Democrats pushing for job outsourcing penalty in tax reform plan

We’re days away from seeing the plan to overhaul the American tax system, if passed, it’d be the largest tax reform in three decades.

While it’s being billed as a large break for the middle class, some democrats are worried it’s a tax break for the rich, and it will encourage shipping jobs overseas.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) wants to make sure companies that send jobs overseas are penalized. Brown said, “Help those corporations that are actually looking out for their workers and not looking to make a buck by outsourcing jobs overseas.”

Brown says he pitched his proposal to President Donald Trump. Brown said, “I specifically asked the President, said that I have a bill that rewards called the Patriot Corporation Act, that rewards those companies that pay their workers well, that provide benefits and keep jobs in the country. And he liked that idea.”

A 2016 survey shows most companies outsource jobs to save money, another study shows 80 percent of Americans think the practice hurts people in this country.

Brown wants his bill to be a key part of the GOP tax reform plan.

Joann Weiner, who teaches economics at George Washington University, says that’s not likely. She says Brown’s proposal would create new laws that are difficult to enforce.

Weiner said, “It only makes a complicated tax code even more complicated. What do you mean by outsourcing a job? Is it a job that you would’ve hired someone… in a foreign country and now you’re hiring a Kansan, how do you know?

Even though Brown says President Trump has shown interest in his plan, no Senate Republicans have signed on.