Should There Be More ‘Made In America’ Policies?

But we must fight low price, low quality with high quality, reasonable pricing. If Wal-Mart wants to sell so much Chinese goods let them move all their stores to China.

Yes but the trouble is what is truely made in America today. Most of our manufacturing was regulated and taxed out of business or forced overseas.

The problem isn't that people are buying items produced abroad, but that America has been told to believe that getting things cheaply is the ultimate goal and have thus priced ourselves into a hole where only items from countries paying slave wages and treating their people like crap can compete for our buying dollars. If we mandate 'buy USA' that doesn't change the mindset of americans; it took a long time to produce and it would take a long time to wean. The first thing the government, if it had a spine at all, would do, is to tax all companies more like the europeans do, using a value added tax. Then no matter where the work is being done the tax is the same, and the incentive for moving manufacturing and services offshore pretty much drops to zero. We have to teach America what the real cost of goods is, and teach them to be willing to pay it, and to live within their means. For a generation, it seems, we have lost touch with that notion, and without regaining it across the spectrum there is little hope for this country's economy or existence.

but i doubt it will work; business has used globalization to pay slave-labor wages in countries w/o bothersome regulations about safety, pollution control, workers' rights, etc. american labor has been priced out of the market and hung out to dry. they don't want to pay us American wages but still expect us to pay American prices, but if we can't, who cares? they've 1.3 billion new suckers with fattening wallets in China, so tough on American labor. they want to continue to pretend that roughly 200 million people just aren't there. or at least aren't their problem.

We need to buy more made in the USA, but Keep Government out of it, that would mean more taxes , more restriction which would have the wrong effect neg.
The only thing government should be involved with is to encourage to buy USA, by means of less entrusion, less taxs, and for themselfs buy USA pruducts.

NOW Democrats and Republicans jump on board! Where were they when "Cash for Clunkers" was rewarding buyers of foreign cars? Where were they when NAFTA and GATT were passed, predicating this whole mess?

Don't try to make sense recalling political causality. It just hurts your brain and shortens your life.

Not much made in America anymore. We need to change that policy.

No economy can survive when it imports more than it exports and slashes jobs and ships them overseas. Maybe it's cheaper to buy from china, but it makes no difference when those who are out of work can't afford them ANYWAY.

The problem with MADE IN AMERICA is that things made here need to be better than what is made there. Build the quality in while keeping the prices low.

since we have safety regulations and generally bother to enforce them, things made here are always better than anything made in China, but the people making the stuff don't give a rat's ass about quality or safety; the only way we can keep prices low is to somehow learn to live in America on seven dollars a month--

I tend to think we need to restore very high tariffs on foreign produced goods including those of american companies that use cheap labor elsewhere.

I've seen things on alibaba, produced in china with the "Made in USA label".

There needs to be a way to certify in fact a product is made here.

I also think that for companies that DO produce here, we need to reduce the corporate tax rate to zero if they keep or build production facilities in the US. We should make the US a place to produce goods again.

Low cost off shore manufacturing frees ourselves to do more productive things here. We used to be 90 percent agriculture, should we go back to that? American's are much more creative than to slave in a factory making things by hand. Buggy whips are no longer needed.

It's not a matter of "we're better than a tee shirt factory," it's a matter of people who worked in that factory were laid off when they shipped it elsewhere. Destroying jobs for unskilled labor don't help the economy at all.

I don't think anyone on this page gets one key point: our corporate overlords do not care about saving the American economy. the republicans in the house illustrate this in their belligerent refusal to pass any legislation sent them from the President, because they don't want the economy to recover while obama is in office.

this means that they have placed their own partisan ambitions high above the welfare of their constituents. That's you and me, folks. we're supposed to be management and the congress labor, but try telling that to a tea party freshman.

the corporate titans that bought and paid for these legislators want us to swap places with China and become a wage-slave state with no affordable health care, no medicaid, no medicare, no social security, meager unemployment benefits and higher taxes on the pittance we can earn. ROMNEY wants to LOWER TAXES FOR THE RICHEST AMERICANS and RAISE TAXES ON THE POOR AND WORKING CLASS. [there's only about 11 people still in the "middle" class, not enough to make up two softball teams, and irrelevant in this discussion.]

and everyone will be an "independent contractor" in a couple of minimum-wage [that is, if we still have a minimum wage] part-time jobs. This is why you are shooting yourself in both feet if you make under 250K a year and vote for any Republican on the ballot. They do not care if you ever work again.

except, perhaps, to whip some sense into you; have you never heard of the agribusiness industry? not all Americans are creative, but most of them need a living-wage paycheck coming in on a regular basis, something the captains of industry have decided they can no longer afford; the only way to compete is through education, which is where the GOP is slavering to cut, cut, cut--

The GOP is not for destroying education, they are for Americans not the government to be the educators, private schools, use your taxes to fund a private school which is a much better way to educate your children! State run public educatiion if you take the time to examine the philosphy, that john dewey was sympathetic towards marxisim, he also was for getting the children away from the parents and making them producers to benefit the state (communisum)! Agenda Grinding Down America by Curtis Bowers

You have summed up the problem with our economy, succinctly! We THINK we are 'better' than others. As if creativity could, somehow, feed or clothe or vaccinate a person. Without a product produced at the end of that creativity, it is AiR...and that is what we have been trying to sell the rest of the world. That is what our schools have bred. That is what we are choking on. AIR! (hot air, no less!) When a country, like a person, cannot sustain itself, it falls victim to the desires of others, good or bad. Should we go back to agriculture, you ask. A short answer..YES... as our food supply has been tainted with 'creative' additives that are killing us in cancer, obesity and more. Ag only; NO; but more ag...yes! (One fina note, , not all, but most folks who work in factories use 'machines', not their 'hands' to make products. That started during the Industrial Revolution; a product of creative minds trying to 'produce' more American goods!)

