Manufacturing
My grandfather and great grandfather worked in the ball bearing factories of New Britain. Today, those factories stand largely deserted, and as I visit businesses all across our state, I keep hearing the same thing: work that used to be done in Connecticut is moving overseas. While this trend cannot be halted, there are steps the government can take to make sure that American retains a vibrant manufacturing industry. Put simply, I believe that our economy cannot succeed if we do not make things in America.
The easiest way for the federal government to support American manufacturing is to make sure taxpayer dollars are used to purchase goods from U.S. companies made by American workers. Most people assume that the American government already considers the impact on American jobs when we hand over our defense dollars to contractors--but that is not the case. I wrote the American Jobs Matter Act to help change that. If enacted into law, the Department of Defense (DOD) will be required to measure, for the first time, domestic employment as a factor in awarding a government contract, therefore directly taking into account how the contract would benefit the U.S. economy. America’s tax dollars should be used to help support American jobs, and the DOD should make every effort to buy American not only to promote economic growth here at home, but also safeguard our national security by ensuring that our defense supply chain does not become overly reliant on foreign nations for the raw materials and finished goods necessary to defend the American people.
Other strategies to support U.S. manufacturing include workforce policies that support training in advanced manufacturing skills, reforming tax law so that insourcing is encouraged and outsourcing is discouraged, and only entering into trade agreements to complement free trade with fair trade.
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