I support the “Buy America” provision.
Any project paid for with tax dollars should use American goods and American labor.
Current “Buy America” provisions in government contracting have volumes and volumes of loopholes.
It sounds good but the implementation is what matters.
There is nothing protectionist about installing a “domestic content provision” in public works projects.
Our entire military procurement should be produced by US manufacturers with 100% US produced materials.
That has theoretically been the law for over 80 years. The “Buy American Act of 1933” required that federal purchases always prefer American made products. The caveats in the bill included waivers for items unavailable from American sources or where the price difference exceeded 25% or where the purchasing agent waived at his discretion.
It needs to be taken out and dusted off with any waivers requiring a plan to make such waiver unnecessary in future. Had these waivers not been issued in the past, we would still have a TV industry, textiles industry, electronics industry, etc. Instead of letting Japan, then Korea, and now China dump until they crushed out industry.
Something I like about Trump’s cabinet picks so far is their attitude that they need to reduce regulations, but also ASK the businesses that are failing for the government causes of their failures. It is easy to say “cut regulations and tax rates” but Wilbur Ross on Bartiromo this morning sounded like he would dig into the businesses to find out exactly what needed to be cut first.