Washington, DC – Today U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Mark Pryor (D-AK), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for a press conference in the U.S. Capitol to call for the passage of the Bring Jobs Home Act. The bill, which Whitehouse has cosponsored, would end tax giveaways for companies that send jobs overseas and provide a new tax cut for companies that bring jobs back to America. The bill is scheduled for a procedural vote in the Senate tomorrow.
“From the Old Slater Mill in Pawtucket to modern submarine production at Quonset Point, the manufacturing sector has always been central to Rhode Island’s economy. Unfortunately, we’ve seen more and more American manufacturing jobs shipped overseas in recent decades,” Whitehouse said. “It’s time to stop rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas and start rewarding them for bringing jobs back home. Rhode Island taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill to help create jobs in other countries.”
Right now companies are allowed to deduct from their taxable income the expenses of moving operations to other countries. The Bring Jobs Home Act would end that loophole and would also offer companies with a tax credit equal to 20 percent of the cost of bringing jobs back to America.
An estimated 2.4 million American manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas over the last ten years. Rhode Island in particular lost more than 20,000 manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2011 – the greatest proportion of any state in the country according to a Wall Street Journal study.
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