CONGRESSMAN CHRIS MURPHY....
What an Idiot

I got this today in an email, I am not even in his district..
Bottom line is this. 7 out of 10 legislators autos are foreign....
Read between the lines.. blog it..

Dear Friends,

I’ve got an idea about how to protect and grow Connecticut’s manufacturing sector and the workers who built it, and it boils down to two words – Buy American.

The federal government spends billions of dollars to buy goods and services, mostly within the defense budget. To me, it is indefensible that a significant portion of that money goes overseas to buy products made by foreign companies. It’s our money! It should be spent here in America, to keep American companies open for business. That’s why I have introduced the 21st Century Buy American Act, which will shift taxpayer dollars away from foreign sources and to American companies and American workers.

You know how tough it is today for Connecticut manufacturers. All across Connecticut and the nation, shops that once bustled with workers who manufactured everything from airplanes to the tools needed to construct them have gone silent. Our defense manufacturing industry has been slowly dwindling, and when those shops went away, thousands of well-paying jobs for hardworking people went with them. In the last three years alone, the United States has shed almost 2 million manufacturing jobs.

So it’s time to strengthen our existing laws that require the federal government, using our tax dollars, to make buying American-made products a priority. The Buy American Act, which governs federal procurement, has been on the books for over 75 years. However, the government has failed to fully enforce and update this important statute, helping to hasten the demise of the heart of our manufacturing base.

The current law, riddled with loopholes, just doesn’t work anymore. Under the existing law, only 50% of a finished good has to be made in America, and when many prime contractors are done applying all the loopholes and exceptions, sometimes as little as one-quarter of a finished product was made here in the U.S. In 2007, the loopholes that we can track resulted in $5.7 billion in taxpayer dollars going to overseas companies. In the same year, Connecticut lost over 3,000 manufacturing jobs. We’ve got to reverse this trend.

So I have introduced legislation in Congress, HR 4553, the 21st Century Buy American Act, that will create jobs, close these loopholes, increase transparency of the exception process, and, most importantly, assist firms that have been hurt by unfair foreign competition.

My bill will:

• Require federal agencies, for the first time, to give a leg-up to bidders for federal contracts that commit to building a large portion of the purchased product here in the United States (in my view, we shouldn’t be outsourcing work when we know we could create jobs here in Connecticut instead!)

• Provide assistance to American companies who are the sole supplier to the federal government of a particular product to make sure they can stay in business (because if they go out of business, the work will go overseas and never come back)

• Increase the minimum percentage of a product that must be made in the U.S. from 50% to 60%. In my view, this change alone could create tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

• Mandate that agencies report, in a public database, what waivers of the domestic sourcing laws they have issued so that American manufacturers have the information necessary to compete for those contracts (the least we can do is make sure this process is transparent so we truly know where our money is going!)

Now is the time for Connecticut to make up some lost ground in manufacturing. But we can’t do it unless the federal government steps up to the plate and stops sending our taxpayer dollars overseas. We’ve got the workforce and the infrastructure to lead the way to reap the benefits of an updated Buy American effort.

I will keep you informed as this effort moves forward, and let me know what you think about Buy American, and any other ideas you may have to help Connecticut’s economy.


Every best wish,

Chris Murphy