Bills to keep jobs in USA create uproar

USA TODAY ^

[Mick2000]

Just three years ago, Congress voted to allow more foreign workers into the United States. Times have changed.

Politicians are proposing tough — opponents say misguided — steps to keep jobs at home in the face of rising unemployment, a growing number of white-collar jobs being transferred to India and other countries and lingering anger over some U.S. allies' opposition to the war in Iraq.

The House has passed measures to require the Defense and State departments to buy a larger share of equipment from U.S. firms. The measure, which has provoked a corporate and political uproar, has not been approved by the Senate.

Legislators in several states are trying to bar the export of government jobs to foreign companies.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., chair of a Judiciary subcommittee, plans a hearing today on possible problems in the L-1 visa program, which allows companies to bring workers to the USA from their foreign operations. Workers complain that firms are using the program as a backdoor way to replace domestic employees with cheaper labor.

[Mick2000]

Some U.S. congressmen are actually trying to do something about the jobs loss to H1B, L1, and outsourcing

[dfwgator]

Let's just hope that the cure isn't worse than the disease.

[goldstategop]

Which is opposed by a Corporate America more concerned about the bottom line than the welfare of the country it supposedly resides in.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Congress can start by abolishing the federal income tax and eliminating the junk science environmental regulations and antiquated labor laws from the 1930s.

[RockyMtnMan]

I sent an email to the GOP asking them what their stance was going to be a few days ago with regard to offshoring. I got a reply back that it was being added to the Chairman's daily report. If I get a more definitive response I plan on sharing it with the rest of Free Republic.

[Semper Paratus]

It would be good if the Administration got out in front of this issue before some of the "Gang of Seven" steal it.

[ServesURight]

BUMP

[snippy_about_it]

Which is opposed by a Corporate America more concerned about the bottom line than the welfare of the country it supposedly resides in.

Well said.

BUMP!

[adam_az]

Yes it would be good - but I wouldn't count on it.

If Bush cared about border and immigration issues, we'd know it by now.

[adam_az]

They see themselves as "multinational" now and have no loyalty.

These "multinationals" should be stopped from making campaign contributions and buying influence then, since they are beholden to foreign powers!

[vigilo]

"Which is opposed by a Corporate America more concerned about the bottom line than the welfare of the country it supposedly resides in."

Many in "Corporate America" view themselves as global "citizens of the world" and don't care about anything having to do with their own nation or culture. The people who assend in Corporate America are made from the same cloth as those who go to Washington and look the other way as our culture is destroyed. They are all, for the most part, the scum of the earth.

[snopercod]

And the Food and Drug Administration, too.

[harpseal]

"The Department of Defense provision is what we call a unicorn provision — because what they want to buy doesn't exist. Flat-panel screens are no longer made in the United States," says Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America. "You would have to recreate those industries in the United States, and those industries would exist for only one client, the Department of Defense," he says.

Gee I guess the Springfield and Harpers ferry arsenals should never have been established and the uSA from 1789 to 1812 should haver bought all its cannon and muskets from England. Becdause teh flat pannels are not currently manufactured in the USA and they actually are critical to the defense of the USA maybe we do need some production capability here. What a concept.

[Dr Warmoose]

Wasn't this Pat Buchanan's platform?

The problem is that the the power brokers within the GOP were terrified that someone like Pat Buchanan would get the GOP nomination so they went on a smear campaign to ruin his chances at winning more than New Hampshire. Such was the origins of the policy of screwing Americans through the practice of job exportation. Ironic though that in their infinite wisdom they thought it was OK to push factories out the country since union rats weren't going to vote 'R' anyway, but in their philosophical position that "free trade" meant that all jobs were subject to exportation (a position designed to marginalize Pat) they ended up screwing their own voter base.

[harpseal]

Domestic content and offshoring ping.

[samuel_adams_us]

Then they can be multinational and not US companies but when their offices overseas are blown up and their employees are killed by terrorists, don't ask for the military of the United States, to step in and help, they can just go f... themselves. You either pay taxes here with employees here or go to hell.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

My Toyota is made in the US. My Honda is made in the US. What is wrong with having foreign companies setting up manufacturing facilities in the US?

Where Congress comes in is to make sure that the business environment in the US is good. This includes taxes, environmental laws, labor laws, educational levels, etc, and maybe occasionally over-riding state laws on occasion.IMHO

[goldstategop]

Its too hard for businesses to manufacture in America. <sarcasm

[a_Turk]

This will kill the JSF..

[dfwgator]

The fact is, the US is considered a mature and saturated market, with the emerging markets in Asia and the former Eastern Bloc countries. So companies are doing whatever they can to gain a foothold into these markets. Part of that price is using local workers. Add in the recent technological advances and there you go. I don't think that much can be done about this, other to adapt. Sometimes all you have is a bad choice and an even worse choice to choose from. I think protectionism is the "even worse choice."