370 Commerce & Housing Credit:Eliminate Five Corporate Welfare Programs in Commerce Department

The International Trade Administration (ITA) serves as a taxpayer-financed sales department for selected businesses, and promotes the U.S. as an investment destination. ((Penny Pritzker, “The Department of Commerce Budget in Brief: Fiscal Year 2015,” U.S. Department of Commerce, p. 49, (accessed January 6, 2015) )) Businesses should market and sell their own products without using tax money, and foreigners need little help understanding that the U.S. market is worth entering through investments. The ITA also enforces various, mostly counterproductive, aspects of U.S. trade law, particularly antidumping duties and countervailing duties. ((Ibid., p. 22. )) The Economic Development Administration hands out money to businesses and universities that are not offering products and services that people want to buy. ((Ibid., p. 61.)) The Minority Business Development Agency hands out grants and runs federally funded management consulting operations, called business centers, in over 40 locations. ((Ibid., p. 122.)) The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) operates the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which is another federally funded management consulting operation directed at manufacturers. The Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMTech) Consortia program, also managed by NIST, provides federal grants to support commercial technology research.Businesses should not receive taxpayer subsidies. These long-lived and unnecessary subsidies increase federal spending and distort the marketplace. Corporate welfare to politically connected corporations should ((National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Technical Information Service, “Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Submission to Congress,” p. 183, (accessed January 6, 2015) Endnotes: Transportation)) end.