We’ve heard nothing but jobs from members of the not-so-loyal opposition party – although when they decide to get busy, the project rarely seems to involve getting unemployed Americans back to work. We certainly get the job-talk from all our Missouri GOP politicos – while most of them are also on the record for supporting the outsourcing of American jobs in some way or another – which, I think, is the opposite of job creation. Just google the GOP pol’s name and add “outsourcing,” and you’ll see what I mean.

True to the playbook, Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee-to-be, has decided to run on a platform that requires that every fifth word be “jobs.” He actually doesn’t have much of a job creation record – Massachusetts didn’t do so well in that regard under his leadership – but then he’s also been very careful to avoid specifics.

However, those specifics have a way of creeping up on you, no matter how you try to avoid them. Romney not only has lots to explain about his role as a “job-creator” (of course, he is rich and most Republicans think that the wealthy are, ipso facto, job-creators), but he has a lot in common with our Missouri outsourcers too. When it comes to his outsourcing proclivities, The Washington Post is responsible for rounding up the specifics that have come home to roost; Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, has, however, expanded the roster of facts and translated it to video and sent it out into the world:

It’s not hard to understand why so many GOPers are big for outsourcing – it’s good for the American corporate bottom line and American corporations are good for compliant politicians’ campaign bottom lines. Take a look, for instance at which politicians the Chamber of Commerce, a big proponent of a “free market” base that is located offshore, likes to throw its money.

Remember when Newt Gingrich’s former sugar daddy, Sheldon Adelson, announced that he was winging his wallet Romney’s way? Then stop and consider the talk – from none other than John McCain among others – about Adelson’s Chinese connections and the implication that he is putting his support where it can buy influence for China, one of the leading destinations for offshored American jobs. Makes it easy to understand just why Romney might be willing to be, in the President’s words, the “outsourcer-in-chief.”

I came across some interesting nuggets tonight while reading Think Progress. According to a report from a nonpartisan group, Campaign Money Watch:

— Missouri has lost 102,608 jobs due to trade policies that encourage outsourcing since 1994.

— So far, during this election cycle, the Chamber of Commerce, a leading proponent of outsourcing, has spent $259,375 on attack ads targeting Robin Carnahan.

A Connecticut Post blogger who summarized several GOP candidates’ records on outsourcing noted that Blunt “voted five times to protect loopholes that reward companies that ship American jobs overseas and voted against providing extra assistance to Missouri workers who lost jobs due to outsourcing.”

Do you see a pattern emerging? One that perhaps explains Blunt’s failure to even mention outsourcing in that “Jobs Plan” he is always ballyhooing. Instead, he promises to:

— Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which will not go into effect until 2014 and which has had no appreciable effect on our current employment problems – although, since repealing the ACA will, according to the CBO, exacerbate the deficit problem, it might well make unemployment worse long-term.

— Fight against energy legislation that has the potential to create new clean-energy jobs.

— Cancel the stimulus funding that has not been paid out – although most of the remaining funds have been committed and projects have commenced; canceling these projects would do little but contribute to even more unemployment and misery.

— Cut taxes and cut them again – which has an arguable stimulative effect on the economy, but which would definitely zoom the deficit into the stratosphere.

— Cut spending to reduce the deficit – and given the effect on the deficit of his proposed tax-cutting spree, those cuts would have to be mighty indeed to have any effect, gutting essential programs like Social Security, Medicare and defense.

As you see, there’s lots of questionable verbiage about jobs, but not one mention of outsourcing. Does anyone need to be reminded that a similar formula didn’t perform that well during the Bush years?  Nor is there any reason to think it will be more effective the second time around, when conditions are worse and the need greater.

There are many factors that make outsourcing jobs attractive. Labor is defenseless in many countries and can be exploited for next to nothing; some favored locations are more than willing to degrade their natural environment, offering a regulation-free environment; and currency issues can be exploited to make the already lowered costs even more appealing.

There’s also plenty that Congress could do to make outsourcing less attractive and keep good paying jobs here in America, where workers would spend their surplus wages on American-made goods, creating even more jobs. Of course, that probably wouldn’t work so well for Blunt’s Chamber constituency, nor for their foreign donors who might just stand to gain when American workers lose.