Let’s bring jobs home, not reward companies to send them overseas

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Posted 7/22/14

From the Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket to modern submarine production at Quonset Point, the manufacturing sector has always been central to Rhode Island’s economy. Unfortunately, we’ve seen more …

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Let’s bring jobs home, not reward companies to send them overseas

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From the Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket to modern submarine production at Quonset Point, the manufacturing sector has always been central to Rhode Island’s economy. Unfortunately, we’ve seen more and more American manufacturing jobs shipped overseas in recent decades – 2.4 million in the last 10 years alone.

Rhode Island in particular lost more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2011 – the greatest proportion of any state in the country according to a Wall Street Journal study. I’ll never forget visiting one Rhode Island business and seeing holes in the floor where a machine had been unbolted and shipped overseas for foreign workers to do the same work. We can’t afford to keep letting these jobs go.

There is something we can do: we can stop rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas and start rewarding them for bringing jobs back home. Right now companies are allowed to deduct from their taxable income the expenses of moving operations to other countries. That’s just wrong. Rhode Island taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill to help create jobs in other countries.

This week the U.S. Senate will vote on the Bring Jobs Home Act, a bill that would end these tax giveaways for companies that send jobs overseas and instead provide a tax cut for companies that bring jobs back to America. Specifically, the Bring Jobs Home Act would provide companies with a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the cost of bringing jobs back to America.

I support this legislation because I want to encourage more companies to follow the example of Rhode Island manufacturers like Quick Fitting Inc., in Warwick. Quick Fitting manufactures plumbing components, and announced plans in 2012 to move one of its facilities from China back to Rhode Island. We need more companies to make that same investment in Rhode Island workers, and the Bring Jobs Home Act would help.

I’m also fighting for the Offshoring Prevention Act, which I introduced last year with Congressman David Cicilline. The Offshoring Prevention Act would address another tax giveaway that allows companies to manufacture goods abroad for sale here at home and defer payment of federal income tax – waiting to pay taxes on foreign income in years that minimize their tax liability. We want to end that offshoring incentive so that manufacturers in Rhode Island who pay their taxes and play by the rules aren’t put at an unfair disadvantage.

These are simple, commonsense steps that would encourage companies to bring jobs home to America and put local manufacturers on an even playing field with foreign manufacturers. Rhode Island, with our proud manufacturing tradition, can succeed if our manufacturers have a fair opportunity to put Rhode Islanders back to work.

 

Sheldon Whitehouse is a U.S. Senator for Rhode Island and a co-sponsor of the Bring Jobs Home Act.

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  • WilliamF

    Sorry Senator Sheldon Whitehouse your definition of the root cause & companion mitigation steps falls far short of the mark. The problem here in RI goes much deeper than the POTUS Bill Clinton policies that shipped most mfg jobs overseas (the great sucking sound)..

    Yes, the state of RI has an odor best associated with low tide emitted from especially the RI General Assembly on Smith Hill in Providence RI.

    Yes nefarious associations and RICO like behaviors that subject tax payer, employees & business to a shakedown where the connected get a taste is well know and acknowledged across the nation. Yes, such a brand of State Wide & companion national totalitarian socialism sends people with ideas and money beyond the reach of day to day corruption, incompetence and malfeasance. Honest Abe Lincoln gave us a caution of avoiding the exact set of (aka community organizers) devious behaviors that RI (and the Federal Government POTUS) has become infamous for. The solution must come from informed voters utilizing adult critical thinking tools to determine their vote at the next November elections. Only then can the RI & national economy move towards returning to wealth creation and a shared prosperity via work fare instead of an open ended welfare delivery industry.

    Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Report this