Boxed In: the Free Trade Argument Against Barbara Boxer

The Investors' Business Daily offers the quick free trade argument against Barbara Boxer who has been making a great deal of hay over GOP rival Carly Fiorina's having "outsourced California jobs" by laying off 30,000 people at H-P. According to IBD, Fiorina is a piker compared to Boxer:

Sen. Barbara Boxer thinks she's struck election gold in California by charging her rival, ex-CEO Carly Fiorina, with outsourcing. The real story is how Boxer has chased millions of jobs out of state with her politics.

Last Wednesday's radio debate between California's two senatorial candidates repeatedly circled the issue of jobs in a state with 12.4% unemployment, second highest in the nation.

Incumbent Boxer's trump card was that her opponent, while chief of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2006, outsourced jobs. "She laid off 30,000 workers, shipped jobs overseas and says she's proud of her record — well, that's her record," said Boxer.

Problem is, Boxer is a far bigger outsourcer. The unemployment rate in her state is 25% higher than the national average of 9.4%, and the number of jobless Californians is 66% higher than when she took office 17 years ago. Her 90% liberal voting record based on National Journal data has much to do with it.

As IBD points out, Boxer has consistently supported job killing legislation, whether the stimulus, the increase in the corporate tax rate, and especially all of the "green" legislation/regulations that have choked off California's manufacturing base, from cars to silicone chips to surfboards. All true, but God forbid we would ever hear this from the state MSM, let alone Fiorina herself. For whatever reason, voters and reporters can understand the ill effect of laying off thousands of workers, but can't begin to comprehend the political climate that created the incentives for those losses in the first place.