U.S. politicians to take a swipe at offshoring

Over 50 U.S. congressmen will shortly introduce a bill into Congress designed to bar U.S. companies from receiving government financial aid if they do not protect local jobs to the same extent as they protect jobs which they provide outside the U.S.

The Defending American Jobs Act of 2004 will be introduced by Representative Bernard Sanders with 50 co-sponsors from the two main U.S. political parties, Sanders said in a statement on his Web site. Sanders is an independent, allied with neither the Republican or Democratic parties.

“In my view, it is an insult to the middle class of this country, that American taxpayer dollars are being used to provide loans, loan guarantees, grants, tax breaks and subsidies to huge and profitable corporations who then say to the American people: ‘Thanks for the welfare, chumps. But we’re closing your plant and taking your job to China ‘,” Sanders said in his statement.

Under the proposed legislation, companies seeking government assistance would have to disclose their local and overseas workforce levels and would be ineligible for assistance if their polices favored overseas workers at the expense of U.S. workers.

One of the organizations that will be targeted is the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), which provides trade financing and other help to U.S. companies that do business abroad.

Sanders identified several IT and telecommunications companies as major benefactors of Ex-Im, including Motorola Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc. and IBM Corp.

In particular, he has singled out Motorola for taking almost $500 million in direct loans and loan subsidies from the Ex-Im Bank, while reducing its U.S.-based workforce to only 56 percent of its total workforce.

“Companies should not be asking for U.S. government handouts if they want to secretly throw American workers out on the street while they are expanding employment overseas,” Sanders said in his statement. “The American people also have a right not to give corporate welfare to those companies that are leaving the United States for India, China or Mexico .”