Buy American, Or Something
The Democrat majority on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday night voted to reaffirm the county’s existing “Buy American” policy, which was originally adopted in 1985 and gives preference in purchasing American-made supplies except when they would cost more than the lowest qualified bidder or when the quality of material doesn’t meet desired specifications.
That sounds great, but under the existing policy nobody in the county tracks how often the Buy American policy is actually enforced, or if it even is. Republican commissioners voted against reaffirming the existing policy and wanted, instead, to adopt an option the would require some degree of record-keeping and tracking.
“I think we should put some teeth in a Buy American policy,” said Commissioner Neil Cooksey. “The federal government does it, and I’m not sure why a local government can’t do it.”
Commissioner Bill James offered one possible explanation: county staff, he opined, doesn’t want to keep records because it would mean more work for – county staff.
“This continues doing what we’re doing, which is to keep no records and just say we’re buying American,” James said.
“The problem is, we go around saying we want to buy American, but we don’t keep any records to determine that what we bought is the only alternative,” he said. “So we’ve got pens made in China, and coffee mugs made in China and all kinds of things made in Singapore and Hong Kong. You pick up this stuff that we get, the little trinkets that we pass out, and virtually everything on them says made in China, made in Singapore, made in Hong Kong. So we have this buy American policy, but to me it’s pretty much in name only.”
Ahhh, style over substance: the Democrat way.
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