Your Opinion: Outrage displays hypocrisy

Dear Editor:

The recent outrage in Washington over American athletes' uniforms being made in China offers some valuable insight leading up to the election. Top lawmakers from both parties are pretending to be upset that Team USA's clothing was manufactured far away from home. As usual this posturing is dripping with hypocrisy.

A look at the record shows that many of these lawmakers supported (and continue to support) the tariff-free trade policies that eviscerated the domestic textile industry. Yet these same lawmakers preen before the cameras, clad in suits made in factories their votes helped offshore. These are gold medalists in fake outrage as they breast beat about jobs and American pride, betting that few people will realize their phony indignation's inherent deceit.

Since the mid-1990s, when multinational corporations began convincing both parties to vaporize the trade and tariff policies that built this nation's economy, the United States has lost almost 1,300 textile mills, according to the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO). In just the five years between 2004 and 2009, NCTO estimates that those factory closures have translated into a net loss of a quarter million textile and apparel jobs.

This is the deliberate result of trade deals supported by both parties - trade deals that reduced the tariffs that used to financially discourage companies from trying to profit off exploitation and oppression. Our trade pacts now encourage companies to cut costs not through technical efficiencies or innovation but by simply moving production to countries that tolerate poverty wages and sweatshop conditions.

The same politicians criticizing the Olympic uniforms expect their fake outrage to garner all of the attention. But if you peruse their votes, you will know what the real outrage is - and you should take that outrage to the polls in November. We should throw them all out and begin anew.