Suppose that the Washington Post thought that it would be a really good idea to open a new branch of the University of Illinois in the Chicago suburbs. Suppose that the state didn't go along. Would it be good reporting to have news article after news article that discussed the economic impact of this decision? Given that the impact of this decision on the national economy is trivial, readers would probably be outraged if the Post used its limited news space for such a relatively unimportant issue. They should be similarly outraged that the Post has run yet another news story whining about the "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus package. The theme of this story is that Canadian provincial and local governments are unhappy about the Buy American provisions -- just as the suburban Chicago governments would be unhappy about the decision not to build another branch of the University of Illinois. The Washington Post is really really good at ignoring unhappy governmental units in both the United States and Canada. It does it all the time. However, these unhappy governments happen to agree with the Post editorial policy, which is to rigidly oppose any form of protectionism that might benefit ordinary workers, as opposed to professionals, drug companies, or the entertainment industry. The simple reality is that the portion of the stimulus subject to the Buy American provisions was a drop in a much larger bucket. Because the stimulus has boosted the U.S. economy, leading it to buy more of everything, including more imports from Canada, the unhappy Canadian towns are almost certainly better off with a stimulus package with a Buy American provision, then they would be with no stimulus package. It seems unlikely that if the complaints of these Canadian governmental units did not coincide with the Post's editorial position that they would be given any space whatsoever in the newspaper, much less the topic of repeated news stories.
--Dean Baker
