From Heather's eblast today:
About 10 years ago, my mom decided to climb aboard her 30-foot Catalina sailboat. She sailed off to the islands where she explored the Caribbean for three years. It changed her life in many ways but one of the strongest life lessons she came away with was – check the easy stuff first.
In boating, things always go wrong. Boaters really don’t want it to be the big stuff because it's expensive, and hard to get in the middle of the ocean. So when the engine stops, you don’t start with the engine. Smart boaters start with loose bolts and corroded wires.
A bad economy is no different. We should be checking the easy stuff first. Later, we can have a post-mortem conversation about the role of government in job creation so this doesn’t happen again. But, for now, America has lost millions of jobs since the Bush years and the recession started. Many of them lost because Congress didn’t check for loose bolts. For example...
- During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt signed the Buy American Act (1933) requiring our government to buy American made products when spending American taxpayer dollars.
- In 1979, the President gained the authority to waive the Buy American Act under certain international trade agreements.
- In 1996 the Buy American Act language was excluded entirely from the Agreement on Government Procurement, which governs World Trade Organization agreements on government procurement of commodities, technology and services.
In short, America used its almighty purse strings to help pull small businesses – and hence communities – out of the depression. And then Congress decided that, under our free trade agreements, things made in any of the fourteen Countries where we have free trade agreements could be considered Made in America. This caveat acts as a trigger; join the WTO and you’re in. In 2006, China was accepted as a full member of the WTO. Loose bolts everywhere.
Help tighten our economy's loose bolts!
Put it all together and what you have is a mass exodus of American jobs. Still our very own Congressional Representative John Mica voted NO on assisting workers who lose their job due to globalization, and NO on extending unemployment assistance to those who lost their job through no fault of their own. Why does John Mica punish us – especially his own district – when he's the one who allowed the loose bolts to wreak havoc on the engine?
Let's Create American Jobs and an American Recovery with Heather!
We have the opportunity to restrengthen the Buy American Act to really reflect our preference that American taxpayer dollars are spent on things that create American jobs, and are really MADE IN AMERICA.
* Note: Recently, the House passed Congressman Larry Kissell's
Berry Amendment Extension Act and Congress passed the
Made in America Promise Act. We need more leaders like
Heather - champions for more American jobs, more American manufacturing jobs, and who will invest our tax dollars in products made by U.S. workers.