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Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington , Oct. 14

STRESSING that he is going to stand up and fight for American workers in a way that is fiscally sound, the Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry has once again said that he will be closing down tax loopholes in a "nano-second" that results in an American worker having to subsidise their own loss of job. But Mr Kerry also acknowledged that all outsourcing cannot be stopped.

"I'm going to stand up and fight for the American worker, and I'm going to do it in a way that's fiscally sound... I have a manufacturing jobs credit. We pay for it by shutting that loophole overseas," Mr Kerry remarked in the third and final debate in Tempe, Arizona on Wednesday night.

"Outsourcing is going to happen. I've acknowledged that in union halls across the country. I've had shop stewards stand up and say, `Will you promise me you're going to stop all this outsourcing?' And I've looked him in the eye and I've said no. I can't do that," the Massachusetts Senator replied to a question. He added: "What I can promise you is that I will make the playing field as fair as possible; that I will, for instance, make certain that, with respect to the tax system, that you as a worker in America are not subsidising the loss of your job."

Mr Kerry returned to a theme of his campaign, although in less strident fashion, of the last several months that today if you were an American business, there is the benefit for going overseas.

"You get to defer your taxes. So if you're looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, `Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America.' That's not smart," Mr Kerry maintained.

"I don't want American workers subsidising the loss of their own job, and when I'm President we're going to shut that loophole in a nano-second. And we're going to use that money to lower corporate tax rates in America for all corporations 5 per cent, and we're going to have a manufacturing jobs credit and a job hiring credit so we actually help people be able to hire here. The second thing that we can do is provide a fair trade playing field," the Democratic candidate for the November 2 Presidential election said.

"This President didn't stand up for Boeing when Airbus was violating international rules with subsidies. He discovered Boeing during the course of this campaign, after I'd been talking about it for months. The fact is that the President had an opportunity to stand up and take on China for currency manipulation. There are companies that wanted to petition the administration. They were told don't even bother, we're not going to listen to it. The fact is that there has been markets shut to us that we haven't stood up and fought for.

``I'm going to fight for a fair trade playing field for the American worker. And I will fight for the American worker just as hard as I fight for my own job."

With the prime focus of the final debate on the economy and domestic issues, Senator Kerry returned to the theme of outsourcing in his closing statement.

"These are dangerous times. I believe I offer tested, strong leadership that can calm the waters of a troubled world. And I believe that we can together do things that are within the grasp of Americans... We can create jobs that pay more than the jobs we're losing overseas," he said.

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