Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Parade of Government Stupidity, Part N

Continuing with the parade of economically illiterate representatives, I present Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). 
Apparently deeply troubled by the thought of foreigners helping you resolve tech support problems Schumer is reportedly pushing legislation to impose an excise tax of $0.25 for every customer service call a firm transfers out of the country. In addition the bill would require firms to inform customers that their call is being answered by someone (gasp) outside of America.

The Senator had this to say:
"This bill will not only serve to maintain call center jobs currently in the United States, but also provide a reason for companies that have already outsourced jobs to bring them back."

Of course if that were true the question is, why just stop there? If a tax on customer service calls answered outside of one political jurisdiction encourages the creation of jobs for people in the other political jurisdiction then Schumer should be rushing to pass a broader bill, one that would impose taxes on any customer service call answered outside of the very state it originates in.

2 comments:

  1. The amusing thing is that the majority of the comments after this article are favorable to Schumer.

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