Northern Colorado Gazette

But Voters say they don't like them.

By Craig Masters

Joe Coors, candidate for U.S. Congress, is spending ad dollars telling people his opponent, Ed Perlmutter (D), is too extreme. Admittedly the ad is beneath Coors and actually kind of stupid. But it was Perlmutter’s campaign that fired the first shot in the name-calling battle. A shot totally ignored by the Denver Post in a recent story supporting the Perlmutter claim that Joe Coors is a liar who actually outsourced local jobs to Mexico and Asia. Outsourced jobs! Could that be true ED?

The Post was happy to accept as ‘proof’ that CoorsTek (Joe Coors’ technical ceramics products manufacturing company) did release a statement 12 years ago in the company’s 3rd quarter report that did detail opening plants in Mexico and overseas. But the question is whether those foreign investments reduced or actually expanded local employment. In this case, consider that ceramics manufacturing is a business ripe with EPA pitfalls. Would CoorsTek even have been able to stay competitive at all without some overseas capability? Probably not. The adhesives and weather stip plant GM opened in Mexico actually resulted in the U.S. plant closing entirely. But Perlmutter, who voted to nationalize GM, doesn’t think of himself as an outsourcer.

I ask a spokesperson for Coors’ campaign this question, “Would it be fair to say that CoorsTek employs more people here in Colorado today than it did in 2000?” I ask that question because I understand very well that when America ships American made products overseas, wherever those products go, they are imported. Does that make American products bad overseas? Are the companies buying our goods and services “outsourcing” their country’s jobs? I know it is hard to believe for the 47percenters, but until Obama declared war on the U.S. free market system, more companies outsourced to America than from America.

If making widgets somewhere closer to a foreign market means the company makes more money, is that outsourcing or expanding the company’s capacity? If the American jobs are actually more secure because the company is making more sales overseas due to any number of factors such as reduced shipping or taxes, is it fair to say the company outsourced? Why can’t it just as honestly be said the company expanded into a new market? In other words, the company management invested in growth by adding new markets and new customers. The term “one world” seems to only apply when the Democrats want to transfer our money overseas. or let some U.N. committee tells us we shouldn’t be the only country with free speech.

Throughout this campaign season the focus of many ads has been that the other guy outsourced American jobs. Obama is pounding that dead horse every day claiming Romney outsourced jobs at the expense of American workers. Romney coined the phrase “Outsourcer-in-Chief” to make the point that this President has sent more money overseas to employers than all the previous Presidents combined.

I admit I don’t even know if there are such things as unemployment lines anymore. The only person I know personally who drew unemployment benefits simply had to check in online every couple of weeks. But I do have a relative working on a General Electric production line who insists that outsourcing has just about killed their aircraft parts business. He blames Bush and credits Obama with bringing back jobs. The irony of that is that Obama’s jobs Czar is the boss at GE who worked out the delivery of decades of proprietary research and development to the Chinese for nothing in return. By the way that’s one of those things Romney is talking about when he speaks of ‘cheaters’ in the world markets. More on that later.

Oh, by the way, since that 3rd quarter report in 2000, CoorsTek has grown so large world-wide that the American work force has more than tripled. But I doubt Ed Permutter has enough class to report he was so wrong he should be ashamed of his campaign for making him look totally uninformed about world trade – or any other business. After all he voted for Obamacare and against the Keystone Pipeline.

Now, I ask all of you, was this an attack piece or simply an informative piece about Ed Perlmutter’s campaign strategy to hide his loyalty to Obama and the new direction he sees for America?

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Tags: America, American, campaign, candidate, company, country, day, Ed, Ed Perlmutter, GM, Joe, Joe Coors, Mexico, money, Obama, Post, report, transfer, unemployment, work