Don't ship our jobs to China

In the midst of the worst national economy in the past 70-plus years, it was shocking to learn that a lot of the money being spent to rebuild America’s infrastructure is actually going to boost not the U.S. economy, but the Chinese.

Yep, billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money are being shipped overseas to Beijing to pay for projects for bridges, subways and roads. This includes a $7.2 billion bridge in San Francisco, a $400 million bridge renovation in New York State.

U.S. law actually requires infrastructure projects to hire American if federal dollars are used, but the California project rejected federal money in order to bid the project out to the Chinese.

To be fair, there are issues that make American companies less competitive — including higher labor costs and lack of qualified employees such as welders — but this is just exactly what the federal government ought to be doing — finding ways to protect American jobs and American companies from overseas competition.

It is also a wake-up call, or should be, for all Americans that the Chinese are so much more efficient in their business practices that they can actually build a bridge in Shanghai and ship it 6,500 miles to San Francisco in 12 pieces and still be able to do it more cheaply than on-site construction.

American manufacturing has already tumbled from the top of the world market to somewhere near the middle. If our construction industries go the same way, then pretty soon there will be nothing to prevent us from falling into Third World economy status.

From what we understand, the cities and states that have hired Chinese firms and workers to build their infrastructure have done nothing wrong —    it’s important that we put up roadblocks to such projects in the future.

For the past six months, we’ve been witnessing a dog-and-pony show in the presidential election process, as first one and then another candidate has jumped up in the polls without really advancing any new ideas for how to save America.

Well, we are running out of time. Let’s hope someone in Congress or on that presidential stage starts to talk about serious ideas for how to protect American jobs, and let’s hope it starts soon.