Christie vetoes N.J. 'Buy American' legislation
Source: By Matt Friedman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on February 05, 2015 at 3:34 PM
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a package of legislation that would have required public contractors and agencies in New Jersey to buy American-made products and raw materials when possible.
Christie in his veto statement said the legislation would "constrain purchasing decisions by setting artificial thresholds of reasonableness based almost exclusively on price. Subject to few exceptions, any goods or materials sourced for any State contract would have to be made in the United States."
In total, Christie today vetoed five similar "Buy American" bills. The most far-reaching (S1811) would require vendors for public agencies, including public colleges and universities, to buy American-made products and raw materials to fulfill contracts, though it would allow them to get waivers if they are not available domestically. The vendors could also get a waiver if the domestic products cost at least 20 percent more than foreign products.
New Jersey law already requires American goods be purchased "where possible" for public works contracts, local public contracts, state construction contracts, and local schools contracts. This bill would have expanded and strengthened that requirement, and would require any company seeking a waiver to notify the agency, make the information public and undergo a 30-day comment period.
Christie said the bills would discourage international companies from opening in New Jersey and add burdensome reporting requirements.
Read more: http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/02/christie_vetoes_nj_buy_american_legislation.html
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That's going to piss off a lot of workers. Good job, Governor Asshole!
What is so awful about America that he doesn't want public contractors to spend their money here in the US???
...why not give individuals the right to sell their votes to other individuals or vote-garnering-corporations?
who couldn't use an extra few hundred bucks?
simple enough process, an individual decides he or she would rather allow someone with greater resources at their disposal to participate to the full limits of their potential in our glorious democratic process. The individual then either contacts or is contacted by an agency that has access to the information necessary to make the desired transaction feasible. From there it's easy.
everybody wins
This is the same jerk that stopped construction on tunnels to help commuters get to work, plus it laid off workers on the project, this is the same hypocrite that just went on a junket from some billionaire and then he goes around and brags about it and kisses the proverbial ring.
Then to top it all off he makes the taxpayers of the state go into 4 billion in debt, presented no jobs plan, he has basically been on vacation, hasn't spent the Hurricane Sandy money like he is suppose to do, attacks public and private pension funds, and then he vetoes a bill because of outright austerity trade practices to buy and support foreign, instead of AMERICAN PRODUCTS, and this jerk wants to be president.
He and his republicans have this idea they got from Singapore to have a Authoritarian Capitalist society, and if you don't think so, look no further than China, they saw the Singapore model and said hell yes, lets bring it here so that all of the oligarchs and can further corrupt the system.
