No issue is more important to most Americans than jobs and the economy. And with the election only weeks away, it’s becoming clear which candidates stand with workers, and which don’t.
For example, Georgia Senate candidate David Perdue has actually said he is proud to have outsourced thousands of American jobs.
The statement was highlighted recently during a Senate debate at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Atlanta, where Perdue, a top executive with a Fortune 500 company, was debating with candidate Michelle Nunn, a Harvard graduate and the daughter of former U.S. Senator.
Nunn brought up the story recently reported by an Atlanta news channel. The story reviewed a 2005 deposition relating to Perdue’s term as CEO of a North Carolina manufacturing company that eventually closed. Almost 8,000 employees were laid off.
“He would be the only senator that — from his own words — has built a career around outsourcing American jobs. That’s not the experience we need in Washington. … Perdue in his deposition talked about 16 countries … but not once did he talk about creating jobs in the United States,” Nunn said.
When questioned by a reporter after the deposition, Perdue defended his career of outsourcing jobs when he said, "Defend it? I'm proud of it. This is part of American business, part of any business.”
Perdue attempted to downplay the statements saying that it was a smear on his reputation. He went on to blame outsourcing on bad government policies. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics graph, it appears most of the job losses appeared between 2000 and 2008 during the Bush Administration.
Outsourcing has received support from the Republican Party for many years. In 2012, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital moved American jobs overseas for big profits. Sensate workers in Freeport, Ill., were forced to train the people taking their jobs before they were moved to China to line Romney's pockets.
Mary Jo Kerr is a young mom of three. She's one of hundreds of workers whose jobs at an auto sensor plan in Freeport, Ill., are being shipped to China because of Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. Before you vote, please watch and share her story.