Burr, Tillis help Dems offshore American jobs, sneer at concept of ‘Buy American’
So, TRT voted to offshore American jobs. Likely putting some North Carolinians out of work. (*Thank God he and Shumaker saved us from Cal Cunningham’s extramarital mischief so we could get CRAP like this.*)
Burr and Tillis were part of a group of 19 Senate RINOs who voted to help kill a cornerstone of the Trump economic policy — protect American workers first:
[…T]he bill allows the heads of federal agencies to issue waivers to corporations to work around Buy American requirements if they consider the requirement “inconsistent with the public interest,” or does not meet “satisfactory quality,” or if they believe buying American will increase costs for the projects.
The bill reads:
The head of a Federal agency that applies a domestic content procurement preference under this section may waive the application of that preference in any case in which the head of the Federal agency finds that:
- applying the domestic content procurement preference would be inconsistent with the public interest;
- types of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality; or
- the inclusion of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials produced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent.
The waivers will only be reviewed every five years and will have to be justified in the Federal Register with a public comment period of no fewer than 30 days. The waivers are likely to be a massive benefit for corporations that produce materials and products, often linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
The 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill include:
- John Katko (R-NY)
- Don Bacon (R-NE)
- Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ)
- Fred Upton (R-MI)
- Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
- Don Young (R-AK)
- Tom Reed (R-NY)
- Chris Smith (R-NJ)
- Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
- Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
- David McKinley (R-WV)
The 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the bill include:
- Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Mike Crapo (R-ID)
- Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Richard Burr (R-NC)
- Deb Fischer (R-NE)
- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
- Rob Portman (R-OH)
- Thom Tillis (R-NC)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Jim Risch (R-ID)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
- Roger Wicker (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- John Hoeven (R-ND)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Mitt Romney (R-UT)
Twice, in the House and Senate, Republican lawmakers sought to include strict Buy American requirements to ensure that industries would not be allowed to simply secure waivers through well-connected federal agency heads.
Each time, the amendments were crushed and the Republicans who proposed them ultimately voted against the bill.
Though the language of the bill seeks to boost Buy American standards, the waivers are a vehicle to continue economic globalism that has lifted tariffs at the expense of U.S. jobs and wages over the last six decades in favor of importing cheap materials and products via free trade.
From 2001 to 2018, U.S. free trade with China has eliminated at least 3.7 million American jobs. In 1985, before China entered the WTO, the U.S. trade deficit with China totaled $6 billion. In 2019, the U.S. trade deficit with China totaled more than $345 billion.
American manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy, as every one manufacturing job supports an additional 7.4 American jobs in other industries.
Boy, those Chamber lobbyists got their money’s worth out of Thom and the rest of those RINOs. It is kind of irritating that Richard Burr gets to sit up there as a lame duck for a whole year and give us the finger. He knows he’ll never face North Carolina voters again. And his twin brother Thom has FIVE years before he has to look at a voter ever again.
Democrats know they can always count on a handful of RINOs to push their agenda across the finish line. It never fails. RINOs like Burr and Tillis have been doing this for years. When Biden was on the ropes, they have once again bailed him out and given him a legislative victory. But stupid NC Republicans will pretend it never happened and will keep waiving their trunks.
WOuld our OWN NC Gen Assembly stop them? Doubtful.
We have MANY republicans support the GREEN NEW DEAL FOR NC. Explain that one if you can?
The number of Republicans who voted for NC’s version of AOC’s Green New Deal in H 951 is truly appalling. This action of our NC RINOs will do to our electric rates what Biden’s pipeline and drilling policies have done to our gasoline prices. Sure, this was rammed through by our King RINO legislative leaders Berger and Moore on a very quick timetable, a matter of 3 days, but one would think our legislators would have caught on. I see too many names of people who are usually conservative who voted for this excrement sandwich which screws all North Carolinians.
There is one RINO who I hope will pay dearly for this backstabbing of the GOP base and that is RINO House Speaker Timmy Moore. The redistricting committee created a Congressional district for Little Timmy to run in since he seems to have tired of being Speaker. With enough financing of a conservative opponent, this issue should make him political road kill with primary voters. I can just see the postcards and the TV ads picturing Moore with AOC and using the quote of her former chief of staff that the Green New Deal is not about the environment but about building socialism. Moore is a despicable weasel who badly needs to be defeated.
The bottom line is that we have way too many “Republican” legislators in the General Assembly who are too easily led astray, and too many who are just downright evil like those in the hip pocket of the solar grifters like Szoka in the House and Steinberg in the Senate. We need to do a better job in the primaries separating the wheat from the chaff.
” Explain that one if you can.”
Above my head. Does not make me happy. I am stunned this happened.
We will not have another crack at Terrible Thom until 2026, unfortunately.
But there is another Tillis / Burr clone on the primary ballot in 2022 that we need to defeat in the primary. That is RINO failed former governor Pat McCrory, who is openly endorsed by Burr, and uses the same consultant, Paul Shumaker, as Tillis and Burr. McCrory would be the same sort of RINO disaster that Tillis and Burr have been. We need to all get behind conservative Congressman Ted Budd and send a conservative from NC to the US Senate for the first time in many years.
How does McCrory WIN a state election again? NO way he wins.
As for Tillis, he thinks he’s safe, 6Y out…like WE FORGET.
I’m almost to the point, IF we can’t primary NC GOP OUT, we let them fail and 2Y later, we put in a new crop of GOP’ers WILLING to be conservative…not “talk’ conservative.