It's the economy ...(Insider Report)

N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, created a world of grief for congressional Republicans when he insisted that the accelerated "offshoring" of jobs from the U.S. is "the latest manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about" for centuries.

"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," Mankiw, a Harvard University economist, commented at the release of the annual Economic Report of the President on February 9. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past and that's a good thing." (Left uncommented on was the single major contributing factor to offshoring--the crippling burden of taxation and regulation on American businesses.)

Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), whose district is haunted by shuttered factories, abandoned plants and dying towns, called for Mankiw's resignation. "I know the president cannot believe what this man has said," declared Manzullo. "He ought to walk away, and return to his ivy covered office at Harvard."

Mankiw is not the only member of the Bush economic team to create embarrassment for his boss. During a campaign stop last Labor Day in Ohio--an indispensable ...