A group of senators is pressuring Trump to make his infrastructure proposal as cost-ineffective as possible by adding protectionist provisions to it.
"As you draft your infrastructure proposal, we encourage you to not only protect existing 'Buy America' laws, but work with Congress to expand these protections," reads the Friday letter (first made public Monday) signed by such progressive luminaries as Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), and Sherrod Brown (D–Ohio). Such a move, these senators say, will "improve wages, boost growth, and support American manufacturers."
To judge from the letter's extensive quotes from Trump's own speeches and executive orders, protectionist procurement requirements are one area where #resistance progressives and the president are in agreement.
Trump's inaugural address promised a government that would "buy American and hire American." A few months later, he signed an executive order in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which promised to crack down on waivers for "Buy American" provisions on federal projects.
Current federal law requires that infrastructure projects receiving federal dollars source a certain percentage of materials—typically iron, steel, and "manufactured goods"—from domestic producers. Federal cabinet heads have broad authority to waive these requirements if they impose undue costs, if the materials are not available in sufficient quantity, or if it would otherwise be in "the public interest."
That "public interest" provision allows the government pretty broad authority to skirt Buy America requirements, which they often do—and for good reason, says Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation analyst with the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this website).
"Buy America basically makes things more expensive. Instead of getting the most cost-effective materials from throughout the globe, you're forced to buy things in America," he says.
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