Congressional Republicans Reject "Buy American" Provisions
March 2017 - Apparently word hasn't reached Republican members of Congress that their current party leader, Donald Trump, campaigned for President on an anti-trade, buy American platform. In a little reported action taken by House Republicans late last year, the House GOP stripped virtually all of the "Buy American" provisions from a water project infrastructure bill known as the Water Resources Development Act.
Or maybe they were just following a "do as I do, not as I say" approach, given that Mr. Trump, like too many other American businessmen, has spent decades sending his own manufacturing offshore, rather than hiring American workers.
The other interesting aspect surrounding the House vote was Mr. Trump's silence, despite repeated attempts by Democrats to engage his support for reinstatement of the Buy American amendment. Nor did Senate Republicans help in this effort. Although the Senate's original version of the same bill did include the Buy American language, once the House removed it, so did the Senate's Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky).
(Stories indicate that Paul Ryan personally pushed for removal of the Buy American language - image from money.cnn.com)
Democrats haven't given up their support for American workers, however:
Leading the Democratic charge to reinstate the Buy American amendment are Senators Bob Casey (D-Penn), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). You may recall that Senator Brown wrote the book - literally - on the failure of U.S. trade policy. If you haven't read it, we recommend you pick up a copy of that 2004 publication, "Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed".
On the House side, Joe Lipinski (D-Illinois) is proposing standalone legislation to add Buy American provisions to other spending measures.
As the good Citizens of America's heartland know, these five elected officials are not johnny-come-latelies when it comes to having a pro-America trade stance. They've been fighting that battle for years, opposing Republicans and business organizations who have consistently supported the exporting of America's jobs.
(For more interesting insights on trade, see two of our other articles:
"Another GOP Candidate who Made his Money Sending US Jobs Overseas"" and
"Buying American"")
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