Hey wouldn't it be great to pass a law requiring government agencies to try to boost American jobs when they award contracts and buy supplies? Or how about giving contract and purchase preference to companies that didn't send jobs out of the country in the prior year? We do have legislators who are actively working to make things better. But House leadership and Senate filibusters continue to obstruct.
This week Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) posted The American Jobs Act Still Deserves a Vote over at Huffington Post,
This week, my colleagues and I are introducing an updated version of President Obama's American Jobs Act, a bill that, according to independent analysis by Moody's, would have created 1.9 million jobs and boosted growth by two percent if passed when originally introduced. Congressional leaders allowed the bill to expire at the end of the year without bringing it to the floor for a vote. But it's needed now -- in the age of austerity and the jobless recovery -- more than ever.
This legislation would:
- Put teachers, police, firefighters, and construction workers back on the job and push "public-private financing measures like a national infrastructure bank and cost-sharing with states to boost employment in key fields including education and construction."
- Provide "tax credits to give low- to moderate-income Americans greater purchasing power and offset the impacts of the payroll tax hike without negatively affecting Social Security funding. It also provides tax credits to small businesses for hiring out-of-work veterans and making new job-creating investments."
- The bill "extends unemployment benefits, provides new tax credits to firms that hire workers who have been out of work for six months or longer, introduces innovative new re-training programs, and bans employers from discriminating against the long-term unemployed in hiring decisions."
In other news Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has introduced an American Jobs Act in the Senate that would require the U.S. Defense Department, when awarding contracts, to consider how its choice would affect American jobs. COntracts and produrement would give American jobs a preference. The bill also tightens up Buy American requirements in procurement.
Sen. Murphy said that "any short-term cost savings to taxpayers from choosing a lower bid from overseas are canceled out by the loss of Social Security taxes and income taxes when factory workers lose their jobs."
Here's another one. The Stop Outsourcing and Create American Jobs Act of 2013 was introduced by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) The bill would give a preference in contracts and priocurement to corporations that did not move jobs out of the country in the last year.
There are legislators working to create American jobs. These are just a few of them.
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