#NCSEN: Kay’s Nicaraguan Pants
It looks like Big Boy Pants will be facing off against Nicaraguan Pants this year.
We’ve written extensively about Thom Tillis using the powers of his office to benefit very specific contributors and allies. Well, it appears his opponent in this year’s Senate race — Kay Hagan — has similar proclivities:
Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat who was elected to the U.S. Senate with the help of out-of-state liberals, has proven to be a disappointment for progressives. The legislative ranking for Hagan from That’s My Congress shows that she has given more support to conservative legislation than to liberal bills in the 113th Congress.
Hagan’s last significant legislative act in 2013 won’t do much to improve her image. On December 20, Hagan introduced S. 1883, a bill that will preserve a special loophole for “certain trousers, breeches, or shorts imported from Nicaragua”. The law allows corporate outsourcers to evade paying import duties on the pants.
What is the public good created by this loophole? How does it benefit Americans to have pants imported from Nicaraguan garment factories rather than made in the USA?
There is no benefit. The loophole Hagan wants to perpetuate will make business more difficult for American manufacturers of trousers, breeches and shorts, reducing the number of jobs available to Americans who are still looking for work in the wake of the Great Recession.
Breeches are being made in the USA. See here and here and, ironically, Bit of Britain.
Todd Shelton makes trousers here in the USA. So do Orvis and Red Ants Pants.
Land’s End still makes shorts in the USA. So does the All-American Clothing Company. So do Voler and American Apparel.
If it wasn’t for politicians like Kay Hagan, we would have more all-American clothing companies, and more clothing companies offering more made-in-the-USA clothes.
THAT is a progressive web site bashing our very own Senator Sock Puppet.™ The Hagan legislation exempts someone who imports “certain trousers, breeches, or shorts imported from Nicaragua” from paying tariffs or duties. Gee, that’s very specific. It sounds like this was introduced to benefit a very specific person to whom Madame Sock Puppet may or may not owe a favor.
Perhaps a ”little bird” will fly by and help us identify said beneficiary. (It appears the bill has been stuck in committee since December 2013, though.) I wonder what her union buddies think about legislation like this?
It would be nice if we had politicians in Washington with the mindset of cutting the cost of doing business domestically. So you don’t have to look offshore to keep your business afloat. (But, we’re not holding our breath.)
So the choice in the US Senate race is between a rent boy for the special interests and a rent girl for the special interests. There is not a lot of choice there. Neither one would know a political prinicple if one jumped up and bit them.
No our choice is between a rent girl for the special interest groups, and a person who could take Harry Reid out of the Senate Majority seat. The same Harry Reid who sent BLM snipers to a ranch in Nevada so he could build his solar panel farm. No choice for me, I would vote for most anyone to remove Harry Reid from his high perch.
You assume that Tilli$ will not do what his mentor Richard Morgan did, and do a deal to throw control back to the Democrats. Heck, Tilli$ even uses the same political consultant for his Senate race who negotiated that corrupt deal between Richard Morgan and Jim Black. No, I do not trust Morganite ”Republicans” any farther than I can throw the Legislative Building.
Your Harry Reid argument would carry a lot more weight if the alternative were not Mitch ”Kentucky Kickback” McConnell, who has taken a viciously anti-conservative posture in this year’s primaries and has been a real weasel on important issues. McConnell is almost as bad as Reid. If we had a reasonably good conservative as prospective Senate leader who knew how to lead and did not constantly attack conservatives in his own party, it would make a much stronger argument to hold one’s nose in the NC Senate race, but then again, what the establishment thugs did in Mississippi does change everything this election cycle.
Write in “John Rhodes.”