Victory: Buy America and Anti-Outsourcing Measures In the Final Stimulus Bill

Two pieces of great news from the stimulus package - news that would not have happened without an emboldened progressive movement pushing hard.

First, the Buy America provisions survived the conference committee and remain in the stimulus package. These provisions, which were vehemently opposed by multinational corporate lobbyists, encourage government agencies to purchase American-made goods in spending the stimulus money, so as to make sure the money creates as big an economic multiplier effect for our economy as possible.

Second, I'm told by Capitol Hill sources that the Sanders-Grassley amendment prohibiting bailed-out banks from using taxpayer money to outsource jobs remains in the final bill. The amendment followed the Associated Press's report that many banks were using the cash in conjunction with their ongoing efforts to abuse the H-1B program and outsource information sector jobs. Here's a list of banks receiving bailout money - ie. banks that will no longer be able to use that money to subsidize offshoring.

Let's recall that there has been enormous K Street pressure against these measures; that the president tried to water down the Buy America provision; that the elite media railed against them; and that the only voices out there for these provisions came from the progressive movement (ie. unions, consumer groups, the blogosphere).

In the past, those cricumstances usually meant winning floor votes in public (where politicians didn't want to vote against such popular measures) and then legislative gutting in the closed-door conference committee. So the fact that these provisions have survived that closed-door conference committee is a real sign of progressive progress and a real sign that the "Make Him Do It" Dynamic is working. This is especially true because, as Bloomberg News reports, corporate lobbyists acknowledge that these provisions are not toothless. They are real.

As I said before and I'll say again, the stimulus bill is far from perfect. But there's a lot of good stuff in there - and a lot of that good stuff is in there because movement pressure created the "Make Him Do It" Dynamic.

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