[oceanview]

here's an easy one: tax their US profits on a sliding scale in proportion to their relative levels of employment in the US. So if Intel makes 60% of their profits in the US, and their workforce is 60% US, they pay no incremental. But if HP makes 95% of their profit in the US, and 30% of their workforce is offshore, they get hit with a surcharge.

The point is: we must raise the cost of employing offshore labor, because the alternative is that the cost of US labor must fall to that level, and that means that either the US standard of living for those workers will also fall to that level, or that our workers will abandon that field and turn it all over to foreign production and employment. The latter is happening now, applications to law schools are bulging while people are bailing out of engineering.

[Mr. Bird]

here's an easy one: tax their US profits on a sliding scale in proportion to their relative levels of employment in the US. So if Intel makes 60% of their profits in the US, and their workforce is 60% US, they pay no incremental. But if HP makes 95% of their profit in the US, and 30% of their workforce is offshore, they get hit with a surcharge

I like the concept of incentives for employing our own, and your scenario could be a good start. But such a policy would require an extraordinary reform of the tax code (which is also a good thing). Right now, a corporate tax attorney can convince the IRS that up is down, and that black they see is really red. Maybe gross revenues is a better (at least easier to define) benchmark.