In his address to Congress, President Joe Biden said his American Jobs Plan is a blue collar blueprint that includes a mandate to Buy American. It’s legislation Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is reintroducing.
Brown’s plan would apply Buy America rules to all infrastructure and public works projects funded by taxpayer dollars.
“It's no longer a Swiss cheese Buy America where companies get all kinds of exemptions," Brown said.
He says that means all components of a project--from the steel to the concrete and everything in between—will be sourced domestically supporting American jobs.
“Occasionally you can't find something made here," Brown said, "but with the scale that we're going to be growing and the size of this infrastructure, if American companies can't don't make something right now, they soon will.”
Brown says the jobs the plan supports typically pay well and many are unionized positions, something he says the President noted when he said union workers built America’s middle class, not Wall Street.
“There are going to be more good paying jobs and companies recognize as they rescale, scale up again or scale up for the first time that there are markets, there are opportunities, that we are serious about Buy America, Made in America, by American workers.”
Brown says the plan will lead to economic growth in communities throughout Ohio and around the country.
