Exporting America

The Department of Homeland Security recently awarded what could be a $10 billion border security contract to Bermuda-abased Accenture. My guest tonight says it is outrageous and wrong to reward a company for abandoning our country.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLaura has authored legislation that would prevent government contracts from being awarded to foreign companies. In her statement, she said, "The United States should not be doing business with those who want all the benefits of citizenship without any of the responsibilities."

Now, explain why free trade prevents Congress from doing this.

Very well. You said, in #146:

I don't have a problem with buying American military hardware from U.S. suppliers. Makes the most sense. That's still not justification for tariffs. I understand and am willing to accept that buying such hardware from American suppliers may be more expensive, but that's not justification for tariffs that make everything else more expensive.

The problem here is fundamental. Modern weapons are complex, and modern armed services have daunting logistical needs.

If I may paraphrase your comment, you agree that having U.S. companies available to produce supplies for the military is a good idea. I trust that is reasonably accurate, and that you'll correct me if it isn't.

The various supplies are all interrelated. If we want the ability to manufacture tanks, we must be able to produce steel. To have a steel industry, we must either set up a mechanism to keep the factories set up and waiting, and the workers, with their expertise, doing likewise. Or, we can protect our industry - which is a lot less expensive than the first option.

How about aircraft? At the least, we need aluminum and magnesium parts, right? But that means we must either be able to produce the metal, mill the basic parts, and assemble the various items - or, at some point, depend on stockpiles. One must ask what we should do if a conflict lasts beyond the life of the stockpile.

Notice that this problem continues through to every item! Do we wish to clothe our soldiers? Provide them with boots? Supply them with food? Then we must have the infrastructure to make clothing, which implies factories to make cloth! We must have other factories that can make footwear. We must have still others that can produce and preserve large quantities of food.

The existing concern is ammunition. Judging by your screen name, Gunslingr3, you are a fan of firearms. Perhaps you would be so kind as to retrieve a single center-fire cartridge and consider it carefully.

Seriously, go get the cartridge. I'll wait. :-)

That single cartridge is a miracle of production, isn't it? It's probably brass; it has a primer, and, most likely, a copper gilded bullet. The bullet itself, were you to extract it, is carefully shaped to high tolerances. The powder within the cartridge is also kept to specification - it may be shaped like a sphere, as with military rifle ammunition, or like little cylinders, or like flakes. Each type of powder has different burning characteristics, and therefore produces different pressures as the powder explodes.

Need we consider the primer? The shaping of the steel cap, the internal anvil, the chemicals inside that make a small explosion upon the application of pressure?

So to produce plain, simple, ammo for a ground-pounder in the field, we must produce: brass cartridges, lead bullets, copper gilding, primers, and the gun powder itself. We need to produce this in quantity, and to high standards.

Notice the array of industry we need for so simple an item! Which portion will we toss aside as unnecessary? Which will we choose to do without, in time of war?

Can the parts be imported? Are we certain? Will France sell us what we need, when we need it? Will China? Can Israel?

As we denude ourselves of industry, we must ask - truly, seriously - are we sure we won't be left defenseless at a future time?

And, Gunslingr3 - if a simple bullet is this complex, what about the really complicated stuff we use and depend upon?

The outsourcing discussion tends to devolve into an endless debate over lower prices versus higher wages. That's important - but the real cost is that we are giving up national sovereignty. If we cannot defend ourselves - will our freedom and our Constitution survive?

And that, Gunslingr3, is why I advocate protecting American industry.

To have a steel industry, we must either set up a mechanism to keep the factories set up and waiting, and the workers, with their expertise, doing likewise. Or, we can protect our industry - which is a lot less expensive than the first option.

It would be cheaper to write them checks straight from Congress to maintain sufficient steel manufacture for defense needs than distort the entire steel consuming market and related industries.

"According to a study by the Institute for International Economics, saving those 1,700 jobs in the steel industry cost American consumers $800,000 in the form of higher prices for each steelworker job saved. That's just the monetary side of the picture. According to a study commissioned by the Consuming Industries Trade Action Association, higher steel prices have caused at least 4,500 job losses in no fewer than 16 states -- over 19,000 jobs in California, 16,000 in Texas, and 10,000 in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. In other words, industries that use steel are forced to pay higher prices, the products they produce become less competitive and they must lay off workers."link

If you want to argue that every element, of every component, of everything our military uses should recieve a government subsidy to maintain wartime production levels (of whatever you imagine that to be), do so, and maintain it for that purpose and sell it on those merits. Don't try to drive others out of work and drive down living standards in an effort to make the entire U.S. economy a model of self sufficiency. That's not just dumb, it's impoverishing.

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