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Lobbyists Killed Jobs Bill
A SERIES OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA reports have revealed how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently mobilized its army of lobbyists to fight Senate legislation that would bring once-outsourced jobs back home to the U.S.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit 501(c)(6) that purportedly works to promote businesses and jobs in America. Today, however, the organization is increasingly coming under fire for backing multinational corporations and the outsourcing of American jobs to third world countries. The bill in question was the Creating American Jobs and End Offshoring Act (S. 3816), sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of the bill’s cosponsors, the measure would put an end to the assistance Washington has been giving Big Business to move American jobs overseas.
Among other things, it gives companies a two-year payroll tax break when they hire new employees to perform services in the United States that had previously been done abroad.
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It also eliminates the tax break—a corporate subsidy—that companies get for closing down factories and moving them abroad. Says Sanders: “The bill prohibits a firm from taking any deduction, loss or credit for amounts paid in connection with reducing or ending the operation of a trade or business in the U.S. and starting or expanding a similar trade or business overseas.”
Finally, the bill closes down a federal tax subsidy that has been rewarding U.S. companies that move their factories to foreign lands. “Under current law,” says Sanders, “U.S. companies can defer paying U.S. tax on income earned by their foreign subsidiaries until that income is brought back to the United States.”
This is known as “deferral” and puts American companies at a distinct disadvantage because they are responsible for taxes no matter whether they sell their wares or not. At a time when unemployment is at a record high, the bill should have been a no-brainer for legislators when it came up for a vote. But only eight senators sponsored it—all Democrats except for Sanders, a Vermont independent.
But even worse, neither Democrats nor Republicans could get the 60 votes necessary to pass a cloture bill to get it to the floor for a vote.
That’s because the Chamber of Commerce, which donates heavily to Republicans and Democrats, came down hard against it. This should not come as a surprise, considering it has been revealed that the Chamber of Commerce has been receiving significant funding from companies in foreign countries. According to the left-wing populist organization, Think Progress, the chamber has been accepting millions of dollars tax-free from companies in China, India, Bahrain, Egypt and Russia, among other countries, and then funneling that money into U.S. political campaigns in violation of federal election law. In return, the chamber has become a vocal proponent of globalism, which includes sending U.S. jobs abroad and hiring cheap labor.
In a letter to Congress, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Bruce Josten displayed his complete incompetence, his disdain for American workers and his utter lack of patriotism by claiming that bringing much needed jobs back to the United States would not really help the U.S. economy.
“Replacing a job that is based in another country with a domestic job does not stimulate economic growth or enhance the competitiveness of American worldwide companies,” Josten scribbled. So what does Josten suggest Congress do to help Main Street America and boost the economy? He says Congress should make permanent the tax breaks for the two-percent of the American population that earns more than $250,000 a year.
The insanity of Josten’s claims is revealed in the fact that consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy. In plain English, that means, if there are no jobs for working-class Americans, there is no more United States.
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(Issue # 43, October 25, 2010)
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