Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The “Buy America” provisions of the stimulus package got huge amounts of ink from the NYT, the Washington Post, and other media outlets, all of which were anxious to feature economists denouncing them as protectionist. For some reason the NYT did not feel the need for similar denunciations in an article reporting on a bill that quite explicitly protects highly-skilled workers by imposing a tax for visas. The bill also is peculiar in that it is structured so that large U.S. companies would escape the tax. Only foreign-owned companies with relatively few U.S. employees would pay the tax.