Very frightening, your so narrow perspective. (i know a fellow from Asia who will give take $25 from you, for your great "idea", and patent it, if good enough. Too bad he'll also own all the rights, manufacture it there and return it to us to buy. That's what your 'creativity' alone, will get you!)

You touch on some very good and valid points but I think one thing you overlooked here is the fact we, as a nation, are rapidly losing our work ethic. Too many ppl are satisfied with the "status quo" position and as long as the "haves" are willing to support the "have nots" things will not change much for the positive.

AGREE!

AGREE!

Kool-Aid drinker.

The last thing this country needs is more policies. Policies are what have caused U.S. workers to out-price themselves out of jobs. Between unions and Several types of mandated insurance, it's expensive to operate a business in the U.S. If it's that important to us as a country, make the choice for yourselves to purchase U.S. goods. We are supposed to be a democracy; Our government shouldn't be making policies that make decisions for us that we are capable of making for ourselves.

it's also expensive to live in the U.S., although only about 11% of us belong to unions. you make it sound like somehow the American work force priced itself out of the market. you have it backwards: when companies were allowed to offshore jobs to places where people live on $1,400 a year, American workers immediately turned into a needless expense. don't you dare blame this on the average joe, who just wants to earn a living, pay his bills and live his life. as for public sector unions, I have no problem with giving them decent benefits and pensions; just look at the cops in aurora, colo., who got to that theater in 90 seconds and almost immediately disarmed that nut with the guns, doubtless saving several lives. these same people then spent days dismantling the bombs and triggers in that guy's apartment. you wanna cut their pensions because you don't think they deserve them? you wanna go in and disable some bombs planted by a nut? you wanna walk up 90 flights or so in a building that was just hit by a commercial jet with 70 pounds of equipment on your back, all the while knowing you'll never get out alive?

didn't think so! the last thing this country needs is a selfish neoconservative like you.

We are a REPUBLIC, well we used to be. Ben Franklin was asked after he came out of independence hall, the women asked what kind of government did you give us? He replied, " A REPUBLIC if you can keep it!"

History has proven that free trade is better for everyone, improves economies, raises standards of living, etc.

Government should stay the hell out of people's personal affairs---period!

Bud

that is one way to increase us economy again .. that would mean cutting off imports and doing more exports just to boost economy but usa is a part of fto though.. :)

Cutting off imports from, well China, would be devastating to our economy...China relies heavily on exports to our country and Obama borrowed a ton of money from them. They could easily turn around and call those loans due and our economy would tank beyond anything we've ever seen. U.S. citizens can do a little homework before making purchases (i.e. new cars), but they don't want to. That would mean no more Sony or Toyota Prius. It's easy to put the decision-making responsibility on our government, but living our lives is our responsibility.

Where possible, I do try to buy "Made In America." That's why we changed from Colgate toothpaste (Made in Mexico) to Crest. While some of the Crest products are made in North Carolina, a few of the 'flavors' are made in Mexico and labeled as such.

Free trade mombojumbo was implemented to get the liberal goal of universal slavery rolling along. If any thing we should be for fair trade. Our current structure penalizes framers for selling raw material to us factories, penalizes importers from importing raw materials from overseas, the exact opposite of how it should be. The us has some of the strongest worker protection laws, highest pay, best benefits, and environmental protections on the planet competing equally against 3rd world slave labor with zero environmental regulations is not only not fair to American workers, but is bad for the planet.

We have out priced ourselves by demanding more and more for the same work, just so that we can buy more crap; most of which is imported. We keep demanding raises in minimum wage because people can't live on it; you're not supposed to be able to! How about bettering ourselves so we can get higher-paid employment? We can't have our cake and eat it too. Cutting off imports would crash economies of the countries who export here, our own economy would suffer even more if the outstanding loans we have with those countries were called due because they needed their money back. These kind of policies sound good in theory, but logistically they are what have crippled our nation in the first place.

Until the 168,000 regulations are relaxed and taxes stifled and less government workers this is the only way it will work!

Not a very free trade idea now is it? Oh! Free trade only works one way. How can any of you say you support a "Free Trade" economy and then be for this concept. It's contradictory and illogical.

That's the problem with the American ideals...we want our cake and eat it too. That's what has gotten us to this point. We're capable of making a conscious choice to buy US goods, but it's easier to let the government do it for us; the cost, however, is another step toward socialism.

Free trade has been bad for the USA because we have become a business unfriendly country with high taxes and overhead and over regulation.

NAPHTA IS NOT FREE TRADE WHEN WE (AMERICA) IS THE MOST HEAVILY REGULATED NATION IN THE WORLD!

We used to have a 'Buy British' thing here in the UK at one point too. Why not promote the businesses and industries of your own country, Seems absurd to buy something from halfway around the world when they make the exact same thing just down the road.

sometimes the quality of a product made in another country is better.

Sometimes with higher value and more complicated products like cars or TVs, but with simpler products like clothing, food etc I think usually the deciding factor is cost, not quality. Countries like China for example can often make things far cheaper than in the US or western Europe, even factoring in the transport costs.