The junior senator from Connecticut wants Congress to reduce exemptions to the federal Buy American Act, and he’s got a good point. The Buy American Act specifies that at least 50 percent of the components in federal purchases be American made, but U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said the government grants too many waivers from this rule, and that some of the waivers make little sense.

Last year, the federal government spent $10 billion on products from Connecticut and $14 billion on products from overseas. Murphy would like to see that proportion changed a bit, in favor of our state. So would we.

Many Defense Department procurements come from overseas, Murphy said, and this hurts Connecticut manufacturers in a number of ways. Fewer government contracts means fewer state jobs, he said. And even though a small shop — such as Marion Manufacturing in Cheshire, which Murphy toured recently — doesn’t have government contracts itself, it may lose out because it does work for larger companies that do compete for contracts.

Marion Manufacturing makes five million telecommunications cable connectors per week, in competition with Chinese firms. This accounts for 40 percent of the company’s revenue.

“The difference was two-tenths of a penny,” said company president Douglas Johnson. “That’s how competitive it is. You can’t make a mistake.” But if you do make a mistake, and jobs are lost, tax revenue is lost at the same time that government expenses go up, because the government has to provide unemployment benefits.

And many other small companies in this state, whose names few would recognize, make parts as subcontractors for defense giants such as Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky or Electric Boat.

“It’s not just the price of the good, it’s the consequences to the U.S. government,” Murphy said.

And, of course, when jobs are lost in Connecticut, the state also loses revenue from income and sales taxes; and if people move away, the housing market declines, and municipalities can lose property-tax revenue.
Murphy said that in some cases, technological advances make it possible for U.S. companies to compete with firms in low-cost countries like China.

“People say the machines are taking our jobs away,” he said. “Machines are bringing work back.”

There can also be security considerations when the ultimate customer is the Pentagon. Buying computer chips for guided missiles from China might be a mistake, said David Cadden, a Quinnipiac University business professor. “From a strategic standpoint, you want to be able to build your own weapons,” Cadden said.
Other times, though, it comes down to a trade-off between saving the Pentagon money and losing American jobs, particularly Connecticut jobs. On balance, we’d like to see the scales tipped a bit in favor of the Connecticut worker.