To the editor:
Our state has a proud history as a center of manufacturing. Of course the economy evolves, but we have also sustained self-inflicted damage. US taxpayers have been paying to encourage corporations to outsource their production and even to move their headquarters abroad. What sense does that make (except to the corporations, of course)?I recall a few years ago, IBM fired a lot of workers and then offered to find them jobs… in India, at prevailing Indian wages. Not helpful. That’s like Wal-Mart advising its employees to see public relief to feed their families.
For years, Congress has been considering bills to give companies incentive to hire in the US, reduce the outflow of capital, and train American workers.
And what does the former head of the lobby group Club for Growth, now the junior senator from PA, have to say? Wrong question; what has he done?
Answer: Sen. Pat Toomey has been part of a filibuster against the Bring Jobs Home Act: he voted in 2012 and 2014 against allowing a vote on the bill. If he gets the chance, he will doubtless do the same in 2016, which I hope will be his last chance, as he faces the voters again in November, 2016.
That bill would have helped American manufacturing and workers by cutting off tax deductions for US companies’ expenses moving operations out of the country, and would have given companies a tax credit for bringing jobs back to the US. Fine with me!
Toomey has also voted to deny the Small Business Administration funding to help manufacturers receive or borrow capital and purchase equipment. He also voted to defund Veterans Business Outreach Centers, Women’s Business Centers, and other programs to help and train American workers, including with technical education.
You just get the impression he doesn’t like working people, don’t you?
The other day I heard Admiral Joe Sestak speak in Coatesville, in front of the Lukens steel factory, where his grandfather worked as a new American. He gets it about encouraging manufacturing jobs and training Americans. “I want to be held accountable,” he said. Let’s hold Sen. Toomey accountable too, the sooner the better!
Nathaniel Smith
West Chester
