WASHINGTON — The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said Monday.
The embrace of foreign outsourcing, an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the health of the economy.
"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."
The report, which predicts that the nation will reverse a three-year employment slide by creating 2.6 million jobs in 2004, is part of a weeklong effort by the administration to highlight signs that the recovery is picking up speed. Bush's economic stewardship has become a central issue in the presidential campaign, and the White House is eager to demonstrate that his policies are producing results.
In his message to Congress on Monday, Bush said the economy "is strong and getting stronger," thanks in part to his tax cuts and other economic programs. He said the nation had survived a stock market meltdown, recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was finally beginning to enjoy "a mounting prosperity that will reach every corner of America."
The president repeated that message during an afternoon discussion about the economy at SRC Automotive, an engine-rebuilding plant in Springfield, Mo., where he lashed out at lawmakers who oppose making his tax cuts permanent.
"When they say, 'We're going to repeal Bush's tax cuts,' that means they're going to raise your taxes, and that's wrong. And that's bad economics," he said.
Democrats who want Bush's job were quick to challenge his claims.
Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, supports a rollback of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and backs the creation of tax incentives for companies that keep jobs in the United States. However, he supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many union members say is responsible for the migration of U.S. jobs, particularly in the auto industry, to Mexico.
