I've seen a lot of this over the last few days by the pro-corporation people. Not only are they going to use the "protectionist" label to attack anything getting in the way of corporations, but they are going to try and cut the existing US benefits and protections.

I saw somebody the other day saying that the best way to bring jobs back into the US would be to reduce the cost of US labor by removing environmental rules, job safety laws and such.

I do recognize there is a risk here of laws being passed to prevent outsourcing that end up hurting the US more then help it. But removing the laws that favor outsourcing obviously don't fall into that category. And I don't think laws that would require companies to give employees resonable notice before letting them go do either, and I would like to see that law made a general requirement for all buisness. I think requiring call centers to indicate where they are is silly, and would be unenforcable against the companies outside the US anyway, if the goal was really to make outsourcing call centers expensive then even a trivial tariff on international communications would be much more effective.

The one group of proposals I do think is dangerous are the ones that try to bar companies from getting US contracts or US grants if ship jobs overseas. The proposals I have seen so far are too harsh and to easly dodged through manipulation to be of any use. I do think the idea has some merit but it will require a carefully drafted law to work.

Jay

I think it's obvious that US government contracts should primarly go to companies that employee US citizens for the contracted tasks. But I think trying to impose it as an absolute rule is a bad idea.

As for applying Davis Bacon rules to all US government contracts, that sounds like a good idea but I don't know enough about the law to be sure.

Jay