On the recordJuly 19, 2012
today we are debating a bill called the Bring Jobs Home Act. We live in serious times. We have a debt fast approaching $16 trillion, millions remain out of work, and economic and job growth has slowed to a crawl. Times such as these demand serious economic answers. So it is important that we all understand the utter lack of seriousness of this proposal. The only things serious about the Bring Jobs Home Act are its flaws. The Bring Jobs Home Act would deny the deduction for ordinary and necessary business expenses to the extent that such expenses were incurred for outsourcing; that is, to the extent an employer incurred costs in relocating a business unit from the United States to outside the United States, the employer would be disallowed a deduction for any of the business expenses associated with such outsourcing. The Bring Jobs Home Act would also create a new tax credit for insourcing; that is, if a company relocated a business unit from outside the United States to inside the United States, the business would be allowed a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the costs associated with such insourcing. On the surface, this proposal might sound reasonable. As sound bites go, the President's reelection campaign and the Senate Democratic leadership have apparently decided they can make some political hay with this proposal, but as substantive tax policy goes, this proposal is a joke. First of all, the amount of money involved is trifling.…
