House Bill to Rebuild U.S. Manufacturing Base Introduced
On January 26, 2011, Representative Wolf (R)1 introduced the “Bring Jobs Back to America Act” (H.R. 516), bipartisan legislation that would develop a national job repatriation strategy focused on returning manufacturing and call center jobs to U.S. that have been outsourced to China and other countries.
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According to a press release by Representative Wolf’s office, the bill would:
- Require the secretary of Commerce to create a National Manufacturing and Repatriation Strategy and report back to Congress within 90 days;
- Create Repatriation Task Forces with representatives from the Commerce Department and private sector to support efforts of state and local economic development agencies to attract foreign jobs;
- Re-institute President Reagan’s, "Project Socrates," to study international manufacturing trends and offer solutions for how the U.S. can compete against countries such as China, Japan, and India;
- Mandate a study of a major new tax incentive to lower the barriers to entry for companies looking to return jobs to the U.S. market;
- Prioritize patent applications from U.S. universities to ensure that cutting-edge new technologies are rapidly transferred for U.S. firms to create jobs; and
- Provide intellectual property protections to prevent other countries from stealing U.S. technology, based on recommendations from the U.S. - China Economic and Security Commission.
1Along with 8 cosponsors
Representative Wolf’s press release on the bill is available here.
Text of H.R. 516 is available here.