pathetic.” Oppenheimer wrote: “In fact, both Obama and Romney support outsourcing, the long-standing practice whereby U.S. companies manufacture overseas goods that are too costly to produce at home. And they should. Outsourcing is not only a necessity in today’s global economy, but often helps the U.S. economy by making U.S. exports more competitive abroad, and by allowing U.S. consumers to pay less for many goods.”
Four years ago, the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce and its political action committee fought hard to keep professional anti-taxer Karl Peterjohn off the Sedgwick County Commission bench in what Peterjohn called a “political jihad” against him. In one of the strongest arguments against Peterjohn at the time, Spirit AeroSystems CEO Jeff Turner said, “If his views were to prevail in this community, companies like ours would be hard-pressed to invest anymore in this community.” Peterjohn won, though, and by early 2010, then-chamber president Bryan Derreberry said “that is all old history.” Still, it was striking to see Peterjohn’s name last week on the list of endorsements by the chamber’s political action committee, along with his challenger for re-election in the Aug. 7 GOP primary, Wichita City Council member Jeff Longwell. Though Peterjohn hasn’t been the wrecking ball the business community had feared, in part because he’s mostly been in the minority on the commission, Peterjohn hasn’t really changed his views. The Wichita chamber PAC and its priorities certainly have changed, though.
News of Gov. Sam Brownback’s “real live experiment” of massively cutting state income taxes went global with a Reuters story likening the reform to the GOP blueprint at the national level crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “Someone has to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. The people who can get that done are conservatives,” retiring House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, told the international news service. The quoted moderate GOP state senators begged to differ: “The tax cuts will do huge damage to Kansas over the next few years,” predicted retiring state Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood. Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, said: “Unless jobs come flooding to Kansas, the first place to cut is education. We have to hope this (tax-cut package) is a success, or a lot of people are going to get hurt. This is bare-bones, libertarian government.”
The following satirical headlines come from borowitzreport.com and theonion.com:
Romney Claims Dog Ate Tax Returns and Ran Bain Capital for Three Years
Obama Pledges to Repeal Health Care Law if Re-elected
Bachmann Claims White House Has Links to Extremist Group Called Democrats
Chinese Workers Hail Romney’s Record as Job Creator
Man Has Reached a Point Where He Is Now Dumber Than His Telephone
Economically Healthy Daily Planet Now Most Unrealistic Part of Superman Universe
Columnist Andres Oppenheimer thinks that President Obama’s campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney for outsourcing jobs is “intellectually dishonest,” and that Romney’s response blasting Obama as being “the real outsourcer-in-chief” is “pathetic.” Oppenheimer wrote: “In fact, both Obama and Romney support outsourcing, the long-standing practice whereby U.S. companies manufacture overseas goods that are too costly to produce at home. And they should. Outsourcing is not only a necessity in today’s global economy, but often helps the U.S. economy by making U.S. exports more competitive abroad, and by allowing U.S. consumers to pay less for many goods.”
